Do you copyright your songs before showing it to producers?

[DocAtlas]

thanks guys for the suggestions.

Anyone know how the protection for registering an unpublished work expires?

It's kinda weird because I read that you have 3 months from the moment of registering your unpublished work, to publish your work, otherwise you lose rights to seek damages from anyone who steals your work. Sounds like an odd rule. And given it takes a long time to put together a track, 3 months sounds quite short.

Well, assuming you're in the US, its copyright law is the one to look at, someone earlier in the thread posted the link. Whether you've published a work or not is irrelevant. From the moment a work is 'fixed in a tangible medium of expression', it has protection, and copyright under US law is the life of the author plus 70 years. This page has some useful information, and links to pertinent documenets: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq- ... 0%20years.

[original flipper]

faking a creation date on a file system is trivial. and it might not be you who fakes it: someone trying to evade a plagiarism case can do it. if it got that far, some kind of third-party evidence is going to be more convincing - even if it’s just a private soundcloud upload

You have a point, but I would be happy to put my trust in a judge using some common sense and hopefully 'smelling' out the rat who stole my music!

You can get too distracted by this stuff - 99.9% of people making music are loosing money (they never recuperate the outlay on equipment and time), not making money!

[gaggle of hermits]

You have a point, but I would be happy to put my trust in a judge using some common sense and hopefully 'smelling' out the rat who stole my music!

You can get too distracted by this stuff - 99.9% of people making music are loosing money (they never recuperate the outlay on equipment and time), not making money!

if you look at the shitshow that ensues in music plagiarism cases, you have more faith than me.

but your second point: absolutely. (but if you care about it upload it to soundcloud and just click private or even just onedrive/dropbox.)

[BONES]

Just wondering how many on here register their songs before showing them to producers or shopping them around to artists / etc.

Personally, I wouldn't bother but it's not a stupid precaution. Just register with your local Performing Rights body and then add in your songs as you finish them.

(I've read it's also much better to copyright songs individually, vs as a group, as it's much more beneficial in case it does every become a legal issue.

Copyright doesn't have to be registered, it exists automatically. All you need to do is have a good way to prove that you had the idea first. Your local Performing Rights body will help you with that, if you ever need it. Unless/until you get a publishing deal, the Performing Rights group can do a lot to protect your IP and ensure you get paid if anyone else uses your music for anything.

[zerocrossing]

Mail yourself a CD that has ALL of your tunes.
When you receive it, leave it unopened with the post mark (date) on it.
Put it away for safe keeping.
Its now dated evidence (poor mans copyright).

I am not a lawyer and do not play one on TV

What's a CD, grandad? Just upload the tracks to a private Soundcloud, Youtube channel if you're bothered.

Not the same you whippersnapper, when you mail it, it gets a stamp from the postal service which holds some legal status which can be used in court, unlike simply uploading it to a cloud service.

You can do both for extra protection.

If you dont know what a CD is (200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide), look at your PC, or read this:

"CD" and "CDs" redirect here. For other uses, see CD (disambiguation) and CDS (disambiguation).
Compact discCompact Disc wordmark.svg
OD Compact disc.svg
The readable surface of a compact disc includes a spiral track wound tightly enough to cause light to diffract into a full visible spectrum.
Media type Optical disc
Encoding Various
Capacity Typically up to 700 MiB (up to 80 minutes' audio)
Read mechanism 780 nm wavelength (infrared and red edge) semiconductor laser (early players used helium–neon lasers),[1] 1,200 Kbit/s (1×)
Write mechanism 780 nm wavelength (infrared and red edge) semiconductor laser in recordable formats CD-R and CD-RW, pressed mold (stamper) in read only formats
Standard Rainbow Books
Developed by Philips, Sony
Dimensions Diameter: 120 mm (4.7 in)
Thickness: 1.2 mm (0.047 in)
Usage Audio and data storage
Extended to

CD-RW
DVD
Super Audio CD

Released

October 1982; 40 years ago (Japan)
2 March 1983; 39 years ago (Europe and North America)

[2]
Optical discs
CD icon test.svg
General

Optical disc
Optical disc drive
Optical disc authoring
Authoring software
Recording technologies
Recording modes
Packet writing
Burst cutting area

