Keen on Music Publishing
How do I copyright my songs? Is it necessary?
Technically, the creator of a song receives copyright protection automatically the moment the song is in fixed form. That means that if you make any recording of your song, even a simple boom box recording, or transcribe a leadsheet with chords, melody and lyrics you have secured a copyright. The question of whether or not it's necessary to register a copyright with the Copyright Office sometimes arises out of the fear that someone may "steal" your song. While there are certainly documented stories of copyright theft, our experience has been that it is not a widespread phenomenon, especially when dealing with legitimate, successful companies and people. However! This should not be used as an excuse for not being prudent and wise. The existence of "song sharks" is real, just not widespread in our opinion. In any legal matter involving questions of copyright ownership, holding the official copyright registration from the United States Library of Congress in your hand is considered the trump card. Our official recommendation is that you obtain the appropriate protection.
One often hears of a quasi-legal tactic called, "Poor man's copyright" that is used to attempt to protect songs. One popular version of this is to seal a copy of a song in an envelope and mail it Certified Mail to yourself and then not open it. The hope is that this will create de-facto copyright protection in that a paper trail has been created about the creation date of the song. This tactic will not hold up against a viable copyright registration properly filed with the Copyright Office in the U.S Library of Congress. The courts are generally unsympathetic to copyright claimants seeking judicial action when such parties have failed to avail themselves of the appropriate actions available for statutory protection.
There is an economic way to file your songs with the Copyright Office if they are unpublished. It's called an
Unpublished Collection and we'll spell it out below. First let's provide information on the basics of the copyright process as the process is almost identical whether the songs are published or unpublished.
THE COPYRIGHT PROCESS
Forms for copyrighting your songs are found on the Library of Congress website at:
www.copyright.gov. The proper form to copyright a song is
Form PA which stands for "Performing Arts". The instructions on Form PA are quite clear and thorough. There are three elements to send in; Form PA, $45 and two copies of the best edition of the song (one copy if it's unpublished). If your song has been published you are required to file your claim within ninety days of publication if you want the full benefits and protection of the law in a litigation. If ninety days have already transpired since your song(s) has been published don't panic! You still can receive copyright protection and should complete the process. What you can't have at that point are statutory damages and legal fees from an adversary in court. You can receive those benefits
if you file copyright registration within ninety days of publication.
If your songs are not yet published you can save a lot of money by sending them in as an
Unpublished Collection. That's right; you can send in large groups of songs that you have written for one $45 fee! All of the songs must have common ownership. So if you have co-written any of them, they should be registered as another Unpublished Collection. All songs in a particular collection must have common ownership. The instructions in Space One on Form PA explain the way to do it.
THE DIFFERENT FORMS
There is sometimes a bit of confusion about
Form PA and
Form SR.
Form PA copyrights the song itself. The song is then protected no matter who (or what, hey we've heard a CD made by dogs!) records it.
Form SR, which stands for "Sound Recordings" is used to copyright a version of the song. In other words, if someone records your song and wants to protect that recording, they use Form SR. That way their recording of the song you wrote is protected from someone copying the CD and distributing a copy of it or an mP3 file without permission.
Using Form SR to copyright your own CD will also give you copyright of the songs ONLY if all of the songs you have recorded on the project were also written solely by you. Otherwise you will need to use Form PA to copyright your songs on the project and Form SR to copyright the recording of your songs and anybody else's included on the project.
Form CA is the form to use if you have already copyrighted a song but have changed the music, lyrics or its title. Form CA would also be necessary to use if the ownership of the copyright has undergone a change.
As stated earlier, the creator of a song receives copyright protection the moment the song is in fixed form. That means that if you make any recording of your song, even a simple boom box recording, or transcribe a leadsheet with chords, melody and lyrics you have satisfied the requirement of the law. However, if you are concerned about the maximum protection of your works it would be best to proceed with the official copyright process with the Copyright Office. Again, if your song(s) is published you are technically required to do so within ninety days of the first publication for maximum benefit.
Copyright 2007 Dan Keen. All Rights Reserved
