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What About Copyright?By: Stephen FosterStephen is the owner of On Course Publishing, Howler Recording, and maintains two domains besides IDN: yardageguides.com, for golf books, and golphoto.com, for golf photographs. |
| All material written must be copyrighted in order to protect the writer from infringement. If you write a song and give someone a copy of it, and they apply for a copyright before you do, the song is theirs, and there's not much you can do about it. It is very easy to copyright written or recorded material these days, much more so than up to the late 70s. Before the copyright laws were revised, you had to submit a lead sheet along with the lyrics, etc, and the rights were granted for 14 years, at which time you could apply for extensions. Now it is very simple to do. Just record a version of the song on a cassette (it doesn't have to be a studio quality recording...just vocal will actually do, but I'd suggest an accompanying instrument to make sure the chord changes are clear) and send it, along with the form which you can order from the Copyright Office, to the address on the form, and it's copyrighted in your name for life. You can send one song, or as many songs as you can get on as long a cassette as you like. A 90 minute tape with songs on both sides will hold a bunch of songs. For this you need the compilation form, so make sure you look for the right form to order while you're at the Copyright Office site. There is no "Poor Man's Copyright" any more...the practice of sending the songs to yourself via registered mail. The method was suspect in many cases, and was nearly always challenged in court if there was money to be had from royalties. Besides, it is just as cheap ($20) to send it in for copyright anyway. If you are a serious songwriter you need to get your material protected, and thanks to the efforts of NARAS, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and many other musicians, producers and affiliated music industry participants during the mid-70s, it is now easy as cake...a piece of pie. Protect your music! Copyright! |