PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Why use Soundcloud?

Noble.... but generally a waste of time and money.

before you blast me out of the water, hear me out.

I've been trying to get some of the big name publishers to listen .... simply listen to my stuff. Do you know how hard that is? In Nashville for example, there are thousands of really good, top level writers. Why would they waste time trying to rip off my stuff? Anyone associated with a claim of theft of songs..... either the publisher or the artist or the writers, do not want to deal with that. Reputation is everything and trust is crucial. None of them are setting there scanning the sound click and cloud sites looking for song ideas from people who have failed to copyright their songs. Seriously, when was the last time you heard about a song being ripped off?

First and foremost, the act of recording the song establishes the copyright for you at that very moment. All the LOC does is certify the date that they got a particular song in their door.

I write lots of tunes and I don't copyright any of them with the USLOC (US Library of Congress) and I sleep well at night. Copyright for every song I have written would be thousands of dollars and who knows if any of them are worth it? So far, nothing I have written has climbed the charts, so I guess not. In the early days of writing, I was super paranoid and had to get the copyright before I would even play something for friends. So I do have a number of songs copyrighted. But now, I don't waste the time or the money to do that.

There's better ways, and I don't mean mail it to yourself certified either.....that doesn't hold up in court.

There are a number of third party companies that do date stamping on your tune when it's uploaded to their secure servers. (Google search for them). I use one that is built in and included with my Masterwriter Software called Songuard. A court order is required to get anything OUT of the server. It's quick and easy and cheap to put stuff in. So I can even register small ideas that are not yet songs. I also register my guitar parts that I put on other people's songs. When you're paying pennies as opposed to $45 a pop on LOC copyright, you can do that. Yeah I know you can copyright collections for one fee with LOC.

Next.... you are aware, I'm sure, that every computer and every internet server like Soundclick and Sound Cloud do date stamping on every file they create or store. Look at your song in PROPERTIES.

Next, if, and when a publisher or library decides to pick up and sign your song to their catalog, they would actually prefer it to be non-copyrighted by you. They will complete and pay for the copyright for you when they sign it. All you do is sign the song to them and give them your CAE/IPI number.

I work with one library owner in particular who asked me not to copyright my stuff because as busy as he is, he doesn't wish to waste time amending copyrights of copyrighted songs. If you don't trust your publisher or library owner to be totally honest in their dealings, ask yourself why you would want to do business with them.

Any way... that's my 2.5 cents

BTW: I always do include the words COPYRIGHT 2013 BY ME