How To Copyright Songs

Have you ever wondered how to copyright songs?

If you are a songwriter, the chances are you have. There are many variables that can enter into registering a copyright which can seem a bit overwhelming at first. Hopefully this article will shed some light on the subject so you can understand the process a little better.

Below are some general questions people have asked me regarding how to copyright original songs and lyrics. The answers are based on my own knowledge and personal experience. As you read through them you just might gain some insight with regard to your own questions.

Question:

Is it reasonable to copyright the lyrics alone, and then later add the recordings - or is this not the best way to do it. Does that make it cost more money?

Answer:

The lyrics to a song are legally copyrighted from the moment it's written. Be sure to identify yourself as the original author by adding your name and date to the lyric page. Here is what the law states:

"Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright." ~Library of Congress

Registering song lyrics with the Library of Congress simply provides a legal witness as to who the author is.

Personally speaking, I would not bother to register the lyric of a song separately from the music as I feel it is a waste of time and money.

Question:

If other people wrote the music, do these works have to be sent separately, even though someone else is the creator/owner of the lyrics?

Answer:

No, but credit should be given to the authors of the music on the form that's submitted. A space is provided for this on the form (PA). The last song I registered had a small section of cello music that was created by another person. The lyrics and basic melody, guitar parts, etc. were created by myself and my husband. We used one form for everything.

Question:

If multiple works are registered at the same time, is it there a fee for each lyric? If several songs are part of a musical, is it a fee for each song, or for the musical?

Answer:

Multiple works can be filed as a compilation for one fee. This is what I did with my first album. I wrote six songs and my friend wrote six songs. I created all the lead guitar and accompaniment parts for all the songs on the album, plus did some additional arranging for my friend's songs. We registered the songs together under a joint band name, and we were able to retain individual copyrights for each song.

I hope the information in this article was helpful. The Library of Congress is an excellent free resource that will answer any additional questions you may have about copyrighting.

Kathy Unruh is a singer/songwriter and webmaster of ABC Learn Guitar. She has been writing songs and providing guitar lessons to students of all ages for over 20 years. For free guitar lessons, plus tips and resources on songwriting, recording and creating a music career, please visit: http://www.abclearnguitar.com 

The Digital Songwriter

A whole new style of composing music and writing lyrics has arrived in the form of digital songwriting.

By using hi tech home studio equipment and software, you can now record your music and lyrics at the same time as you actually write your songs.

In the Sixties and Seventies, the most any young songwriter could have hoped for, would have been a 10/50/50 song deal with a music publisher - any music publisher. Whether or not the songs would have been published was another matter. At that time, the ratio of works accepted but not actually published, may have been less than eight in every hundred. In reality, most songs acquired by publishers were left on the shelf to gather dust. If any were eventually published, mainly because an artist had covered (recorded) his work, it would have made the average songwriter feel like he'd won a week in heaven - especially if they had printed his music. If you could go back in a time machine and reveal to mister Sixties songwriter/producer that today he could not only record, arrange and mix his own songs on a virtual home studio, he could also publish, release, distribute and, with the aid of midi, print off the sheet music (in several keys) all on the same day - he would probably have had a heart attack!

So what is this thing called digital music and why did it have such an impact on the music industry? Believe it or not digital was first introduced as a kind of "upgrade" to its older cousin ' analog. Actually, there are still some recording artists and producers today who prefer analog claiming there's a quality or originality to it that cannot be "captured" or reproduced using digital. Recordings in the Sixties, for example, are famous for having a distinctive analog sound of their own. Perhaps so - but most today, I would argue, prefer digital, not just for recording, but also for the advantages in transmitting, distributing, storing, retrieving, and even reconfiguring electronically.

You may get a better idea of digital if you compare it directly to analog. Think of analog as a speedometer on a car. The speed you're traveling is revealed by the arrow moving round the dial. Digital, on the other hand, can only function by using zeroes and ones (0 or 1) and may be restricted in reading the values to a tenth in between numbers. One of the many difficulties which have now been overcome ' is in changing digital to analog and vice versa. Interestingly, a compact disc functions by using both analog and digital. The audio sound exists initially in analog. Then, the disc is encoded digitally. In reading the disc, the player converts the audio back to analog when the sound comes out of the speakers.

By recording and composing music at the same time, the digital songwriter has neatly bypassed many of the obstacles faced by his predecessors including the prospect of publishing his own works on his web site. By adapting to new technology - he's also realized another great prospect: in recording the music he will also own the copyright in the masters (embodied performance). In doing so, he starts to cross into the producer/artist realm. Some may see this as an opportunity of reopening former days as an artist - and or promoting the name and product (new recordings) of a previous time. Whatever your reasons - if you're approaching digital music as a performer/writer with a view to self publishing, there remains two extremely important questions: Is the product commercial? How do I market it? Both points are as relevant today as they have always been.

Knowing what is Commercial is something anyone can achieve with great accuracy through simple, regular research - and yes, using your instincts. Check your niche of the market and see what and who is selling. In making judgments on what is commercial, you need to trust your instincts, too. It's not just what or who is selling the most, or in great numbers in a particular genre, it's also about what or who is going to be selling the most, or in great numbers in the next six, twelve and twenty four month periods from now.

Marketing your product is something you can also learn as skillfully as creating commercial songs. Remember also, it's not just a case of what is selling well in your own country (important as this is). You need to be thinking on an international level if you want to expand your selling rate significantly. The first thing, after publishing your product, is to start promoting your web site using lots of good solid links from other sites. Design the pages with one thought in mind: collect email addresses to build a sustained opt in fan base. Go all out to make your website appealing and well above the average looking site. Have regular up to date articles, photos and data about you or your band with information on forthcoming gigs. Respond quickly and enthusiastically to people emailing you with any questions. The more interest you create the stronger your fan base. Anyone who is serious about this can use auto responders. I have lots of friends who love to write and produce product - especially other artists. This means they can publish lots of different artists. If this is the area that interests you be sure to have an updated digital agreement to cover non-exclusive master rights. Once you decide to start, aim to build two main catalogs, one for publishing, and one for record licensing then watch your catalogs, profits and success rate grow.

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