Introduction: Digital Nation: Copyright, Technology, Politics

This special issue examines issues relating to technological, regulatory and industrial change in the popular music industries. The issue draws upon on the breadth of IASPM international knowledge to present a diverse conversation about rights and revenues, particularly copyright law, structures and practices. The collection of national case studies here—Canada, Turkey, Britain, Mali, Brazil—reinforce the need to recognise the very local conditions and cultures that operate, even as leading copyright exporters (such as the U.S.) attempt global regulation. In the introduction we also discuss an infamous digital music entrepreneur, Kim Dotcom, an outrider who refuses to observe national and global copyright law.