Optical media types

Compact disc (CD): CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, 5.1 Music Disc, Super Audio CD (SACD), Photo CD, CD Video (CDV), Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), CD+G, CD-Text, CD-ROM XA, CD-i, MIL-CD, Mini CD
DVD: DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL, DVD-R DS, DVD+R DS, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-D, DVD-A, DVD-Video, HVD, EcoDisc, MiniDVD
Blu-ray Disc (BD): BD-R & BD-RE, Blu-ray 3D, Mini Blu-ray Disc
Ultra HD Blu-ray
M-DISC
Universal Media Disc (UMD)
Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
Forward Versatile Disc (FVD)
Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD)
China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD)
HD DVD: HD DVD-R, HD DVD-RW, HD DVD-RAM
High-Definition Versatile Multilayer Disc (HD VMD)
VCDHD
GD-ROM
Personal Video Disc (PVD)
MiniDisc (MD): MD Data, MD Data2
Hi-MD
LaserDisc (LD): LD-ROM, LV-ROM
Video Single Disc (VSD)
Magneto-optical discs
Ultra Density Optical (UDO)
3D optical data storage
Stacked Volumetric Optical Disk (SVOD)
Fluorescent Multilayer Disc
Hyper CD-ROM
Nintendo optical disc (NOD)
Archival Disc (AD)
Professional Disc
DataPlay

Standards

SFF ATAPI/MMC
Mount Rainier (packet writing)
Mount Fuji (layer jump recording)
Rainbow Books
File systems
ISO 9660
Joliet
Romeo
Rock Ridge / SUSP
El Torito
Apple ISO 9660 Extensions
Universal Disk Format (UDF)
ISO 13490

See also

History of optical storage media
High-definition optical disc format war

vte

The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in October 1982 in Japan and branded as Digital Audio Compact Disc.

The format was later adapted (as CD-ROM) for general-purpose data storage. Several other formats were further derived, including write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), Photo CD, Picture CD, Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-i) and Enhanced Music CD.

Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 millimetres (4.7 in) and are designed to hold up to 74 minutes of uncompressed stereo digital audio or about 650 MiB of data. Capacity is routinely extended to 80 minutes and 700 MiB by arranging data more closely on the same sized disc. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 millimetres (2.4 to 3.1 in); they are sometimes used for CD singles, storing up to 24 minutes of audio, or delivering device drivers.

At the time of the technology's introduction in 1982, a CD could store much more data than a personal computer hard disk drive, which would typically hold 10 MiB. By 2010, hard drives commonly offered as much storage space as a thousand CDs, while their prices had plummeted to commodity level. In 2004, worldwide sales of audio CDs, CD-ROMs, and CD-Rs reached about 30 billion discs. By 2007, 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide.[3]

Alternately, couldn’t you mail it to yourself on a thumb drive?

[PatchAdamz]

Mail yourself a CD that has ALL of your tunes.
When you receive it, leave it unopened with the post mark (date) on it.
Put it away for safe keeping.
Its now dated evidence (poor mans copyright).

I am not a lawyer and do not play one on TV

What's a CD, grandad? Just upload the tracks to a private Soundcloud, Youtube channel if you're bothered.

Not the same you whippersnapper, when you mail it, it gets a stamp from the postal service which holds some legal status which can be used in court, unlike simply uploading it to a cloud service.

You can do both for extra protection.

If you dont know what a CD is (200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide), look at your PC, or read this:

"CD" and "CDs" redirect here. For other uses, see CD (disambiguation) and CDS (disambiguation).
Compact discCompact Disc wordmark.svg
OD Compact disc.svg
The readable surface of a compact disc includes a spiral track wound tightly enough to cause light to diffract into a full visible spectrum.
Media type Optical disc
Encoding Various
Capacity Typically up to 700 MiB (up to 80 minutes' audio)
Read mechanism 780 nm wavelength (infrared and red edge) semiconductor laser (early players used helium–neon lasers),[1] 1,200 Kbit/s (1×)
Write mechanism 780 nm wavelength (infrared and red edge) semiconductor laser in recordable formats CD-R and CD-RW, pressed mold (stamper) in read only formats
Standard Rainbow Books
Developed by Philips, Sony
Dimensions Diameter: 120 mm (4.7 in)
Thickness: 1.2 mm (0.047 in)
Usage Audio and data storage
Extended to

CD-RW
DVD
Super Audio CD

Released

October 1982; 40 years ago (Japan)
2 March 1983; 39 years ago (Europe and North America)

[2]
Optical discs
CD icon test.svg
General

Optical disc
Optical disc drive
Optical disc authoring
Authoring software
Recording technologies
Recording modes
Packet writing
Burst cutting area

