PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting Do you copyright your songs before showing it to producers?

I am and run a small consulting concern on Copyright and Music Licensing. I'll spare you my resumé other than I worked on the 1976 revision to Title 17 (effective 1/1/1978) and recently retired from ASCAP where I was attached to the Legal Dept.

Standard disclaimer: I am not an attorney nor do I practice law. Everything I write can (and should) be looked up. If you need an attorney, get one (I can hook you up, BTW. My opinions are my own and I am not responsible for anything you do or don't.



The word is COPYRIGHTED. You are protecting your rights concerning copies of your work. "Copywritten" is what happens with advertising and news text (copy).

Although much of the following is also true in the 140+ countries that are signatories to the Berne Convention, some are unique to the USA and I will not point out the differences—you are on your own if not a US resident.

Terms: LOC is the Library of Congress, United States Copyright Office. SCOTUS is the Supreme Court of the United States. Title 17 is the US Copyright Law. Section 8 is Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution requiring Congress to protect Copyrights and Patents. In this context, Work is any intellectual property subject to Copyright protection. Mechanical royalties are paid for copies sold. Performance royalties are for broadcast, streaming etc.

Helicopter view: All Works fall into one of two categories: Published and Unpublished. With one exception, Published and Unpublished Works are afforded different rights—this is important to know and almost no one gets this right online.

Unpublished Works have two sets of rights: You can take action against plagiarism and you have the Right to the First Recording. Although you are protected from the date of creation and you are not required to register them, the problem is proving Authorship and Date of Creation. You can register up to 10 Works (not 20!) with the LOC on a Form PA or SR as Unpublished. There are 3rd party entities that let you do the same for a lower fee. You cannot protect your rights by mailing anything to yourself, aka the Poor Man's Copyright. It must be a 3rd party with no interest in the work and there are many out there—Google is your friend.

The Right to the First Recording is often overlooked. The second you make a work available to the Public, a song is Published (Public is the root of Published) and you lose this right—this includes posting to Facebook, Youtube. Soundcloud etc. unless your chanel is Private. Established songwriters can and do charge for that first recording if they can and, if that first artist never releases, they can charge someone else and so on. Songwriter Demos are not considered First Recording unless a rights holder posts it or includes it on a CD sold at a gig etc. Anyway, once a First Recording is released or otherwise Published, that right is gone.

Published Works must be registered as Published with the LOC or all protections are lost—meaning that you have no right to be paid until that happens. If someone covers your song and doesn't pay your Mechanicals, if not registered as Published, you have no right to take action (sue in Federal Court). Filing a song as Published after release is often done but no mechanicals or damages are due before the Processing Date. A few years ago, SCOTUS finally settled the matter on which date applies, time stamp when received or date processed. I know of one horror story where a songwriter lost an estimated $18M because her publisher did not file the correct Form PA Published till 20 years after it was first recorded (a story for later). Normally, Published Works are registered one at a time but as of March, 2021, it is now possible to register up to 20 Published works released at the same time on one album on a single form. Google Register Certain Groups of Published Works for details and restrictions on the two ways this is allowed.