Copyright

How many of his articles have you read reef?

What about Australians?

there is a website called http://www.itsonlywords.com which is for copyrighting your lyrics and poetry under Australian and International law.

Any advice about Aussie copyright protection of lyrics and music?

Hi Evan!

   Copyrights legalities change from country to country. A-J wasn't the first to develop the poor man's copyrighting, fact be told, many have been doing this before. The reason A-J tells about this form of copyrighint is that the country he lives in, canada, only allows you to copyright titles, not sheet music or lyrics or anything pertaining to music mainly so he was forced to go with the poor man's copyrighting.

   I'm unsure about the safety of copyrighitng online but I do know about governments copyrighting. Generally in america our legalities consist of this. You pay 20 dollars or more (I think it's now 30) to have your song copyrighted and filed. The bonus to this approach is that you never have to resend yourself the same file or pay anything else. Now when it comes to australia, and the link is inside that article of A-J's down at the bottom, which is the official CAL (copyright agency limited). In their section "about copyright" which gives a brief explanation of the australian copyright act, and they also allow you to read the copyright act as a .pdf.

http://www.copyright.com.au/about_copyright.htm

I hope this helps you Evan!

Rock on!

Ryan Spencer

Thanks Ryan,

I actually contacted http://www.copyright.com.au/ but they are more for publishing print i think. And more for protecting duplication of print, not so much ownership rights of songs.
They sent me the usual.. we dont know.. try here..
so i am none the wiser :(

Oh well.. if someone wants to copy my work.. so be it i guess.

This is probably why I couldnt find any info about registering a work in Australia ;D

taken from http://www.copyright.org.au
-----------------------------------------------------------

How do you get copyright protection?

There is no system of registration for copyright protection in Australia. You do not need to publish your work, to put a copyright notice on it, or to do anything else to be covered by copyright — the protection is free and automatic. There are no forms to fill in, and there are no fees to be paid. You do not have to send your work to us or to anyone else.

A work is protected automatically from the time it is first written down or recorded in some way, provided it has resulted from its creator’s skill and effort and is not simply copied from another work. For example, as soon as a poem is written, or a song is recorded, it is protected.

Australian copyright works are protected in most other countries, and copyright works from most other countries are protected in Australia.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Cool eh?

Evan :)

Hi again Evan!

   Actually, that's pretty neat! No wonder my brother wishes to live in australia :)! One thing that lingers in my mind is how would you protect yourself in the court of law if someone simply copied your song in some fashion and dated it before your work?

I'll have to do some more research now!

Rock on!

Ryan Spencer

Yeah well proving you own it in a court of law is another story i guess and its the writers responsibility to document, date and publish their work. The above is only the formality of copyright I'd say.
There are possibly places you could submit work to for this purpose, but I think once its on my website or a CD then that probably good enough for me.

By the time anyone else finds it to copy it, I suppose they would have had to have found a hard copy of your work anyway. And generally there are ways to trace dates and other proof of ownership.

I mean, if someone was to take your work, and make loads of money off it to the point where it drew your attention, then at least you could say I wrote that under Aussie law on this piece of paper in my room at this time.. and erm.. so there! ;D

Tribute to the Aussie phrase "No worries, she'll be right mate", maybe that was their thoughts at the time they passed that copyright law. ;D

Now if that doesn't reflect on the laid-back Aussie attitude, nothing ever will!

Thanks for the info Evan.

Reef

Hey think about this.

Ok you've copyrighted your song.
Then someone else sings it, makes loads of money becomes very popular. You find out. Go to court, prove it's yours. It's in the paper or something. You win.

Now what?
Record the song?

1. They might not want to record it.
2. If it is recorded, people will know the song and find it weird (someone else singing it).
3. People might have liked his version better.
4. Carry on making songs; people will think of this event every time they hear you sing.

Not all people are like that. Quite a lot are.

My advice is:
Either

Let him have the song. Forget it.

Or

Sue him but don't record the song.

Lixuz

Hi Lixus-static!

   That seems like an iffy suggestion to me. For the sake of your own music wouldn't you want to at least retain ownership? It wouldn't completely matter, at least to me, if people thought that someone else performed it better than me. I also don't really think that, unless you were extremely famous and this incident was all over the news, which is unlikely, people would think about that event every time they heard my song.

I think as an alteration to your suggestion the better appraoch, to me, would be to sue him/her and record the song for the need of either further money or the sense of retaining ownership. Yet it's just my opinion, so.

Rock on!

Ryan Spencer

my take on the suit would be: the end result would be that you would be taking them to court over the past royalities and future royalities from the song.

now for my question:  I am working with a lyrisist in Tennessee, I write the music (I live in detroit).  I have always sent a sealed copy of the score sheets to him and me (as well as a tape).  is this enough to assure the fact that my scores won't be stolen? what else do I need  to do?  if he records it with his band, because I'm a co-writer what would I be entitled to (we don't have a firm agreement yet).

Hi Gibby!

   One path on going about it is to print out a version of the song that has the date, who the music was done by (you) and who the lyrics were done by (your friend). Both of you have this sheet, so that if one tries to infringe by taking it all, you have the capability to show that you also were a part of the songs composition. You could also professionaly copyright it at your local government position that deals with copyrighting, then you don't have to deal with two sheets and you don't have to worry about losing it.

And heres another more documented form of explaining writing songs and copyrights with people.

http://www.clickandcopyright.com/Tonos/joint_authorship.htm

I hope this helps Gibby!

Rock on!

Ryan Spencer

Hey Lixuz,

I think you're thinking on an international star status, who records and performs your song without your knowledge to the extent that it becomes a world wide phenemonen. In that case, to avoid embarassement, your 'friend' will probably offer you royalties from the song. I have had no international experience and am just speaking from common sense so i could be wrong though.

As Ryan said, i don't mind being told other people perform my songs better than me, but if its a song i wrote, there's not a chance in hell i'll let other people take it for granted.

Reef

I think you're thinking on an international star status

Yeah I kind of am :)

Lixuz