Copyrighting from 3 different works?

  • Thread starter Thread starter George Parler
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George Parler

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In the group I'm in, we've completed 3 seperate CD projects over the last 2-1/2 years. We have 3 songwriters in the group, including myself. I'm looking into registering the songs I've written from all 3 CD projects. Can I put all those songs on 1 CD and register them all together or must I seperate them by what projects they were recorded in, or do I need to do each song individually.

I know that you can do several songs together as one registration. But I don't know how that applies to songs from different projects already released.

There was a lot posted here in past threads that I found but none that seemed to answer my question.

Thanks for your help.

<><
George
 
Hey George,

Do all the songs have the same 3 writers? Do all of the songs have the same publishing? Do you just want to register the stuff that you soley wrote?

Were your CD's released on a label or were these self-released (i.e. your own label)?

Is money an issue?


If you answer those questions, I will tell you what I would do.

Brad
 
Brad said:
Hey George,

Do all the songs have the same 3 writers? Do all of the songs have the same publishing? Do you just want to register the stuff that you soley wrote?

Were your CD's released on a label or were these self-released (i.e. your own label)?

Is money an issue?


If you answer those questions, I will tell you what I would do.

Brad

Hello Brad,
We did not collaborate on any of the writing or meoldies of the songs. Each one was wrtten by an individual. I am just wanting to register the songs I have personally written, by myself. It's just that they are spread across 3 different CD projects.

The CD's were self released, and sold mostly through our live performances.

Money isn't a major issue, but then it depends on how much we're talking about. If we're talking 100 bucks okay, if we're talking 500 bucks, then I raise an eyebrow and put my hand on my wallet and back up against the wall, a 1000 and I'm an antelope runnig for it's life.

<><
George
 
Im gonna take a stab at it (quote from OJ)......

if you just want to copyright the song and not the actual recording, use form PA and you can do them all on the same CD......

Brad?.....
 
Yeah, Gidge has a good suggestion. If you can get all of the songs that you wrote onto one fixed phonorecord (read CD, tape, etc.) you can register them all at once with one PA form. But if I were you, this is how I would do it:

Register 3 collections.
Take CD #1 and record all of your songs (the ones you wrote) onto one CD-R. When filling out the PA form, list all of the titles in the title field, followed by a title of the collection. You can attach an extra piece of paper for this purpose. It should look something like this: Title 1; Title 2; Title 3; Title 4. George Parler Song Collection from the album "George Writes Some of our Songs" Performed by George Parler's Band. Released on Running Antelope Records, 2000. Repeat the process for the next two CD's on seperate PA forms.

I would do it this way because I am assuming the songs you wrote for each CD were published on the same date. The creation year may vary from song to song, but to get that documented, you would have to do each song seperately ($$). Hopefully, you wrote all of the songs (from each CD during the same year) Also, you can leave off all that other crap and just list the song titles if you want.

This will end up costing about $90.

You could register them as one big ass collection, but then you lose the ability to distinguish "date published" because they come from 3 different CD's. That would cost only $30.



Sorry it took awhile to respond... I forgot to poke my head in here and look around.

I am a cave dweller :rolleyes:
 
Brad,
Thanks for your help. We've just finished mastering the third CD project. I think I like the idea seperating the songs by the works in which they were done. It will cost a little bit more, but it does seem to be more organized that way. Thanks again.

<><
George
 
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