Did Justin Bieber outsmart copyright law at Coachella with YouTube and a laptop?
- Lewis D. Sorokin
- Apr 13
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 17
Did Justin Bieber outsmart copyright law with YouTube videos and a laptop at Coachella? In addition to my intellectual property law practice here at Wilftek, I teach music industry law at Drexel University's Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. Let's talk about what actually happened.
First off, Bieber-chella was a lot of fun to watch. You can see the joy on his face when he sings the old hits again, and it's a delight for someone who grew up on his music.
But as an intellectual property lawyer and music industry law professor, I'm having a hard time with the widespread misconceptions about his rights that I've seen online over the past two days. People are saying that since Bieber sold his catalog to Hipgnosis in 2021, he's no longer allowed to perform his old songs, and the YouTube angle is being framed as a clever loophole; not technically a performance, so still allowed.
This is not how any of this works.
Singing a song to a crowd of thousands is a public performance of the musical work under copyright law regardless of whether it's backed by a live band, a DJ, or a YouTube video on a laptop connected to festival speakers. Venues and festivals pay license fees to performance rights organizations PROs like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC which collect royalties on behalf of songwriters and publishers whenever music is performed publicly. That money then gets split up amongst the rightsholders, including those who bought Bieber's catalog. The backing track doesn't change the legal nature of the act.
So, Bieber can perform "Baby" at every show for the rest of his career if he wants. He just won't earn the royalties he would have before the sale.
So why the laptop and YouTube screen share? Because it was nostalgic and fun. It's really that simple.
