Q. How do I copyright my music?
In fact, you already own a copyright for anything copyright-eligible that
you create: music, lyrics, poems, text, photographs, paintings-You name
it, if you've created it (and recorded it somehow, either physically or
digitally), you own it.
(The Copyright Office says: 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.)
Q. If copyright protection is automatic, why should I register my music
copyright with the government?
There are a few reasons you might want to officially register your
copyright. Here are a few benefits provided by copyright registration:
1. The public can easily contact you about your music. While public
contact information is not required to be provided, you do have the
option to provide an email address, telephone number, or mailing address
at which you can be contacted about your music. If you don't register
your copyright and put this information on file, any potential licensees
requesting permission to use your music-which certainly has the potential
to benefit you financially-is going to have to do some digging.
2. You have the ability to prosecute. Without the official copyright
registration certificate, while you technically do own a copyright to the
music you've created, you'll need more than a verbal claim of ownership
to bring legal action against anyone using your music improperly.
(The Copyright Office says: Before an infringement suit may be filed in
court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin.)
Q. If I wrote the music and my partner wrote the lyrics, who owns the
copyright?
Because the authors of a song automatically own the copyright to that
song, you both do-but when you register your copyright, you can specify
whatever ownership you like.
When you register your music, you'll first be asked to specify authorship
information. This is the section in which you would indicate that you are
responsible for the music and your partner is responsible for the lyrics.
Then, you'll be asked about ownership information.
In one scenario, you might indicate that both authors are the owners of
the copyright. You would need no additional documentation to support this
claim, since it's already clear by the authorship information that both
individuals contributed to the creation of the work.
In another scenario, you may have hired your partner specifically to
create lyrics to your song. If this is the case, you would mention that
the second author's contribution was made under a work-for-hire
agreement, in which case you (the person who did the hiring) would take
full ownership of the song. Note that while a copy of the work-for-hire
agreement does not have to be delivered to the Copyright Office along
with registration, you must have a copy of the agreement in your own
records.
(The Copyright Office says: If a work is "made for hire," the employer,
and not the employee, is considered the author. The employer may be a
firm, an organization, or an individual.)
Q. What if we want to list our band name as the owner of the material?
This is not a problem. Organizations can certainly be listed as owners,
and it's a simple matter to transfer copyright ownership from your name
to the band.
One way to do this, assuming that you want to specify the aspects of
authorship, you would list you and your partner as authors of the music
and lyrics, respectively. Then, for the copyright ownership information,
you would list your band. Technically, this involves a transfer of
ownership from the individual authors to the organization; as with the
work-for-hire agreement, you do not have to provide written documentation
showing the agreement between the individuals and the band, but you
should have such an agreement on file.
(The Copyright Office says: The copyright claimant is defined in
Copyright Office regulations as either the author of the work or a person
or organization that has obtained ownership of all the rights under the
copyright initially belonging to the author. This category includes a
person or organization who has obtained by contract the right to claim
legal title to the copyright in an application for copyright
registration.)
Another way to do this is, of course, to list the band as author. The
band could then be considered the owner with no additional documentation;
any documentation between the band members agreeing that any intellectual
property created as a group is the property of the band itself would be
assumed to exist as a part of the band's paperwork (and not a part of the
copyright registration itself).
Q. How do I copyright an album that includes a cover song?
If you got permission from the initial copyright owner, you'd simply need
to mention the existing copyirght during your registration and indicate
what you contributed to it (a different arrangement, new lyrics,
performance, etc.).
If you did not get permission to use the material, your use is considered
copyright infringement.
(The Copyright Office says: Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act
generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to
authorize others to do the following: reproduce the work in copies or
phonorecords [and] prepare derivative works based upon the work.)
Q. Can I copyright an entire album at once?
In some cases. If your entire album consists of songs for which the same
information is true, the entire collection can be copyrighted at once.
Here's an example: Jim and Bob created ten songs, all in the year 2010,
and these songs were never published. Jim wrote all of the lyrics, and
Bob wrote all of the music. Jim and Bob can submit all ten songs at once,
listing the album title as "title" and the track names as "individual
contents."
Another, trickier example: Jim wrote nine songs himself, but Bob helped
him with the lyrics for a tenth song. Assuming that information is to be
included in the copyright registration, Jim would have to list himself as
sole author for the nine songs, and a separate registration would have to
be submitted that lists Jim and Bob as co-authors of the tenth song.
One last tricky example: Jim and Bob co-wrote all the material in 2010,
but in 2011, two of the songs were released on Facebook. Jim and Bob now
have a collection of material for which the publication information does
not match. They would need to submit their eight unpublished songs in one
registration; if the two published songs were made available to the
public on the same day, they could be registered together, but if the
publication information is different for each song, two separate
registrations would be necessary.
Q. How do I register a copyright for my music with the US Copyright
Office?
You can register your work either directly with the US Copyright Office,
or through a third-party copyright registration service (which would then
submit your registration to the Copyright Office).
[Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and the above should not be taken as
legal advice. See a lawyer or legal adviser to discuss your specific and
unique situation.]
Sarah Kolb/Click and Copyright
Since 2000, Click and Copyright has helped thousands of small business
owners, independent entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, and writers start
new businesses, copyright their albums, and find new ways to market and
promote their business and creative works.