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-- Passing out your finished work to djs/labels and copyright issues..

Passing out your finished work to djs/labels and copyright issues..

What is a safe way to go about this? Lets say someone has a demo cd of 5 to 6 finished songs that he or she would like to give to a big dj or send to a label... or even pass out to random people to try to get the music out and get signed. Should the all the songs be copyrighted first before giving them out to ensure safety the tracks won't get jacked from someone? I searched on the copyright website, it is only $45 per track to copyright. So is this the proper way to go about , before passing your music out to everyone?

As always, thanks for the knowledge and replies.

i didnt copyright my tracks i just sent them to credited labels.

I have searched on these forums and only came up with 1 post that had mixed answers. Some people said yes you should copyright them before sending out so they dont get jacked. Other people mentioned the mailing to yourself way (sorry Im going to avoid this one) - which may or may not hold up in court. Lastly, people mentioned that you DON'T even need to copyright it because that is what the label will do for you. So which is it? I just want to protect my tracks, you can never be too safe about that.. there are alot of messed up people in the world... like that zubes guy on this forum.

Please anyone who is more experienced with this share your knowledge.

edit: rubez , not zubes

quote:

Originally posted by sterilis i didnt copyright my tracks i just sent them to credited labels.

Ok, because i plan on going to winter music conference next month and getting my demo cd to the hands of big djs like armin and etc. This should be fine right?

yea big jocks wouldnt really want to rip you off. what do they gain from out. alot of people have been discovered by handing demos to djs at clubs.

you've got the original working files of the tracks... so there is no real way for them to steal you EXACT track.. even if you copyright your tracks and people take an idea from it... you cant do anything

dude lol.... no offense man but you have no name to rip off. you are going over board with this, EVEN if you wanted to copyright the track what country are you going to do it in? 5 countries, 10 countries, 20 countries?

if you DON'T share the full mp3 to these guys they are going to think you're a newb so just realize that the exposure of these guys playing your tracks is worth WAY MORE than the pennies you'll make on the production front.

/thread

quote:

Originally posted by Zombie0729 dude lol.... no offense man but you have no name to rip off. you are going over board with this, EVEN if you wanted to copyright the track what country are you going to do it in? 5 countries, 10 countries, 20 countries? if you DON'T share the full mp3 to these guys they are going to think you're a newb so just realize that the exposure of these guys playing your tracks is worth WAY MORE than the pennies you'll make on the production front. /thread

TThis has nothing to do with money. I am just concerned about some label or someone who i pass the finished songs out to take it and credit my work as theirs. What about if the songs gets leaked on the internet as an "unknown artist" and someone puts their name on it, taking all your hard work. You never know with shady people out there. Yes I agree with you exposure is very important... but so is protecting your own work. Your work is yours only, and it is not right for anyone to take your work and put their name on it, then release it as theirs.

I will be sharing full mp3 finished songs, just needed to know if people copyright their songs before passing them out , thats all.

^

i understand your concern but unless the track has so much commercial appeal its worth it for some bootleggers to try and make it their own i wouldn't worry about it.

PLUS -- these big DJ's support many small artists so if they do play your track on their radio show or whatever you can back up any case of someone trying to take your track by pointing to their tracklists.

like i said, your concern is minimal, if you were worried about spoiling a release of yours by handing our your full length MP3 too early then i'd understand but if you're worried about someone "stealing" your track then you're wasting your time.

Sorry to send you to another forum, but here's a very good thread discussing this very topic that I remembered from last year over on the Cakewalk forums:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=...ghting􅜀

Pay special attention to 'yep''s responses - the guy's been around a long time and knows what he's talking about!

OK, thanks for all the advice, gona check out that cakewalk forum now

you basically already have a copyright in your tracks.

to have a copyright in anything it has to be....

1. Original (can't be a blatant copy of something else, blah blah.)
2. has to be fixed and in tangible form. (even if it's on your hard drive...that counts)

registering a copyright is just to make things easier in case someone does infringe on the rights (there are 6) you already own by making the track. if you don't register you would just have to prove that you actually did make those tracks but if you do register them, you won't have to prove anything. registering is pretty much there just to seal the deal on your rights to a certain piece of work and to eliminate some of the hassles that can and do happen.

I'm pretty sure uploading to your e-mail/website might actually work better in court than mailing your song to yourself. I mean, how exactly can you fake the upload date in an e-mail/website? I might be wrong here, but I don't think you can.

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