PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Copyright - Recreating\creating a song using BIAB.

As per subject... is it infringing in copyright?

Also, does creating a new song, using any of the BIAB features, make it MY song? Are the realtracks/realband protected/copyrighted? Can I use them for commercial gain?

Thanks.

It is your song, you don't even need to mention BIAB.

It is friendly if you give credits.

There are quite a few threads in the forum about this subject.

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Search function in the forum. Using the advanced search you may use the date entry to limit the results to a reasonable amount. Trial and error will help you a lot here when entering "older" and "newer" dates.

If you recreate the copyrighted work of another in BB.... it's copyright infringement if you do not obtain the proper license to use that song IF you plan to release it for the public to hear. You can record it for your personal consumption with out problems since no one else will hear it. The moment you post it on line or burn CD's to give or sell..... you are in violation if you have not purchased the license to do so legally.


If you create a new original work using BB & RB tracks.... it is 100% YOUR song. Since you are a licensed user if you bought the program, you are allowed to use the tracks in any commercial way you wish and you do not have to list the tracks or the PG company in any way or pay any royalties on those tracks. In fact I would NOT list PG as contributor on the tracks in the way you might list a studio musician. Doing so needlessly muddies the waters and can make things complicated under certain circumstances. When using a song in a commercial project, it suffices to say that you own 100% of the rights for the song and master. Like I said .... If you have bought and paid for a copy of BB/RB from PG Software, you have the legal right and license to use the tracks royalty free and without any other permissions, written or otherwise.

I have a number of songs created in BB/RB copyrighted and signed into commercial libraries and with publishers. There is no problem with using BB/RB tracks in the songs. I simply had to affirm that I owned 100% of the rights to the song, which I do, and for the samples I use, that I have the license to use them legally..... which as an owner of PG software, I do.

Hope that clarifies it for you.

Thank you for explaining that, as I find these things confusing. How do you go about copyright your own songs? What kind of cost is there involved?

Some one once told me that if you post my own creation/s to myself, registered post, and keep the CD sealed\un-open, then it is as good as a filed copyright content. I have my doubts though.

How do songwriters get their royalties?

Thanks again for replying to my post.

I don't use copyright. No one is out there trying to steal your songs.... as hard as it is to get one published .... nahh, no one's out there being nefarious. As many really, really, good songs get turned down and never see the light of day with publishers.... no, I don't think there's a big risk to going without a copyright on a song. Save your money and save your time..... unless.... you are convinced that this is the next biggest #1 worldwide hit..... after all, every song we write is a huge hit if we can only get it to the right person. Right????? And also, if you need that security to sleep soundly at night.....

I do, however, use a service called Songuard. It comes with MasterWriter software. Essentially, it's a third party secure server date register service for copyrighted things. There's others on line very similar if you need it.

Sending yourself a registered sealed copy doesn't hold up in a court of law so don't waste time with that.

The US Library of Congress is the only official place to file copyrights. Before any infringement case can be taken to a US court of law, a copyright must be filed. Look at their website.... I think you may now be able to do the entire process on line. It used to be $35 bucks per song and I think $45 for a collection. I used to do collections since it saved money.

Now days I don't use copyright. I use Songuard sometimes but not always. (as stated above) I send songs to publishers and music libraries. When one of them decides they want my song on an exclusive deal, THEY will do the copyright in their name and pay for it. They may also register it for me with my PRO (performing rights organization) BMI. If they don't do that for me I can easily do it in a few seconds on line. You need to be a member of a PRO to collect royalties. Joining is free for writers. Most of the deals I sign are with "non-exclusive" libraries. That simply means they want to rep the song for you BUT you are still free to place it elsewhere and no publisher/library needs or asks for copyright on the song. The only thing they DO want to know for sure is that YOU own 100% of the rights on the song. Generally, these are NOT full songs but are the short 5, 10, 15 second musical cues used in TV shows. Very few people will spend $35 to register a 10 second clip that might be used one or two times and earn you $5 each use. I have many, many cuts like this.... none are copyrighted.

When the song gets used, the publisher's tagged info allows it to be tracked as one of my songs. BMI collects the performance royalties and the publisher collects the mechanical royalties and both cut me a check for the songs that are being used. Lots of writers for film and TV only collect performance and licensing. Folks who land artist CD deals also pick up the mechanicals from sales.

Currently, royalties from streaming songs and downloads is so low that it might as well not even exist. Unless you are selling tens of thousands of DL's and streaming plays, you won't see a dime. There's a huge controversy going over this pittance payment that's set up currently.

A great book to read on this topic to learn more is called This Business of Music. It's a bit dry but it does explain all this in much greater detail.

Got more questions..... ask.

Good stuff Herb. Answered some questions for me that I've neglected to research.

Thanks for more useful info, Herb, Most appreciated.

Unless this has changed in the last two years the cost for a collection is $35, at least that is what it cost us two years ago.

Also the Library of Congress will take MP3s now. In the old days they only took manuscript! The only limit on the number of songs in a collection is their upload limit. We did around 12-15 songs at a time for the single cost of $35.

{edit} We do not copyright anything now either!

A long time ago I believe someone mentioned the protection for a song is different when the song is part of a copyrighted collection versus having individual songs copyrighted but I don't remember the difference or the example that was given.

How I've always understood that was as follows.

You copyright a collection to save money and lump as many songs as you can under the umbrella of a copyright. When and if a song in that collection is to be recorded by anyone for commercial release you copyright that one song by itself to give it it's own copyright coverage.

It's all protected with either way but there is less confusion with the individual copyright since it's under it's own name and title.

