JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Music therapy is a multifaceted discipline that harnesses the power of music to treat a wide range of patient populations. A therapist who plays music in a private room for a patient is not subject to copyright restrictions. However, in the wake up of the COVID-19 pandemic, music therapy is no longer strictly confined to the face-to-face setting. The present study explores music therapists’ perceptions of copyright law with respect to their ability to provide mediated services to their clients.

Objective:

The objective of our study was to investigate whether concerns about copyright law are hampering the diffusion of telehealth innovations or causing music therapists to deviate from preferred treatments.

Methods:

Eighteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with credentialed music therapists in the United States between May and June of 2020, using video conference technology. Credentialed music therapists were recruited from a list of music therapists provided to the lead author by the American Music Therapy Association. The researchers used referrals from these initial interviewees’ networks and then recruited more interviewees via snowball sampling. Finally, some interviewees were recruited using contact information obtained using Internet searches for qualified participants. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview data.

Results:

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of therapeutic interventions outside of private face-to-face environments: Environments where music therapy practices are largely shielded from copyright infringement concerns. Six main themes emerged, including therapists’ uncertainty about permissible uses of music and therapists’ erring on the side of caution causing lost opportunities for care. Our interview data suggests music therapists have altered therapeutic interventions in suboptimal ways to avoid copyright liability in a physically distanced environment.

Conclusions:

Music therapists “drag their feet” on offering therapeutically appropriate activities to clients because of copyright concerns. Innovative mediated therapies are shied away from or abandoned. These findings offer a novel contribution to the public health literature by highlighting copyright law as an unexpected and unwelcomed barrier to the diffusion of music therapy practices in technologically-mediated settings.