Originally Posted By: Byron Dickens
Just to be pedantic:

In the US, at least, copyright is automatic upon a work being created.

The issue is of proving that one indeed holds ownership. That is where registering your copyright comes in. It is rather difficult to argue with an official government document, the falsification of which potentially carries a charge of perjury.

There are other services that claim to do this but none have yet been tried in court to my knowledge. Neither has the purported "poor man's copyright" of mailing a copy to yourself.


True, copyright is automatic. The thing is, this doesn't seem to mean anything, besides offering one the opportunity to show ones friends and/or family (or public) that they indeed wrote the song first. Other than that, it doesn't provide any legal protection or right to damages or anything (from what I understand). Actually you can be prevented from using your own work if someone else copyrights it with the LOC before you do, even if it was already published (again, from what I understand. But I've heard of situations like this, so it seems to be the case).

Bottom line: registering one's works doesn't seem to hurt, and can provide much benefit.

The thing I'm trying to figure out now, is the correct way to go about it.

So far it seems like this is the correct(?) route:

1. Register a group of unregistered works (up to 10 songs). Melody + Lyrics (sheet music) + MP3 sound recording of each demo.

2. Work with producers on songs, shop them around to publishers, show them around to industry people, etc etc.

3. Once the song is ready, (if you as the artist end up recording it), individually register each Sound Recording (Master). In the Sound Recording (Form SR) copyright registration, you can also include the Composition (Performing Arts = Form PA = lyrics and melody) together, and just pay for the 1 registration.

The questions I still have are:

1. Should I register a group of unregistered works individually, to maximize benefits in case a song is infringed? Or would that only really matter once the Sound Recording (Master) is registered as a copyright.

2. Should the final master (Sound Recording) be registered separately from the Composition (form PA), to maximize benefits in case of infringement, and make it easier to administer your catalog?

(eg. if you wanted to sell the publishing rights to your Composition, but not give up rights to the master?)

3. Do any short-term timelines (or deadlines) play into this? I remember reading something along the lines of "you have 3 months to publish the songs you copyrighted as unregistered works, otherwise you lose the right to litigate on them, if someone infringes them". I've heard conflicting things on this subject.



Disclaimer: I know my songs probably suck and no one will ever want to even hear them (and certainly not use them). However I've already lost a ton of money (and years of time) from a separate IP issue, and just don't want to take the risk, in case there is a tiny percent chance my songs could go somewhere. And given that my dream is to one day have a song go somewhere, I just want to do this right from the start, in case that ever happens. I know it probably won't and I'm 99.99999% delusional! But I just want to set things up properly, just in case).