Optical media types

Compact disc (CD): CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, 5.1 Music Disc, Super Audio CD (SACD), Photo CD, CD Video (CDV), Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), CD+G, CD-Text, CD-ROM XA, CD-i, MIL-CD, Mini CD
DVD: DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL, DVD-R DS, DVD+R DS, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-D, DVD-A, DVD-Video, HVD, EcoDisc, MiniDVD
Blu-ray Disc (BD): BD-R & BD-RE, Blu-ray 3D, Mini Blu-ray Disc
Ultra HD Blu-ray
M-DISC
Universal Media Disc (UMD)
Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
Forward Versatile Disc (FVD)
Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD)
China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD)
HD DVD: HD DVD-R, HD DVD-RW, HD DVD-RAM
High-Definition Versatile Multilayer Disc (HD VMD)
VCDHD
GD-ROM
Personal Video Disc (PVD)
MiniDisc (MD): MD Data, MD Data2
Hi-MD
LaserDisc (LD): LD-ROM, LV-ROM
Video Single Disc (VSD)
Magneto-optical discs
Ultra Density Optical (UDO)
3D optical data storage
Stacked Volumetric Optical Disk (SVOD)
Fluorescent Multilayer Disc
Hyper CD-ROM
Nintendo optical disc (NOD)
Archival Disc (AD)
Professional Disc
DataPlay

Standards

SFF ATAPI/MMC
Mount Rainier (packet writing)
Mount Fuji (layer jump recording)
Rainbow Books
File systems
ISO 9660
Joliet
Romeo
Rock Ridge / SUSP
El Torito
Apple ISO 9660 Extensions
Universal Disk Format (UDF)
ISO 13490

See also

History of optical storage media
High-definition optical disc format war

vte

The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in October 1982 in Japan and branded as Digital Audio Compact Disc.

The format was later adapted (as CD-ROM) for general-purpose data storage. Several other formats were further derived, including write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), Photo CD, Picture CD, Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-i) and Enhanced Music CD.

Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 millimetres (4.7 in) and are designed to hold up to 74 minutes of uncompressed stereo digital audio or about 650 MiB of data. Capacity is routinely extended to 80 minutes and 700 MiB by arranging data more closely on the same sized disc. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 millimetres (2.4 to 3.1 in); they are sometimes used for CD singles, storing up to 24 minutes of audio, or delivering device drivers.

At the time of the technology's introduction in 1982, a CD could store much more data than a personal computer hard disk drive, which would typically hold 10 MiB. By 2010, hard drives commonly offered as much storage space as a thousand CDs, while their prices had plummeted to commodity level. In 2004, worldwide sales of audio CDs, CD-ROMs, and CD-Rs reached about 30 billion discs. By 2007, 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide.[3]

Alternately, couldn’t you mail it to yourself on a thumb drive?

I dont see why not, the important thing is the postal stamp and date.
Also, leave it unopened.

[Bombadil]

I wouldn't trust the 'mail yourself a copy' method. I've seen that discussion many times over the years, and there is a lack of consensus on its legal validity.
As mentioned, if you're serious, consult a lawyer well versed in copyright law.

[BertKoor]

I'm pretty sure OP is American. As said before, the poor-mans (c) won't stick in court. There is no precedent where it ever was accepted.

[jancivil]

Well, I have written two things I figured were something to take the trouble to steal. Neither are songs, they are finished screenplays. I not only registered them but signed up for SWG.

[PatchAdamz]

I wouldn't trust the 'mail yourself a copy' method. I've seen that discussion many times over the years, and there is a lack of consensus on its legal validity.
As mentioned, if you're serious, consult a lawyer well versed in copyright law.

I agree, but how many musicians ACTUALLY spend the hard earned cash to hire a lawyer.
Not many unless the music is bringing in the cash to make it worthwhile.

So while a lawyer would be the best choice, for those who wont, or cant go that route, getting some dated proof by the USPS (in the US) which is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government.

This means that the US government has stamped and created validity of processing the item and tampering with the parcel, is a felony.

In most cases, its not something to loose sleep over BUT its best to be safe then sorry and if you cant afford a lawyer, the "poor mans copyright" is a 2nd option.

For other countries, be sure to check the postal laws.

[jancivil]

just registering for US copyright is far cheaper than hiring any attorney and it’s not very difficult

[PatchAdamz]

just registering for US copyright is far cheaper than hiring any attorney and it’s not very difficult

Cost to do that:

A nonrefundable $35 filing fee for online applications and an $85 filing fee for paper applications as of this date. Fees can change so always check the U.S. Copyright website.

[jancivil]

prices went up!

[PatchAdamz]

prices went up!

But your right, still cheaper then a lawyer.

[jancivil]

I forget if it was 20 or 30 bucks in 2008. My writing partner paid it. must’ve been just the online one, we’re both too cheap for the other bit.