Who has the rights to a song???

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Jay Jay

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I am a guitarist in a 5 member band. 2 guitars, bass, drums, vocals. My other guitarist left. He came up with lyrics and a basic guitar part for a song or 2. The rest of the band contributed to his ideas and created a complete song out of his ideas. My question is, do we all have the rights to the songs, or are they all the guy who came up with the idea and left the band?
 
Unless you're listed on the copyright application, you have no claim to any rights.


bd
 
Over here, in theory, you have rights the moment you create it, but my teacher copyright told me in the US, the first who claims the song at a copyright apllication like BMI or ASCAP, is the rightfull owner.

Unless you hate the shit out of the former guitar player and never want to see him again, I suggest you all enroll yourself at ASCAP or BMI and deposit the songs together so you all have equal rights.
 
Neither ASCAP or BMI control the copyright registration here. You must make application with the copyright office to register the copyright. ASCAP and BMI collect money from radio stations and other venues when your songs are played, then supposedly pays the songwriter his fair share.


bd
 
sorry if I was wrong. Over here we got the organisation 'SABAM' where you can register your copyright, while they also collect the money for the authors. I asumed BMI and ASCAP worked the same way.
 
i use the "poor-man's copyright" approach which i am told by a friend of mine (who is a lawyer in virginia) will hold up in a court of law.

that is: i burn the recording to a cd and write out all the lyrics in a word processer. You must include the date and your name (as the author or authors) on the lyric sheet as well as including your signature. you can include sheet music as well (of course), but its not necessary. then i make two copies of both the lyric sheet and the CD and mail them both to myself. Two copies just so that you have a backup.

if the package is left sealed the postmark date establishes a legal copyright date if its ever disputed by someone trying to steal your work.

this only costs you the price of postage and is well worth doing, especially if your work is freely available for download on the internet. its never a bad idea to take the time to protect yourself, you just never know what might happen.

-alex
 
Hmmm... I see.

Yeah, the guitarist left and basically said "I'm leaving and my music comes with me." We're a local cover/original band that just plays small bars/clubs and we would still like to use those songs.
So what I'm getting out of this is, if someone came up with the idea, even if it's 2 chords and a few lines of vocals with a melody, and the rest of the band turned it into a song, it still the belongs to the guy with the idea. Or, is it just who copyrights it first? Since nothing is or will be copyrighted, I guess the right thing to do not to piss him off then is not to play the songs.
 
if you want to be a dick, than use a poor mans copyright on the tunes and keep on playing them without his ok.

of course that would be a hard core dick move.

probably a better approach would be:
tell him he should copyright his stuff and ask him you can keep on playing his tunes. emphasize that you intend to give him proper credit and ask.. what can your exposing people to his music hurt? if anything it helps him as a songwriter to have maximum exposure.

in other words, it doesnt hurt him to have you cover his songs (even if you particpated in the arrangements).
also, he can still play his music even if you are too. so he can in fact take the music with him even as you continue to play it.

once you put it to him like this, i am sure he wont mind. unless he is some kind of fool.

-alex
 
Thanks everyone...

All this was very helpfull.
By the way, if you want to see the most korny, cheezy website in the world, our band site is WWW.CHUBBYRICHARD.COM
Thanks again...
 
Re: Hmmm... I see.

Jay Jay said:
Yeah, the guitarist left and basically said "I'm leaving and my music comes with me." We're a local cover/original band that just plays small bars/clubs and we would still like to use those songs.
So what I'm getting out of this is, if someone came up with the idea, even if it's 2 chords and a few lines of vocals with a melody, and the rest of the band turned it into a song, it still the belongs to the guy with the idea. Or, is it just who copyrights it first?
Click to expand...

Well, it is often hard to draw a line between having the original idea and creating the song with several people. It kinda depends how much influence you had on the song. It is not black and White.

But theoratically, it depends if you're willing to piss him off or not.

You say you are a local band right? That means you aren't that big (you haven't got a record deal?) so in reality the only thing the guitarist can do is be mad because you still play his songs. Because face it, if you haven't got a record deal he ain't gonna invest to sue you. He can theoratically, but he can't recover the money he will lose paying his lawyers.

