Before you even think of promoting your music, you should copyright it. It’s cheap, it’s simple and you could even lose a lot of cash and fame if you don’t.

Musicians thought they could get away without copyrighting their music by doing something called a poor man’s copyright. When I was in a band, we did this. We mailed a copy of our songs (they were on a cassette, this was before CDs) with the titles, dates they were written and the names of the people who wrote them to ourselves. When we had enough money to hire a lawyer, he said that although it would give us some protection, it wasn’t enough and that we had to register our music with the US copyright office. Which we did.

Without copyright protection, anyone could steal your music and do whatever they wanted it with. They could perform it, record it, license it and never pay you any royalties. If they are really rotten, they could even claim it as their own, stealing all the royalties, and you would be left with nothing.

Here’s how you do it:

Go to www.copyright.gov. Filling out the form online is the cheapest and it will cost you $35.00. You can also print out the form and snail mail back for $45.00

If you want the forms sent to you, it’s a little more complicated. You used to have to fill out different forms depending on what you needed the copyright for. If you file online or use the online form, you only have to fill out one form and it will cover everything. If you request the forms sent to you, you have to fill them out separately and each one costs $45.00. Here’s what the copyright.gov web site has to say about the paper forms:

“Paper versions of Form TX (literary works); Form VA (visual arts works); Form PA (performing arts works, including motion pictures); Form SR (sound recordings); and Form SE (single serials) are still available. The fee for a basic registration using one of these forms is $45 payable by check or money order. Form CON (continuation sheet for applications) is also still available in paper. These paper forms are not accessible on the Copyright Office website; however, staff will send them to you by postal mail upon request. Remember that online registration through eCO and fill-in Form CO (see above) can be used for the categories of works applicable to Forms TX, VA, PA, SR, and SE.”

Try, if possible, to file online. It will make your life a whole lot easier.

Remember, do not perform or promote or put your song online until you copyright it. Have you ever come across someone who thinks they’ve written the next big thing, but it’s sounds like crap to everyone else and no one else wants to hear it. I’m sure you’ve come across those. For them, it really won’t matter, because no one is really going to want to steal it anyway. But for you, after you’ve actually written a great musical masterpiece, you could be sorry if you don’t copywrite your music, and you won’t have anyone to blame but yourself.

This entry was posted Thursday, January 29th, 2009, 8:29 pm and is filed under protect your music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed. Comments are open. Pings are open. You can use this trackback URl.

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