Copyright link/Structural claim about how the 3 central legal requirements exclude Black traditions

The idea-expression dichotomy refers to the legal fact that, per $102(b) of the Copyright Act, expression is copyrightable but ideas are not. In part due to the collection practices of folklorists, e.g., Alan Lomax, Black musical innovations have consistently been treated as raw material for the taking, i.e., musical ideas outside of the scope of copyright law and not as tangible expressions deserving of copyright protection. # For Lomax, the mere act of collecting music by pressing record on a tape machine justified credit ranging from arranger to composer on blues sound recordings.# The fixation requirement refers to the legal fact that $101 of the Copyright Act requires creative works to be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression" to be copyrightable.

Because Black musicians often built upon familiar aural traditions while being denied access to legal tools and rights, such as literacy and ownership, their artistic works tended not to be fixed in any tangible medium of expression. Moreover, because courts have created a high bar for the protection of rhythm, which is central to many Black musical traditions, they have also de facto-privileged European creatorial cultures by centering melody and decentering beats. As Even those Black creators who did fix their work in the tangible medium of the sound record-ins, as required by the Copyright Act, could not claim copyright protection until the 1970s.

They were then held to legal standards, including the Copyright Act's originality requirement, that ssneared to be racially neutral but produced inequitable outcomes. Copyrighted works are statutorily required to be "original," a standard that the Supreme Court has interpreted to mean showing "a modicum of creativity.*6 Yet Black artists have been consistently held to higher originality standards than their white counterparts, particularly where music is concerned.+7

American copyright law has, as a result of these three central legal requirements, substantively facilitated the wholesale theft of Black musical performances, partially or completely without affording rights to attribution, compensation, accountability, or integrity.

On top of this, copyright law in the US rewards authors and artists for abiding by a set of precise administrative formalities in order to claim the benefits of their limited monopolies.