Copyright Help

[cademan7]

Hey, I am curious what the proper process is for copyrighting music before submitting it on here. I write a lot of music and I definitely can't pay $35 a song to copyright every time I submit something to Taxi. I've been doing compilations avery 15 or so songs, but that entails me sending songs in that are not copyrighted and then copyrighting them later, which I do not like doing. What is some advice, or how are you guys/gals doing it?

Thanks,
Cade

[hummingbird]

Since submissions are not screened for a month to six weeks, what you are doing seems fine to me. If you keep your songs private on your TAXI page the only ones who are going to hear them are the screeners, and potentially the client if forwarded.

By the way I think you will find that a song is copyright from the moment you put it into a tangible form. When you send in a copyright registration, all you are doing is "registering" the date of creation. It would still be up to you to prove that whoever 'took' the song or copied part of it, had access to the song and deliberately copied some or all of it.

The above is not legal advice, JMHO.

[funsongs]

My experience is a little dated, like, from right after the gubmint shutdown in Fall 2013.
In December, with help from a techy buddy (& 3+ hours) I/we were able to register 16 songs for the one fee of $35. What stopped us from doing more was that we got a signal that we'd reached the limit of file size they'd accept... whatever.

My understanding is that the fee is now up to $55, as of a collab/submission for one song that was done just within the last week.

If you have a batch you can group together, it's certainly more economical to go that route;
unless you are independently wealthy... and/or you just don't care.

Hope that helps.
Your Island Fan Club.

[cademan7]

I have been doing the $55 fee to do multiple at once. The problem is, I have to send in pieces of music that are not copyrighted until later, and I don't like the idea of companies receiving my music when it is not copyrighted, since I've heard some horror stories on here about people's music being used without their permission or knowing about it.

[SteveC]

Hi,

just went thru the simple on line process and listed 13 songs at $55 a pop. Yes, you can put multiple titles under a "collection" and save some $. There are pro's and con's to filing a collection under one heading. Do the research and see what works for you. If you are writing full blown songs, and they are songs you plan on shopping or selling yourself, I would copyright individually. My 2 cents or $55. For jingles, cues, etc maybe the "Collection" copyright would make more economic sense.

On a side note, people use (C) music without permission also.

best,

steve

[hummingbird]

this is an old post from my blog, but it explains how collections work.
http://wisebird.blogspot.ca/2005/12/poo ... ended.html

[mikeymike2000]

I would like to offer my opinion on this issue to perhaps ease your anxiety in the topic.

Half the people will say do it and the other half will say don't.

Here is my take:

What kind of music are you writing?

If I am writing a cue / backing track I am prob not going to take the time and expense to officially copyright the thing. BUT if I am writing an instrumental with a strong melody and/or lyrics that will be pitched to a top 40 artist, then yes, I would probably take the time and expense to do so.

Small claims (where I live) goes up to $10,000 for an individual and $5,000 for a company or entity. Although I have absolutely no idea if small claims hears copyright cases. They may not. It has been mentioned on this forum many times that the limit for a civil suit in a copyright issue is around $75,000 in damages. So you would first have to have that much in damages to have a "case" and keep in mind that legal fees for a civil suit are going to be $5,000 - $7,000 min.

So, it depends on what you are doing and where these songs will end up.

Taxi only deals with legitimate companies and while I do not work for Taxi I know the industry at large will not be using any song you give them without proper clearances. They also have no time or interest to re-create your track just so they can save a few bucks.

So perhaps go by a 3 tier method:

1) This song is not worth the effort

2) This song is worth putting it in a group just in case (like you are doing) - The caveat to this, according to what I have read elsewhere, is that if you register 10 songs at once and 1 is ripped off, you will only be able to "claim" 1/10th of the damages because you registered multiple songs in the same group. So if the other 9 songs were not ripped off, they only "took" 1/10th of the work. (If you are going to the Rally, KC may be teaching a class again about this).

3) This song is so specific and so powerful that it warrants its own registration because I know there is a strong chance that it will end up in a top 40 pitch that will end up making the artist so much money that I would have a case over $75,000 in damages and possibly even get a lawyer to represent me pro-bono.

There simply is no one-size-fits-all answer.

Hope that helps.

[Kolstad]

I'm NOT giving legal advice, just want to comment on the "poor mans copyright".

In this digital age, poor mans copyright is different than posting a sealed envelope to yourself.
The point of poor mans copyright is not to actually copyright your work, but to collect independent evidence of what time your copyright was produced. Like if you show it to a lawyer, and he acts like a witness.

Today you can do this in at least two ways, that apply the same principle as the timestamp from the postal office, just in the digital domain instead.

One is to publish your work online and have achive.org crawl your site with The Wayback Machine https://archive.org/web/ . Archive.org takes a screenshot of the pages they crawl, and puts a timestamp on it. It is an official independent source. They will affirm that the document is a "true and correct copy of our records" Ref their legal FAQ https://archive.org/legal/faq.php

You can also use archive.org to find and record printscreens of copyright violations of your work.

A second way to do "poor mans copyright" in the digital age is to set up an email address with an email provider. This is another way to collect objective evidence of when your copyright was done. What happens is that every time you send an email, it will be registered at the email provider's server, and therefore be official evidence of you having the content at a particular time.

BW, I don't know if any of these ways to provide evidence of your copyright will hold up in a US court, but it's just to say that in the digital age, we are leaving digital traces online all the time. And these traces can be used as evidence in legal disputes, just like the old time stamp on the analogue envelope. It's up to the courts to decide how reliable they are, of course.

Back to the thread, I would echo Hummingbird, that the thread opp differentiates between copyright and copyright registration. This is not the same thing. Copyright registration is about collecting evidence for the time your copyright was produced. With registration, you pay for that evidence, not for the actual copyright, which you already have. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention

[LamarPecorino]

Although I haven't looked into this approach, perhaps cues and the like should be copyrighted using the SR form rather than the PA form. SR protects the sound recording and as such as the vehicle that record companies utilize to protect their investment. Since as MikeyMike pointed out most companies do not have the willingness to reproduce the work, this might be a good way to protect one's work. (I have often wondered about copyrighting a work that has no distinguishable melody which seems is often the case with cues and the like). For what it is worth, I tend to handle copyright matters much like MikeyMike has suggested.

[Russell Landwehr]

If I am writing a cue / backing track I am prob not going to take the time and expense to officially copyright the thing. BUT if I am writing an instrumental with a strong melody and/or lyrics that will be pitched to a top 40 artist, then yes, I would probably take the time and expense to do so.

I'm with Mike here. (and he saved me the trouble of typing it all out... Thanks Mike and welcome back to the forums!)

Most of the stuff I do (right now) is never gonna make enough money to warrant the time and hassle of a lawsuit. AND copyright infringement at our level is so very rare. (Unless you are related to Marvin Gaye then everything is copyright infringement.) So registering everything I do seems like a waste of money to me. Besides, like Kolstad says, there is so much digital proof of copyright now days.

Russell