A couple of days ago Mary Wilson, a founding member of The Supremes, died at 76. I admit that even though I listened to some songs by the Supremes I didn’t know much about the singers’ lives, but I came across an obituary for Mary Wilson on CNN. Something I didn’t know that was really awesome is that she played a key part in passing the Music Modernization Act in 2018, which, according to a statement from Wilson’s longtime friend and publicist Jay Schwartz, “aimed to modernize copyright-related issues for new music and audio recordings in the face of new technology like digital streaming which did not protect music recorded before February 15, 1972.” I have lately been interested in learning about music copyright and publishing rights, especially after watching movies like Dreamgirls, Cadillac Records and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. These movies are about black women dealing with white record companies who try to profit off of their talent while not wanting to give them due credit. There’s one scene in Dreamgirls that really stuck with me, where a white band steals the song that the black group The Dreamettes recorded. This scene stuck with me because it showed me that black musicians encountered a lot of barriers in the music industry with regards to music executives valuing their talent and contributions. I really appreciate that Mary Wilson took that step in legislation to protect these recordings so that the publishers and people who produced these songs could retain the rights to their music even after their passing. It made me also want to read up more on copyright in the music industry and how I as a musician can respect other artists’ copyrights and also know my own copyrights to my creative work.
In closing here’s one of my favorite songs by The Supremes. RIP Mary Wilson.
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