From Australia to Norway
In January 2019, I had the pleasure of joining RITMO as a postdoctoral research fellow for two years. After a decade-long career as a full-time public servant and part-time PhD in Australia, this was my first foray into full-time academia.
Arriving in the depths of winter, I instantly made friends with my colleagues at RITMO, who were such a diverse and inclusive group. Although I came for the research, I was delighted to have the opportunity to share food, play music and learn about all the languages and cultures that make up RITMO.
Mashups, copyright law and platform regulation
My research focused on the impacts of copyright law and platform regulation on mashups and mashup producers. As part of the MASHED project, led by Ragnhild Br?vig-Hanssen, I was interested in how we could balance the incentives of copyright with the purposes and desires of sample-based music in order to protect freedom of expression. I was lucky to work with and learn from Br?vig-Hanssen? and Ellis Nathaniel Jones (pictured below), and the extended group of media, musicology and law researchers in MASHED project.
My research has led to several publications about copyright and platform regulation's impacts on appropriation art, mashup music and the motivations of mashups producers. I explain, in a chapter of a Bloombury Academic book on music law ?how European Union (EU) copyright law and platform regulation affect mashups. In a forthcoming article in International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law, Frédéric D?hl and I explain how the push to harmonise national copyright laws across the EU places greater legal restriction on appropriation art. My research position coincided with landmark cases in the EU about copyright and sampling, which led to pieces on the intellectual property blogs IPKat and IPTrollet. I also have forthcoming articles about mashup and freedom of expression, and about business models and prices of streaming services.
I want to thank Ragnhild Br?vig-Hanssen, Anne Danielsen and Yngvar Kjus for bringing me into RITMO, and Anne Cathrine Wesnes and her team for making RITMO's administration work so smoothly as a new research centre.
Participating in RITMO and the University
Apart from the MASHED project, I had the great pleasure of being in the most interdisciplinary environment I have worked in. In workshops, presentations, research retreats and corridor conversations, I learned about many areas of research that were new to me, including phenomenology, human-machine interfaces, musical robots, microrhythm and micromotion. I was invited to give talks and lectures to music, media and law researchers at the University and was able to leverage my background in law to assist colleagues with ethics approval and copyright issues they faced in their research. As a postdoctoral representative at RITMO, I worked with the RITMO leadership to help support our postdoctoral researchers. On a couple of lucky occasions, I was able to play in a small band with my RITMO and Musicology Department colleagues.
I want to highlight the support that the University gives to international researchers, from paying for Norwegian lessons to supporting my overseas move through the International Staff Mobility Office. Thanks to all of you who made my move and my stay so smooth and so enjoyable. I'll never forget it!