I have been led to believe the rate for a group of unpublished works is going up to $85 dollars from the current $55 dollars.

Currently, you can register 10 sound recordings and 10 underlying lyrical content (a total of 20 Copyrights) for $55 dollars

That works out to $2.75 per copyright. There are good reasons to register with eCO. Of course, a copyright is created the second you record something. Having that material registered gives you other protection. The exact scope of all that is beyond my desire to explain. Get a good music business lawyer if you want real answers.

This is done using "Group of Unpublished Works" which is different from the standard application.

There is a need to understand the legal meaning of "Unpublished Works" It is not so difficult to read about and understand.

I do not know when the government will change the price.

That works out to $550 for two hundred copywrites. That is a bit of money but it is not a material amount of money if you need to defend your Copywrite.

There are 7 registrations for every track you release if you want to collect all the money owed to you. While all of this is certainly work, and there is some minor cost involved, it is what you need to do to be an indie artist.

There is no way to know what will happen when you release a song. I don't care if it was created on a five-gallon bucket with a drum stick, on Band In A Box, or in the best studio in Nashville using the best studio musicians.

And of course, it is a little like winning the lottery but people win every day. Some win big and some just win a few hundred dollars. I would be super happy to get 30 cents a day on 20 percent of the songs I own. That would give me an annual income of close to eleven thousand dollars.

I think there are a lot of people on this site who could be making money with their music if they only knew how and were willing to do the work to make it happen.

If you want to know more then PM me.

Cheers,

Billy

I stopped worrying about the copyright issue. I post a song and whatever website I use dates it when I upload the material. I think that is the only protection I need. Yes, could one of my songs be stolen by a famous person and be driven to the top of the charts? It could be, but I doubt it will be. And, even if it was, I'd probably loose in court anyway. So why worry about it? Just my opinions.

This is not about worrying, This is about how both amateur and professional musicians get paid for what they do.

This has less to do with copyright infringement and more to do with a current standard industry process.

It is also to inform what is legal and what is not.

There are many illegal infringements occurring on many different forms of media. Most of these infringements are being overlooked for many reasons. The fact that people are not being prosecuted for these infringements does not make them legal.

If you purposely use other people's work without their permission you are a criminal and a thief. Criminal penalties of up to $200,000 can be accessed.

Actually, I don't give a damn about the legal issues. I do care about living in a world where people think it is OK to steal other people's property.

Billy

I also stopped copyrighting my music.

First, I realized that no one was willing to listen to my music who mattered in the business, let alone steal it.

Second, I realized that the libraries and publishers I worked with would handle the copyright anyway once I singed it to them, so I was wasting time and money doing the copyright. I had one actually ask me to not copyright the music because he had to reference that original copyright in his copyright form as a previous registration.

I haven't lost any sleep over it.

Also.... as soon as you post a song online, the servers create a trail that is easy to follow. So if someone actually does steal the song, or incorporate parts of it in their song, it's easy enough to prove that I had it first. Any lawyer worth his/her commission would be able to nail that one with ease.