If you want to be an even bigger asshole, you can claim these songs by copyrighting them. If he didn't do it allready, the songs belong to you and he can't do shit, even if he wins the lotterey and wants to sue you.

Neither of these solutions will make you a nice guy and I would discuss it with the guitarist himself. Ask him politely to play his songs, or even give him a very small percentage when you play well paid gigs. If he really doesn't want it to play the songs you can stop playing them. Or you can do the previous nasty options:). Be aware though, once you discuss it with him he may copyright the songs first, so if you hate him, you can't get him anymore on that.

But we are all nice guys:), so try to solve it friendly.
 
alexspetty said:
i use the "poor-man's copyright" approach which i am told by a friend of mine (who is a lawyer in virginia) will hold up in a court of law.

that is: i burn the recording to a cd and write out all the lyrics in a word processer. You must include the date and your name (as the author or authors) on the lyric sheet as well as including your signature. you can include sheet music as well (of course), but its not necessary. then i make two copies of both the lyric sheet and the CD and mail them both to myself. Two copies just so that you have a backup.

if the package is left sealed the postmark date establishes a legal copyright date if its ever disputed by someone trying to steal your work.

this only costs you the price of postage and is well worth doing, especially if your work is freely available for download on the internet. its never a bad idea to take the time to protect yourself, you just never know what might happen.

-alex
Click to expand...

Alex,

I would caution you to be very careful with this. I don't know if your freind is a music business attorney or not. If not I would bounce it off someone who is. I have also heard of this "poor man's copyright" technique. I have also heard in my years that it is not especially effective. My understanding is that while technically you own the copyright from the minute you create a work, it isn't enforceable to the fullest extent if you haven't registered the copyright. I'm not saying I know better than your freind and I'm not an attorney (I'm a CPA ;)). I'm just saying I've heard a different tune and I think your songs are good enough thay you should worry about them being stolen and get the fullest protection under the law you can. :)
 
Re: Hmmm... I see.

Jay Jay said:
Yeah, the guitarist left and basically said "I'm leaving and my music comes with me." We're a local cover/original band that just plays small bars/clubs and we would still like to use those songs.
So what I'm getting out of this is, if someone came up with the idea, even if it's 2 chords and a few lines of vocals with a melody, and the rest of the band turned it into a song, it still the belongs to the guy with the idea. Or, is it just who copyrights it first? Since nothing is or will be copyrighted, I guess the right thing to do not to piss him off then is not to play the songs.
Click to expand...

Technically, from my understanding, if you all played a significant part in co-writing the song, then you all are joint copyright holders immediately upon the songs completion. Try to prove that in a court of law.

This is future advice because the barn door is open and the horse already escaped in this instance...well maybe not... that depends on how cool your ex guitarist is about this. When you write in a co-writing environment you should always have an agreement in writing on who gets what % of the royalties. If one person in the band is clearly the writer then he should get all the royalties. If all share and contribute equally to the process, then the split should be even. There could be any number of possibilities in between. The copyright should then be filed under all of your names jointly.

It gets a little shady in practice. How do you know if someone has materially participated? In my mind I draw the line sort of like this: If someone has written substantially all the lyrics, melody and structure of the song and then another person comes in and gives some advice and suggests a few tweaks here and there, or gives arrangement advice, that is not co-writing. If a person comes in with an idea (like a single hook line) and someone else puts together the entire song, I also don't consider that a co-write (or certainly not worth half of the action). Incidetally, Nashville has had some problem with that, where these young bucks have songwriting sessions arranged by their labels with established writers. These youngin's toss out an idea and drink beer the rest of the day while the true songwriter does all the work. The very successful songwriters don't let that happen more than a few times if they can help it.

Anyway, I've rambled...;) :D

I'm no expert, but maybe some of this can help.
 
I agree with Jagular; I think he's pretty well got it pegged. There is one other possiblility, but you need to run it by an experienced intellectual properties right lawyer, which may or may not be a music lawyer.

In essence you and your current bandmates would copyright the songs with the caveat that they are a derivative work based on an idea or conception of your ex-guitar player. This kind of copyright can have some complicated results, including a marginal royalty payment to your ex-guitarist. I guess it depends on how important the songs are to you and whether they earn you enough money that you might want to part with a small share of it. Again, such caveats to copyright registrations are rare and have to be handled by an experienced copyright law attorney in order to be worth anything.

