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Have you ever copyrighted your music?
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| Kismet7 |
| Not everyone might know the ins and outs. What was the process/fees/wait like. Also I was wondering if its possible copyright a whole cd of tracks at one time. |
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| cryophonik |
| Well, there's a difference between copyrighting your music and registering your copyright. Essentially, every original piece of music that you record is protected as your property under copyright law. You just have to be able to prove that you had that idea first, if someone were to infringe on your idea(s). Registering your copyright is essentially filing an official record of your work with the government, making it easier to demonstrate that you own the material, should the need arise. The last time I checked, the cost to register a copyright was $30 per submission. You can register the copyright on as many songs as you want under one registration form, so yes, it is cheaper to register all of your songs at once than it is to register them separately. |
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| Kismet7 |
| quote: | Originally posted by cryophonik
Well, there's a difference between copyrighting your music and registering your copyright. Essentially, every original piece of music that you record is protected as your property under copyright law. You just have to be able to prove that you had that idea first, if someone were to infringe on your idea(s). Registering your copyright is essentially filing an official record of your work with the government, making it easier to demonstrate that you own the material, should the need arise. The last time I checked, the cost to register a copyright was $30 per submission. You can register the copyright on as many songs as you want under one registration form, so yes, it is cheaper to register all of your songs at once than it is to register them separately. |
So you can send in like 2 CD's worth of music under 1 application? Do you have to include a paper with all the names of the tracks, etc. If we can turn this into a super detailed thread, would be nice. What is the turnaround time usually? |
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| DigiNut |
http://www.wikihow.com/Copyright-a-Song
(That's for Americans - Canadians register with SOCAN, Euros probably have to fill out 268 forms and send them to 46 different government agencies, I dunno) |
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| cryophonik |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
...That's for Americans... |
Good point - I should've mentioned that in my post above. That's the law in the US, but I have no clue how copyrights work in other countries.
DigiNut's link sums up the process pretty nicely and it looks like the cost is now $45 per submission (damn inflation). |
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| Kismet7 |
Well the site mentions something about copyrighting an album instead of a song. What if you want to copyright 10 songs but its not really an album? And if you send in 10 songs to get copyrighted wouldnt each one be copyrighted seperately. But this confuses things...
| quote: | | Copyright albums at a time rather than each song. It is a lot cheaper to pay $45 instead of $300 or more. The exception is if the publisher insists to copyright each song. |
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| Lunar Phase 7 |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
http://www.wikihow.com/Copyright-a-Song
(That's for Americans - Canadians register with SOCAN, Euros probably have to fill out 268 forms and send them to 46 different government agencies, I dunno) |
Fukkin lol at your sig. |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by Kismet7
Well the site mentions something about copyrighting an album instead of a song. What if you want to copyright 10 songs but its not really an album? And if you send in 10 songs to get copyrighted wouldnt each one be copyrighted seperately. But this confuses things... |
If you register an album then you've intrinsically registered the songs on it. It's not like somebody can rip the individual tracks as long as they don't copy the whole album.
Just take your 10 tracks and make them an "album". There's no real distinction as far as I know. |
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| DJ Robby Rox |
Copyrights to me are pointless unless you're famous and have some actual risk of losing money over it.
And even in that case, they're pointless.
I prob commit about 50 copyright offenses a day, have over 50,000 forms of on my computer proving this (music, etc) and I could prob make my own website telling the world I do this and still not have one person try to take me to court over it.
I have as much faith in copyrights as I do in Santa Claus. |
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| cronodevir |
You don't copyright to stop people from pirating your music.
You copyright to stop other people from claiming it as their own then suing you. Even if you have proof the thing is yours, because you didn't take the time out to copyright it, it still becomes valid for the one who did to have ownership of it. You copyright music to save yourself. You copyright anything for this reason. |
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