Who Really Owns The Music?

A lot of questions have come up recently about copyrights and music ownership, and there's a lot of misinformation floating around out there about percentages, who controls what, and who you hafta pay when doing somebody else's songs. Radio play, TV play, songs in movies, Internet broadcasting, and live shows all have different rates. If there's any interest in this subject, I'll do some more posts like this. Here's a sample of how they might look:

Copyright
Lemme see if I can break it down simply for ya.

It all starts with the copyright; the copyright tells the world who wrote the song, and who has the final say on where and how that music is heard. Simply stated, a "copyright" give the the owner the "exclusive right to make and control copies". Nobody is permitted to make a copy of the music, or to perform it live, without the permission of the copyright holder.

So, if you're a songwriter, how do you get a copyright for a song? Pretty simple. Once you have a song in some tangible form (not just in your head), you have an automatic copyright, and you have the right (and the responsibility) to use the copyright symbol (©), the date of creation, and the author's name to make it official and binding. If you make a cassette, CD, tape recording, or sheet music, you simply add that information (© 2009 - your name) somewhere plainly visible and you're covered - kinda.

I mean, what's to stop someone from singing "Stairway to Heaven" and claiming they wrote it, then suing Led Zeppelin? How do you prove who came up with the song first? That's where the government comes in; they have a service to let you register your copyright with the government. Then, if there's a dispute as to who wrote it the earliest registration with the government wins - at least, most of the time.

Registering your copyright with the government has some real added benefits: You can sue for extra damages and court costs, you can use the registration date to prove you got there first, and it helps all around to have it registered.

But, in a lawsuit, the most important point you have to prove is that the copier had access to your song - a chain of people or events that ties the copier back to your song. In the case of George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord", it was easy for the original copyright holders to prove that Harrison must have heard The Chiffons' "He's So Fine" at some point in his musical career BEFORE he wrote "My Sweet Lord".

The courts ruled it was "accidental plagiarism", and George Harrison settled the matter completely, by buying all the rights to "He's So Fine". If George hadn't worked it out, the original writers could have sued for all the royalties to "My Sweet Lord", triple punitive damages, and court costs.

Next post: the publisher's role in music.