copyright question

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antispatula

antispatula

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this doesn't really fit into any forum......

but quick copyright question: When you send in your RS or PA form with the fee (now 45 bucks! It was just 30 a few months ago......) you also send in a burnt cd with the work being registered. But don't burnt cd's only have a shelf life from 3-7 years on average? Do they upload the song into some huge database or something? The cd won't do you much good in like 15 years, since it may not be working........
 
That is a damned good question.....
I don't know much about music copyrights, but I have some familiarity w/ Patents... (same Office...)

With Patents, they store EVERYTHING electronically in their database.
Images and documents are scanned to TIFF format, and almost everything is available for download online.

I would not be surprised if they ripped CD's in some format to a database they maintain.

They are a pretty sophisticated operation. Your tax dollars hard at work!! :D
 
i'm no expert and this is just an informed guess

but i've a number of copyrights

and as far as i know

the phonorecord(s) you send

in whatever format

is the only copy they'll ever have



i can't imagine them taking the time or effort

for the pittance of $45

of storing and retrieving

terabytes of data

99.9999999 per cent of which

will be useless in the long run



the only reason to file a formal copyright

("copyright protection")

is to help protect against some future

potential infringement in a legal proceeding

whose odds of happening

are comparable to those of

winning the powerball lottery



you're work is automatically copyrighted

when you create it, by current law



as far as the durability of the cd

depending on the quality of media and burner

it's probably less than 50 years



send a written score

if you're worried about it


go to http://www.copyright.gov/ and

read all about it (i reckon you've been there already)
 
Last edited:
antispatula said:
But don't burnt cd's only have a shelf life from 3-7 years on average?
Click to expand...


Don't believe it.

Kept in a case and in a cool dark place, I've got CD-Rs that are over 10 years old with ZERO problems reading them. (Burned on a Plextor 1X $3500 burner.. the blanks then were $25 EACH and took a full 90 minutes to burn no matter how little you put on them.)

I think the horror stories tossed around lately are a bit premature....
 
hey thanks for all the advice guys.

perhaps I should send in cassettes? magnetic tape I've heard generally lasts longer. How else would they come out with a new "DIGITALLY REMASTERED FROM ORIGINAL TAPE!" Dylan album if they couldn't retrieve the song from the 40 year old 1/4" master?

Then again, I don't believe the "burnt cd's last 5 years!" Either.

That's another question.......I don't have quite enough money to replicate my album, do you think duplicating (burning) my cd would cause a problem in the future? I don't want someone coming back to me in 5 years saying "your cd doesn't work!"
 
If you're worried about it, just send the written score, a CD, and then record that CD onto a cassette.

To write the score you could use a program like Guitar Pro, which has percussion, guitars, bass, etc. Or you could use a free one called PowerTab which is mainly for guitars, no percussion.

The main thing is the score, which copyrights the underlying music arrangement; chord progression, melodies, etc.

antispatula said:
That's another question.......I don't have quite enough money to replicate my album, do you think duplicating (burning) my cd would cause a problem in the future? I don't want someone coming back to me in 5 years saying "your cd doesn't work!"
Click to expand...

Standard CD-Rs that you buy at the store are different than the ones used on professional albums. Professional albums have a much longer shelf life, and they are not really 'burned', they are imprinted when they are duplicated.

Try asking the LOC (Library of Congress) about how they store your CD and see what they say.
 
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