I once spoke with the people at P.G. Music and they told me that if you create the song with BIAB, whatever you create with BIAB is yours because when they create the Real band tracks they do a work for hire with the musician, when you create music with those tracks you are purchasing the software you are basically purchasing the license to use all of these tracks to create your own derivative works; so when you create your own songs it is indeed your music and you can copyright it. I have done several songs and copyrighted them with BIAB, but I contacted then ask asked them if this was legal and they said that it was. Through copyright all that is really copyrightable is the lyrics and they tune that you create to your song.

Who did you contacted for the copyrights? And what did it cost?

Herb previously mentioned "The US Library of Congress is the only official place to file copyrights. "

I am not familiar with the process, just passing that bit of info on.

I'm not a lawyer, so someone more knowledgeable can chime in, but this is what I perceive to be the case.

Although in light of recent litigation decisions, I'm not sure, but from what I understand you can can copyright your melody and lyrics. You can't copyright the arrangement and the chord progression. You can copyright your recording of it as a whole piece, though, so I couldn't just take it and sell it for my benefit.

I could be wrong, but I suspect that if you just generate an arrangement with BIAB and I generate the same arrangement with BIAB (it can happen, or at least be close enough that discerning ears couldn't tell the difference) that neither of us would not be able to claim copyright on that arrangement (mainly because there is no melody) but that, because PGMusic has authorized you to use their intellectual property in your songs, then that part of the song is probably de facto in the public domain and can't subsequently be copyrighted by you. That doesn't mean that you can take RealTracks, for example, wholesale and sell them to other people as your own. But used in the creation of your song, you can copyright your song. You can copyright the stuff you came up with, though.

I'm sure it's more nuanced than that, but hopefully that made sense.

Sorry to come so late to this thread, but it's the most relevant one I could find and I have a specific question.

If I create a song with my own chord progression, key and tempo, but it is entirely composed of realtracks, which I have generated repeatedly to find the one that fits best, and then used individually by exporting the .wav files and remixing them in my DAW...

Then is it a violation of the licensing agreement if I put that song onto a commercial album, without adding any other instrument layers to it?

Thanks for any light you can shed on this concrete use case.

In this case I would think you're fine
/I'm, not a lawyer .. just my opinion
//PGmusic has stated that the fact you used RTs is not an issue
///however your thread title alludes to you thinking it's not original (Recreating/creating) - which is it? did you create it or recreate it?

If it helps...

Firstly, it's your county's copyright laws that will control your initial creation of something. So hunt for those on the internet.

In most places around the world, it is Melody and Lyrics that are copyrightable. Distinctive harmonic riffs that are signature components of a song are also copyrightable.

If you use BIAB to create a wholly original song that you've composed the melody to and the lyrics for, then you own that 100% and can do with it what you want.

Oh the other hand, if you take a pre-existing song that has not yet entered into public domain and you create your own arrangement of the melody and the lyrics, you need to pay fees and get permission to use this if it's for anything outside your own home. A song's copyright owners fully control all arrangements of that song.

Regards,
Noel

It shouldn't matter from the perspective of using RealTracks in any recording whether it's a cover song or original? The Copyright deals with the intellectual content and not the manufacturing process. I don't see a copyright difference between using a Realtrack or live session musician to make a recording. One can't be sued for copyright infringement on the basis the electric rhythm guitar track used was a Gibson Les Paul. That same principle applies to how the track was mechanically produced. Copyright shouldn't be an issue to whether a track audio was recorded live, pre-recorded audio or midi.

The BIAB RealTracks have progressed and improved in quality and the amount of content that unlike years ago where two songs by two different artists that produced a song using the same progression and randomly selected the same style, it could be clearly determined that BIAB Realtracks were used and the two songs could sound very similar.

Today, there are thousands of RealTracks available, thousands of hours of recorded audio and multiple RealTrack recordings of the same instrument to choose from. Also, today, arrangements and artists production skills and competency with DAWs and mixing skills make it nearly statistically impossible for two mixes to sound similar unless there's obvious intent to replicate a recording.

Nope. If you purchased BB, you have the full legal right to use it as your own and claim copyright on it for any commercial use.
I have several songs playing in film & TV that were created mostly or entirely on BB. I own 100% of the rights of the songs. I don't have to give any credit to anyone or anything for those tracks created in BB.

You can use them without worry. I think if you look, you will find that statement on the PG website regarding your use of the tracks in commercial projects. If you happen to write a million dollar song using PG tracks, I think it would probably be nice if you went to their HQ and took the staff and Peter out to lunch. ;-)

If I create a song with my own chord progression, key and tempo, but it is entirely composed of realtracks, which I have generated repeatedly to find the one that fits best, and then used individually by exporting the .wav files and remixing them in my DAW...

Then is it a violation of the licensing agreement if I put that song onto a commercial album, without adding any other instrument layers to it?

You can't copyright a chord progression. If you could then every 1-4-5 blues/rock/country song or 1-6-4-5 song or any other common chord progressions that hundreds (thousands?) of songs use would all be copyright violations.

You can copyright melodies, lyrics and musical licks that go over a chord progression.

PG's Real Tracks/Drums are great sounding but completely generic backing rhythms and grooves. Nothing to copyright there so have as much fun as you can with no worries.

And Forum Search is your friend. Both these subjects, copyright and using the RT's royalty free come up over and over, sometimes weekly it seems. Click on the Forum Search tab>Advanced>All Forums>enter copyright and leave it at the default 5 years to start. Tons and tons of multi page threads going back 5 years from now and nothing has changed in the law since 1998 but starting last year old stuff from 1923 is moving to the public domain.

Here's something you might like to read:

https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/faqs/law-changes/

Bob