Blue Night Soundscapes Welcomes E. Michael Harrington

Steven Briggs, president of Blue Night Soundscapes, has announced the addition of Dr. E. Michael Harrington to the BNS team. Harrington, an authority on music copyright and intellectual property, will serve as Director of Music Clearance for BNS. Blue Night Soundscapes (BNS) was founded in 2014 by Steven Briggs, president and founder of Blue Night Records.

"I recognized early on that new releases get the lion's share of market attention," Briggs says. "This means that a lot of spectacular original recorded music is languishing in dark vaults."

Briggs launched BNS as a predominantly acoustic music licensing library focusing on cue placement in the film, television and advertising industries. Featuring the folk, jazz, swing, gypsy, bluegrass, classical, Chassidic, Klezmer, world, Traditional Hawaiian, hapa haole, old-timey, Dawg, Celtic jazz, Americana, and singer/songwriter genres, BNS has arguably the most comprehensive collection of mixed, mastered original acoustic music available today. BNS makes music available for licensing to music supervisors and creative teams in the film, television and commercial advertising industries.

Harrington, (pictured) is a Professor of Music Business at Berklee College of Music, where he has also designed the Capstone course for the music business curriculum and is authoring the Music Business Law course for the new Berklee Online Graduate Program. He has served as a consultant and expert witness in hundreds of music copyright/intellectual property matters involving the We Shall Overcome Foundation, Pharrell Williams, Taylor Swift, Dixie Chicks, Adele, Steven Spielberg, Steve Perry, Tupac, Lady Gaga, Deadmau5, Danger Mouse, Adam Levine, Busta Rhymes, Samsung, HBO, and others.

On September 8, 2017, Judge Denise Cote quoted Harrington's Report as the Plaintiffs' Expert Witness in ruling that "We Shall Overcome" was to be placed in the public domain and no longer under copyright.

On the basis of his writings and interviews, in August 2016, Harrington was cited as an authority in the BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE 212 SONGWRITERS, COMPOSERS, MUSICIANS, AND PRODUCERS IN SUPPORT OF APPELLANTS in the "Blurred Lines" decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Beyond the courtroom, Harrington's rights ownership expertise has been relied upon in interviews with such media outlets as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Law, NPR, Bravo, CNN, BBC, The Guardian, CBC, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, the "Today Show", Time, The Huffington Post, Fortune, and Salon. He has lectured at numerous prestigious law schools, including Harvard, George Washington University, Cardozo, Boston College, University of Houston, University of New Hampshire, William Mitchell, Loyola, Brooklyn, Vanderbilt, Suffolk, University of Colorado, St. Louis University, and New York University. Michael has also been a guest speaker at the Beverly Hills, Texas, Boston, and Minnesota Bar Associations, among others.

"Michael's music copyright expertise will be of immense value to Blue Night Soundscapes as we immerse ourselves daily in music rights matters," said Briggs.
The BNS team works with potential licensees to put together sync and master use agreements. BNS helps music supervisors and ad agency creatives identify ways to meet the time, content, and budgetary expectations of production team decision-makers, always mindful of Briggs' motto: "Everyone wins."

For more on Dr. Harrington, visit www.emichaelmusic.com