What's your procedure for new songs?

[mojobone]

Turnaround at the US copyright office is pretty horrible, even for electronic submissions, (snail mail can reportedly take 18 months or more) but your receipt is considered tangible proof, and it's unlikely you'd need to show a certificate anywhere but in court. (and lawsuits tend to take even longer than copyrights) For purposes of clearance, you'll most likely sign a simple affidavit of ownership in the pertinent rights, and if the production house/library/publisher ends up in court over it, you'll effectively never work again.

[T&V Marino]

Hi Mary,

It can take as much as 18 months to TWO YEARS to receive the certificate that states your song collection is "officially registered by the U.S. Copyright Office."

The certificate will have the date they RECEIVED your information (along with the correct payment, paperwork, sound recording or CD, etc., or the date you filed the information electronically), but it can take MANY MONTHS -- even YEARS -- before you receive the actual registration number and the official certificate!!!! If it's an issue, we tell the publisher or BMI that the copyright registration is "pending." We've never had a problem doing it this way.

If anyone has a different solution, please chime in.

Have fun!

~ Tracey & Vance Marino

[fusilierb]

I never register anything. I might be very wrong about this, but I'm only pitching to libraries. A lot of those have been retitle libraries. In my experience, they won't register anything you've signed until it gets a placement. And then it gets registered fast!
I'd frankly be honored if someone would steal anything I've written. In the meantime, while I'm not actively pushing my songs as an artist to the general public, I'm not gonna bother registering anything until it gets placed. Which is then done by the publisher, so I'm not really gonna even do that.

hth's

[mojobone]

BTW Angels by Robbie Williams was stolen, Angels was probably number 1 in 30 countries and earnt millions and million has been covered and covered, the guy who wrote it got $7,000 dollars.

lucky he had a scratch tape and proved he had involvement, but sad he wrote a song about his still born son and Robbie Williams lied that he wrote it.

That story is somewhat internally inconsistent. If the song was "stolen", where did the writer get the initial 7 grand? This sounds rather like the story on "Time Won't Let Me" by The Outsiders, where the co-writer, Tom King, sold all rights in the composition for $500, all it was worth, as far as he knew at the time. Technically not theft, but likely a fraud, given the significant amount of what I like to call information asymmetry:

"He owned 50%. He sold it right before it was a hit. Say around 65. The person that bought it didnt tell him it was just placed with Capitol Records. In other words he got f****d! He sold it for $500. After a legal battle, he was able to get back his writers share of performance [royalties] only. No mechanicals no sync no others. And no artist royalties either which would have been 1/5 share.

Based upon my experience in royalties I would guess the $ were not great in the last few years. But I am sure he gave up hundreds of thousands for $500."-per Bob Levatino, CPA

So the moral, here is, "Protect yourself; more gets 'stolen' with a pen than with a gun."

[greatmoves]

Hey fusilierb; I see your point, but the truth of the matter is it comes down to proof, regardless if you are only pitching to libraries. Do you really want to go through all the legalese and pain of litigation?

Let me ask, are you at least doing a "Poor Mans Copyright"? I hope your method of record keeping involves proof of dates and contacts submitted.

Keep in mind, This is the music business and that involves more than just the writing aspects. The main reason (I have Heard) most businesses fail is due to poor business practices.


Best of Luck

BB

I'd frankly be honored if someone would steal anything I've written. In the meantime, while I'm not actively pushing my songs as an artist to the general public, I'm not gonna bother registering anything until it gets placed. Which is then done by the publisher, so I'm not really gonna even do that.

[Hookjaw Brown]

I like doing what Tracey and Vance say. Save up a bunch of songs over a year and submit electronically to the Copyright Office. They don't even have to all be by the same writers. The price is the same for one or many - $35.00.

That said, digital music is very hard to steal, especially with the embedded meta data of author, date, etc. Digital identity programs are making Copyright ownership pretty fool proof. Gracenote is the company that I use, since it identifies songs for iTunes.

The biggest pain is uploading all the song files to be copyrighted, but I have found it takes only six to eight months for that pretty piece of parchment paper to appear with my name and songs listed and the US Government seal of approval.

The other thing to do is get your ISRC code for $75.00 and assign a unique code number for each song or composition and embed it into the meta data. It is your task to keep track of these numbers, but you can assign a code for up to 99,999 songs a year.

This is where you must be careful in registering your works with a PRO. Even if you have made major changes to a song the ISRC code remains the same and it is a time consuming letter writing campaign with the PRO to make changes.

Label your work and be proud of it.

[T&V Marino]

Those stories about songs getting "stolen" are legendary, made up, exaggerated, and usually false. One of my good friends dated a guy who claims he wrote the song back in the 1980s, "I Wanna Be Rich," by Callaway, and that it was "stolen" by the producer who recorded his demo. My friend's boyfriend said he spent "$25,000 just in attorney's fees" to fight it but he lost. Hmmmmm! I never found any proof of his story or any court case about it.

However, we've heard that it does happen in Nashville once in awhile, yet no one would ever think to sue or raise a fuss. We wrote a song with a guy from Nashville who said he and a buddy wrote a song called "Jesus, Take The Wheel," and it was "uncannily similar" to -- but not exactly like -- the Carrie Underwood hit with the same name. Our friend and his buddy had written theirs several years before, had been pitching it to publishers, and had performed it in dozens of open mics and writers-in-the-round. We asked him what did he do about it, and he said, "Nothing. It happens. It's no big deal. Honestly, you get over it!" That's called being realistic and moving on. By the way, he's still writing and getting cuts, something that probably would not have happened if he had made a stink about it!

~ Tracey Marino

[pboss]

...How fast is the turnaround with the U.S. copyright office...?

as far as I know, once you file the copyright paperwork, the actual recognition of said submission can take six months or longer, but I think that having submitted it is the part you can provide to a potential publisher (as in, title, writers etc). Anyone else know?

[Keithm]

Lot's of great info here.
BUT I'm still confused about one thing. Do you register your songs with your PRO once they are completed or do you wait for the music publisher to do this because they might want to make changes to the song before using it etc? Do all publishers register songs or does this vary as well?
Thanks

[mojobone]

Let the library or publisher handle the PRO registration, in case of a retitle, unless you're self-publishing/releasing. It's usually less hassle.