Intellectual copyright undermines a rogue record company (8)
I believe the answer is:
academic
'intellectual' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'copyright undermines a rogue record company' is the wordplay.
'copyright' becomes 'c' (as in the copyright symbol, a C in a circle).
'undermines' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other) (in a down clue, some letters go underneath others).
'rogue' becomes 'cad' (I've seen this before).
'record company' becomes 'emi' (I've seen this before).
'a'+'cad'+'emi'='academi'
'c' put after 'academi' is 'ACADEMIC'.
(Other definitions for academic that I've seen before include "Scholarly - unrealistic" , "Theoretical or scholarly - often not practical" , "Professor possibly" , "This person may be a professor" , "Scholarly (person)" .)