WHAT DO I DO WITH MY SONGS?

[sweet_tangerines]

Help! I live in a small town, and I have written a lot of songs. I know they are very good, but I don't know what to do with them. I am afraid to play them anywhere because I don't want anyone to use them. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[gibs]

record them, copyright them, and let people listen to them...either in the mp3 forum here or somewhere else...if you don't record them, copyright them, and let people listen to them, you're just jackin' off.....and you'll never know how good they are, or if improvements are in order....gibs

[dragonworks]

send me the lyrics and the scores and I will
see what I can do for ya. No, just keep plugging away and listen to the advice you recieve here and keep a stiff upper lip. If
your afraid, get them copywrited and you wont
have to be afraid of playing them in public
anymore. If anyone steals my songs they have
to take my wife too thats how I prevent it
from happening. And yea, what gibs said.

[migo]

Copyright your material with the US Library of Congress. Then, upload your songs @ mp3 and let the public vote.

Join TAXI www.taxi.com

Or, if you're secure and satisfied with what you've created, and you don't need to hear the applause or rejection from a stranger (like myself), keep'em to yourself.

[This message has been edited by migo (edited 07-24-2000).]

[Emeric]

What do you want to do with them? Do ever plan on performing them live, are you in a band. Do you want to sell them to someone?

A song isn't much good if noone ever hears it.

[lazyboy]

Did somebody tell you some kind of aweful story about music getting ripped off? If so, I think this person misinformed you about the likelihood of that happening. In a small town??? Just play 'em, its fun and you'll get laid everyday.

Some of your musician firends might come up with something every once in a while that snags a little bit of your stuff, but generally i don't take that kind of thing too seriously. Then again, I don't have anything posted on the web. If you're passing out tapes, just make sure you write a li'l P in a circle with your name and date on both the tape and liner.

Its funny, if you get the copyright forms from loc the first thing they say is basically that you don't need to do this. But everybody who goes big-time wisely chooses to do it anyway.

[skweeks]

i heard somewhere that if you send the lyrics to you songs to yourself in the mail and then keep it sealed until a problem arises, it'll stand up in court if it was never opened... i can't garuntee this is true though, check with a copyright lawyer

[MrLip]

there are lots of threads on copyrights in the "marketing/publicity" forum

[BrettB]

Copyright the songs first! And than, let everybody heard them.. including us!!

greetings,

Brett

[hixmix]

Invest in a Cadillac

[crEEk]

What do you want to do with them? Sounds like you ultimately want people to hear them. If you really think somebody is going to cop your tunes from one listen in a live setting then go ahead and get moving on the copyright issue (its a good idea regardless). Otherwise its probably a sure bet that your bedroom mirror won't cause you to have to hire an attorney to prove you created those songs. Just kidding.

Find the forum that's comfortable for you and share them.

[trucker dave]

well, i live in kind of a small town and i walked in a bar in a larger town one night and some guys i'd never seen before played one of my songs. They weren't really trying to steal it, they had just learned it from a tape and didn't know the person who wrote it lived nearby so get them copywrighted. you can do them all at once for a single $30 fee if they are all unpublished. mailing them to yourself is worth nothing. You have to have a copywright certificate to file copywright infringement suit. Then put them on mp3.com and beg for some good song critics, not the ass kissing kind who because thier songs suck are somehow afraid to tell anyone else that thier music sucks also. I didn't learn how to write songs by everyone telling me how good they were. I learned by people who quite frankly told me how bad they were(and i'm still learning).

[LI Slim]

It might help to understand what a copyright is and is not.

For hundreds of years, starting back in England, the "common law" has recognized the copyright to creative works. It's sometimes called "intellectual property". In fact, is was specifically mentioned as a protectable right in the US Constitution. It's not your creative thought that's protected, rather, it's the work embodying that thought. Once you create such a work, noone else can steal the work or the thought that it embodies.

You do not need to register your work to give it copyright protection. All you have to do is prove that you did it first. Someone mentioned the idea of mailing your music to yourself - that is sometimes called a "poor man's coyright" - what you can do is mail it and not open the envelope and you then have proof that it existed as of the date of the postmark.

But registering the work with the US Copyright Office is the best thing to do. It only cost a little time and $30 (e.g., if you put 15 songs on a CD and register it, that's $30 total). You can do it yourself. Go to http://www.loc.gov/copyright and follow the instructions, which are clearly stated.

Although you CAN sue for copyright infringement without a registration, you can go to federal court only if you registered. Registering the work does not guarantee that you would win a lawsuit for copyright infringement, but it's powerful proof that you did it first. To win the suit, you have to show, generally speaking, that the dirty rotten infringer had access to your work and that it's similar (if it's exactly or almost exactly the same, the court will generally assume access).

[MikeDog]

skweeks -- the "send a song to myself registered mail" thing is an urban legend. At least, if anyone knows of a case that has stood up in court using said method, let me know, so I can save copyright fees...

MikeDog

[MrLip]

In the marketing/publicity forum someone said that the mail thing will hold up in the UK but not in US courts.

[LI Slim]

There's no hard and fast answer. It would be evidence and the result would depend on all the circumstances. But in any event, it's worth letting go of the $30 copyright fee because the copyright office registration is stronger evidence and because of the access it provides to federal court.