Copyright

Thought you might be interested to read about Australian copyright laws. Very simple really.

http://www.apra.com.au/Copy/cpyIntro.htm #

And this is their answer to legal issues.

How can I prove that I am the copyright owner?

Occasionally legal disputes arise about whether someone is the copyright owner of a work. If this happens you need to be able to prove that you created the work. For this reason it is recommended that you keep a copy of any draft manuscripts or recordings (marked with a copyright notice), and diaries about your work and their development.

Say I copyright a song. Now months or years later someone records a song with similar lyrics or similar music, and does well with it. Say later I decide to record my song a record and it does well also. Could I be sued for having a song with similar lyrics or music? What if it was almost the exact same?

Also is it really worth it to copyright a song if you dont plan on recording it and making money from it any time soon?

Say I copyright a song. Now months or years later someone records a song with similar lyrics or similar music, and does well with it. Say later I decide to record my song a record and it does well also. Could I be sued for having a song with similar lyrics or music? What if it was almost the exact same?  

Also is it really worth it to copyright a song if you dont plan on recording it and making money from it any time soon?  

My answer to this would be

' Que Sera Sera,
what ever will be, will be;
The futures not ours to see .
Que Sera Sera,
What will be, will be'

:)

Whats the use worrying about such things. Write songs, play them and enjoy your music. When the time comes to worry about such thngs like needing to copyright your songs you'll know.

Just my opinion, though I'm not american, I dont know what the odds are that your song coud get pinched or copied. Or composed similarly for that matter.

Interesting question all the same

cheers,
Evan.

Hey Evan

A person in the united states makes a song then an australian takes his song, this song isn't copyrighted.
You said (i think ???)once you've made a song it's copyrighted to you. Could you take his song and copyright it to yourself. If yes how?

[glow=red,2,300]Lixuz :)[/glow]

Hi Lixuz!

   Copyright laws expand across national lines. A person that makes a song in America and it's distributed in Australia, it's still copyrighted by American law. Same goes for Australia and for many other countries that have set up copyright laws. Most of them expand across the nations, so your pretty much protected.

Why do you want to know how to copyright a song from another person to convert ownership? Do you mean doing remixes or covers (with slight edits)? You always have to ask the artist for their permission for use of their work, or the person who holds the copyright, it's a neccesity. If you want to use it professionaly, you must ask.

If I'm right, Evan was declaring the Australian copyright law. In Australia the law for copyrighting is that when you make a song it's automatically copyrighted, as long as you can prove ownership and date of production, no paperwork.

I hope this helps!

Rock on!

Ryan Spencer

I have about 40 songs on the computer (uncopyrighted) and I really can't be bothered to print them all out, put them in envelopes, put stamps on them and send them to myself. What other ways of copyrighting are there?

Lixuz :)

Hi Lixuz!

    Like mentioned before, you could head to a local area that can copyright material, pay a fee and then they will file your work and keep it for you if anything ever needed to come up. This also means, however, that you'll have to print out each one. I am not sure if you would have to pay for each one, it depends I think. If you ended up recording all of them on a CD and then bringing them to a local area, or even sending it to yourself, you can copyright all of them. It may not be individual but they would be protected.

In all countries all work is automatically copyrighted, as long as you can prove without a doubt that you wrote the song first, you can win the case. So if you can mark on the material in some way that you wrote it at the time that could be another way out.

I hope this helps!

Rock on!

Ryan Spencer

local area that can copyright material ???
Don't know of such place
Help ;D

Hi again Lixuz!

    Well, if you live in America, you can send your works to washington as long as you have the right papers filled out, the money, and your work alltogether. You put all of those into an envelope and send it off to the right place.

Where do you live, if you don't mind me asking?

If you do live in America, there is the U.S copyright office of the Library of Congress.

http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/

They can document and protect your intellectual property, for a fee though of course. I think it's up to 30 dollars, it changes from place to place. If you live in a country that has odd copyright systems, then you may want to take the poor mans copyright out. As you might have learned, A-J wrote the article on the poor mans copyright here since up in Canada, where he lives, they only copyright Titles, not full complete songs. So he had to resort to sending his own work through mail to verify even further that it was his material, even so that almost all countries have automatic copyright protection.

Also, if you have a large number of witnesses, you can also have an advantage in the case. I know a lot of people who take this side of the pie for copyright too lightly. If you have enough proof, including witnesses, that you made it first it should all work out.

But back to the places that copyright, if you do live in area that has a good built up copyright system you can simply just send them the CD, which is enough proof already, you don't have to go stir crazy and send them each one, especially sifting through 40 songs. The specialty, well, here in America, to copyrighting your work with the congress is that you can become eligible for large damage fee's up to 100,000 dollars.

I hope this helps some more Lixuz!

Rock on!

Ryan Spencer

Where do you live, if you don't mind me asking?

I live in wales :)

How much will it cost to copyright 40 songs?
And I can just put the lyrics on the CD can't I? (I have no music for them and can't sing very well)

Lixuz :)

Hi again Lixuz!

   You could put all the songs onto a CD, nomatter how pastily it is done, and send it off and only pay the mininum fee. That way you cover all 40 songs and you don't have to pay for each one. You could put the lyrics as a data sheet, but, even so the lyrics might come in handy. If it is just the lyrics, and you've yet to decide on a melody, you could just put them onto the CD for data purposes and probably send that to them.

I dug this up for the United Kingdom Copryright protection services.

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/

I hope this helps, Good luck on your copyright!

Rock on!

Ryan Spencer

What you really need is third party copyright service. To get this just join a songwriting organisation there are a few national ones but there is an international one and they will all help you copyright your songs properly.

Pete. ;)

OK, let's review a bit. Poor-man's copyright method: not my invention. Any organisation in the world dealing with copyrights will suggest this method as temporary protection.

Do you really need more? Coincidences do exist. Suppose you write a song and never play it for anyone. Then Metallica come up with a song which is almost identical; even if you had the best protection in the world, you'd still have to prove that they actually "heard" your song; that they even knew it existed.

I keep for myself about a quarter of the songs I write. I offer another quarter to other artists. The other 50% never gets played to anyone. There is no need for me to spend a lot of money on extra protection for that 50%. The ones I'm more worried about are the ones I offer to other artists. I always keep a written and signed contract (very basic and in plain language: My name, the artist's name, the title of the song, etc and a reference to a written or recorded version of it).

The ones I keep for myself I perform with other musicians who are all witnesses to when the song was first played and can say that in court. Not too much of a problem there.

So, don't go overboard on copyrights. Get basic protection first, then look at your actual needs.

Thanks for the clarification A-J.

Here's my suggestion:

Step 1.

Write something worth stealing.

Step 2.

Let me know if you ever get past step one ;)

Nick