Copyright phobia?

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Dark Imagery

Dark Imagery

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This sounds strange, yes, but I seem to have a phobia for copyrighting my album. It may be one of those alcoholic tendencies, I don't know. I fear the paper work, doing it right, sending it off, what to send, WHERE? I'm still in the recording stage so I'm ok for now, but when my album gets done I have the feeling I won't do anything with it because I'm afraid to copyright it! :drunk::spank::eek:

I've been to the library of congress web page and registered but got scared away at all the instructions and options. Could you all help me out? When it comes time, what do I send? Do I send a mastered copy on cd, lyrics, tabs (sheet music), and any photos I've taken to be used on the album? From doing that, do I get some kind of license that I then send to get pressed on the cd? Or, do I press it first and send that with a sheet of lyrics? It's all a really daunting process for me and any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!
 
I'm an Intellectual Property attorney who got the highest grade in my copyright law class years ago, and the nuts and bolts of copyrighting stuff are not something I would try to do myself at this point. The web forms and instructions at the LoC website are really confusing, and there has been some case law over the past year where peoples' registrations were found to be defective because the LoC forms and instructions were telling them to do something that did not comply with the statute. If you are really going commercial, I suggest get an Entertainment Lawyer to help you (a REAL one, not some patent atttorney working out of his basement, but a pro Entertainment Lawyer officed in Nashville or Hollywood). I don't know anything else to say.
 
Hmm... wow. I appreciate the tip. I'm a little too underground to afford an entertainment lawyer from nashville lol. Man, seems like a shitty process. Thanks for the reply.
 
Just do it anyway, even if you get it wrong. It's better to to have it registered than not and at least it is listed with them. Just in case...

I registered twice. Once as a collection of all my songs which is more than I put on my CD, then again for the Sound Recording registration of the CD. The collection of songs is for anything I wrote over a period of a year or more, whether on the CD or not.

The online process is a little confusing and therefore intimidating. But I figured as long as I get all the info up there, then send in my samples, I'm covered.
 
One concern I know some IP attorneys have, especially because of the recent case law, is that registrations on compilations might not extend to the individual works, especially if there are any differences at all in authorship between works. So if you register your album, and everyone listed as an author contributed to all the songs, you might be OK. But then, maybe not if one person listed did lyrics for most songs, but one of the songs has lyrics contirbuted by two of the listed authors. Also, the cases almost seem to say that if there are two or more authors, there must be an explicit listing of each of their contributions to each work, or some statement that, for all songs, all words are by this author, while both authors contributed to music for all songs, or something like that. There are a lot of questions raised that remain to be settled in future cases, and I don't think anyone knows for sure what to do in all cases. But what I hear from other legal professionals who practice in this area is that it is safest right now to register all of the individual works separately.

Personally, I don't know if these concerns are limited to the category of electronic databases, where they originated, or if they extend to registration of underlying works when simultaneoulsy registering both a phonorecord and the copyright in the musical work(s) embodied in the phonorecord. But I would be concerned if there is any difference in authorship among individual songs of the album, and play it safe by registering all of the songs individually. I might even do that if there is more than one author, even if the contributions are identical for all songs, because I'm not sure what kind of authorship listing might be required in the future.

Anyway, see for yourself by reading this article about one of the cases: http://www.trademarkandcopyrightlaw...r-collective-works-muench-v-houghton-mifflin/

Not legal advice. Not your lawyer. Etc.
 
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Hmm... well all the songs are composed, performed, and recorded and mixed myself. I'm even going to use my own photos for the cover, etc. The only other person involved is a guy I'm using to master. What do you think I should do in my case?
 
Well, I think you probably have a more straightforward case where you might be able to get away with filing just one registration for the album, for sound recording, music, and lyrics. I don't know whether it is customary to list the master as an author under the work made for hire option, with an editing and sound recording credit. Maybe someone can offer insight on that.

I think you can submit electronically using the ECO option for $35, or download, fill out, print, and mail the CO form for $50, or order the old SR form and use that for $65.

If you use the new ECO option, you can upload your songs at the end to fulfill the deposit requirement, and enter the song title for each song.

They'll take any of these audio file types:
.aif, .aiff (Audio Interchange File Format)
.au (Audio File)
.mid, .midi, .rmi (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)
.mp3 (MP3 Audio File or Layer 3 Audio Compression)
.ra, .ram (Real Audio File)***
.rmi (Resource Interchangable File Format)
.wav (Windows Wave Sound File)
.wma (Windows Media Audio File)

I don't know if sound recordings are in the special category that requires an additional hard copy be deposited, but if so, it should tell you and present a label for you to print out to ship it in.

Here is a PDF walkthough of the process that should ease your mind. http://www.copyright.gov/eco/eco-tutorial.pdf

Marking is fairly simple for CDs since you are printing CD labels, but I'm not sure how to mark music downloads. It probably depends on the web host. Maybe someone can offer insight on that. Do you plan to distribute online? Which sites are you considering?

Again, not your lawyer. Not legal advice.
 
Dark Imagery said:
Hmm... well all the songs are composed, performed, and recorded and mixed myself. I'm even going to use my own photos for the cover, etc. The only other person involved is a guy I'm using to master. What do you think I should do in my case?
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I think you're good to go. File your SR electronically, include authorship of the songs. No need to add the Mastering guy, he didn't write any of the songs and doesn't own the masters. Any contract you have with him should be Work For Hire and I doubt he's expecting any kind of copyright ownership.

One concern I know some IP attorneys have, especially because of the recent case law, is that registrations on compilations might not extend to the individual works, especially if there are any differences at all in authorship between works. So if you register your album, and everyone listed as an author contributed to all the songs, you might be OK. But then, maybe not if one person listed did lyrics for most songs, but one of the songs has lyrics contirbuted by two of the listed authors. Also, the cases almost seem to say that if there are two or more authors, there must be an explicit listing of each of their contributions to each work, or some statement that, for all songs, all words are by this author, while both authors contributed to music for all songs, or something like that.
Click to expand...

This is all explained in the instructions and is, I think, straightforward. In order for multiple songs to be registered under one collection, they all have to have the same authors contributing the same amount in each category.

If you have multiple songwriters, each with different contributing amounts, then I believe you can't use one copyright to cover all the songs plus the Sound Recording. You would have to register each song individually then the CD as a Sound Recording. I tell ya, I steer away from collaboration for that very reason. Although, to be a better songwriter, you should hook up with other songwriters. Oh well....
 
Thanks for all your replies. Still gonna put it off til the last minute! Tonesponge, that tutorial was awesome, thanks alot!
 
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