Alex - Re the attorney who told you that a "Poor Man's Copyright" will hold up in the American court system; if an attorney gave me such advice, I'd be looking for another attorney. It's akin to an attorney advising you that if you're caught robbing a bank you might be acquitted. Yeah, it's possible, but not likely.
 
Alex,
Years ago I had an attorney (in Virginia also) tell me not to rely on the "mail it to yourself" method. He said it was a bit risky at best. The only guarantee that your copyright will be protected is to register it with the copyright office. Just passin it on.
I also agree with Jagular, you write good music and you should take every precaution.




bd
 
ok... i guess i will look into getting formal copyrights on all my stuff. thanks for the heads up.

-alex
 
Alex,
I'm sure you know, but just in case you don't. You can copyright a collection of songs on one application, for one fee.

bd
 
FYI - If the original tune and lyric were written by your departed band mate, then HE owns the copyright to that and if you use it, you are infringing on his copyright. He is the legal copyright holder, whether or not he ever bothers to register that copyright.

If you go ahead and copyright a song based on his verse and melody, he can sue you for infringement, and he'll win if he can prove he had the idea first (which you've already admitted here that he did).
 
Re: Hmmm... I see.

Jay Jay said:
Yeah, the guitarist left and basically said "I'm leaving and my music comes with me." We're a local cover/original band that just plays small bars/clubs and we would still like to use those songs.
So what I'm getting out of this is, if someone came up with the idea, even if it's 2 chords and a few lines of vocals with a melody, and the rest of the band turned it into a song, it still the belongs to the guy with the idea. Or, is it just who copyrights it first? Since nothing is or will be copyrighted, I guess the right thing to do not to piss him off then is not to play the songs.
Click to expand...


Just a suggestion for future protection:

(I don't know what the cost is in US, but we did it 10yrs ago with my old band - cost about $350.00 Canadian which is like what? $29.95 US?? With the current exchange??)

∙ Register the band name as a business $65.00 CNDN

∙ Incorporate the band (As a corporation it becomes its OWN entity and is treated as such)

∙ All the members are listed as equal partners (4 members=25% ownership etc)

∙ Everyone signs a standard contract outlining that as long as they are members of the band all creative works belong to the corporation

∙ When a member chooses to leave the band he relinqueshes his rights to all music created during his partnership with the corporation. (The Corporation is forced to "buy out" his shares at a predetermined amount set forth at the signing of the contract --- so be sure to set up a business acount in the Corporations name and make regular deposits --- we insisted on 10% of the net profits from all live gigs / Cassette sales etc)

∙ ALL members must be of legal age to sign or it's useless.

∙ New members comming into the band MUST sign the contract and take on a partnership position.

∙ Provisions were made in our contract that in the event the partnership was completely dissolved, the remaing member with the most seniority would maintain exclusive rights to the music for a period of 5 years at which point redistribution and recording rights would be released to all previous partners.

... basically cover as many angles as you can. Do NOT try to think in terms of "How do I cover MY ass?" but rather "How do I protect the BAND?"

- Tanlith -
 
What about the new guy coming in? Did you figure how much the partnership was worth and sell him his share?


bd
 
Actually no, we had it worked out so that his contibution in the creative area was his "investment" - The "buyout" figure by the way was only $500.00 think of it as severence pay.

When interviewing new members we usually asked them to play 3 songs for us...

1 cover of thier choice
1 original of thier own work - thier choice
and we'd play one of our tunes (from tape) for him then make him play it right after... knowing full well he'd make some mistakes, but this was mainly to see how he handled pressure :)

I met a man about 13yrs ago named Bob Ezra (He produced Kiss and Alice Cooper) -- he gave me some advice that really made sense and I still feel strongly about it today. Can't quote him word for word but it went something like this:

Your band is a business. The sooner you accept that fact, the sooner you'll realize you can reach the goals you've set for it (the band). Too many people with great potential fall into obscurity simply because they never understood the business side of being in a group.

... Like I said. Not word for word, but that's what i got out of it... and soon after that we actually started making some money at gigs, selling tapes and toured Canada. (Loved Victoria BC... BEAUTIFUL landscape!!!)

- Tanlith -
 
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