COPYRIGHTS & WRONGS...A Guide to protecting your music....6

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The legal duration of a copyright has changed over the past century. Calculations for copyrights registered before 1978 are confusing, so I'll focus on the present here. Copyrights registered after January 1, 1978, last the life of the composer plus 70 years. The composer can pass a copyuright along to his or her heirs or will it to a third party. Subsequent owners can do the same.

HIRE UP

If you are commissioned to create a musical work or recording, the rules are slightly different. Be sure to have the requirements of the job outlined before you start so thet there are no surprises later. If, say, an advertising agency hires you to write a jingle, the companyt will likely have you sign a work-for-hire agreement stating that it owns the exclusive rights to the work you create. However, some people, such as film producers, may let you keep all or part of your copyright, allowing you to exploit the work later and benefit from the licensing and performance income.

Get the terms in writing while you're negotiating your fees so you can charge accordingly. In the case of a work-for-hire, the copyright duration lasts 120 years from the works creation or 95 years from its publication, whichever ends first.


More tomorrow...the final publication of this series. Thanks for all the great emails.

COPYRIGHTS & WRONGS-A Guide to protecting your music....4

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ALL TOGETHER NOW

Prolific songwriters and performers often worry about the cost of multiple registrations. At $45.00 a song, it definetely adds up. One option is to register music as a collection for one filing fee, using From PA (for musical compositions only) or Form SR (for compositions and their recordings, or recordings only). According to the Copyright Office, all the songs (and recordings, if applicable) in a collection must have the same copyright owner(s). Collections of songs don't have to be an entire album; they can be partial albums, suites, movements, or simply a gathering of your music.

Give your collection a title to appear in the Copyright Office's records. While you can also specify the individual titles within the collection, those will not appear in the Office's records unless you register them separately or submit a supplementary registration (Form CA).

Be sure to read the Office's circulars on musical compositions (Cir 50) and sound recordings (cir 56) for details. The easiest way to access forms or circulars is by visiting www.copyright.gov/register/performing.html for musical compositions, or www.copyright.gov/register/sound.html for sound recordings.

More tomorrow....

COPYRIGHTS & WRONGS-A Guide to protecting your music....3

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REGISTER FOR CASH

Let's say you've composed a song, gotten it exactly how you want it, and have written it down or recorded it. It's not plagiarized and it has some creative spark. Under current U.S. copyright law, satisfying these criteria alone means you have a natural copyright and your work is protected. It's advisable, however, to register your song with the Library of Congress as soon as possible to establish a public record of it. In most cases, it must be registered before you can sue someone for infringement or collect compulsory mechanical-license royalties.

The Library of Congress Copyright Office classifies your new song composition as a Performing-Art Work. Fill out Form PA to register a musical composition only. This is useful for artists who are strictly songwriters. Send the completed form, a nonreturnable copy of your material and a $45 registration fee to the Library of Congress Copyright Office in Washington, D.C. For compositions, acceptable materials include a manuscript (lead sheet, full sheet music, or orchestrations) or a phonorecord (tape, CD, MP3 on disc). Make sure you include the entire song--everything you want protected--in your submission.

Your registration becomes effective when the Copyright Office receives it. In a few months you will receive a certificate of registration.

Those who are both writers and recording artists may register their composition and the accompanying recording at the same time and for one fee by using Form SR. In that case, you would send your song on a phonorecord only.

Also use Form SR to register sound recordings only (ideal for performers who don't write their own music). The application process and the fee per submission are the same as for musical compositions. Remember that the material you send for a sound recording must be a phonorecord and can't be a manuscript or audiovisual work such as a movie, music video or other multimedia format.

More tomorrow...

More Cost-Saving Strategies

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You can decrease your cost per song by registering multiple songs at once as a collection, paying a single fee for the entire lot. For example, the title of your collection might be "Collection of Songs From Tennessee: 1. I Love You Dearly, 2. Baby, Don't Leave Me, 3. I Hate You For Leaving,"where the collection's title is arbitrary and followed by the tiltes of each song you want to register. The Copyright Office recently announced its intention to charge a fee of $1 per title for electronic claims and $3 per title for paper claims listing titles of individual works in song collections. This isn't simply price grouping on the part of the Copyright Office; the additional fees help pay for keeping track of individual songs in a collection so they will show up in a database search. That way, someone won't have to know a song collection's provisional title in order to locate an included song's copyright owner. Current copyright fees are listed at www.copyright.gov/docs.

MasterWriter (www.masterwriter.com) offers its Web-based Songuard service as an alternative means of protecting your songs at greatly reduced cost. When you buy MasterWriter software, which is an outstanding songwriting application (see the review in the April 2004 issue at emusician.com), you get a free one-year subscription to the Songuard service; the fee for the service is $30 annually after the first year. Songuard registers and stores the date of creation of your song's melody and lyrics on the company's server. That's useful in protecting a song in it's development stage. Once the song is published, however, there are important benefits to registering it with the Copyright Office, including the right to be re-imbursed for attorneys' fees in a successful copyright-infringement proceeding.

Songs that were previously registered with the Copyright Office when they were unpublished need not be registered again after publication. However, you will need to deposit two complete phonrecords of the published sound recording's "best edition," along with any phonorecord packaging, with the Copyright Office. (Go to www.copyright.gove for more information.) If this isn't done withinh theree months of publication, you'll be levied a hefty fine. It's a silly, antiquated requirement, but it's the law. Songs available only as internet downloads are currently exempt from this requirement.

To run a smooth operation, you'll need to maintain a modest inventory for your company. Obviously, you'll need business letterhead and either custom mailing labels or preprinted mailers that include your company's logo and address. For making copies of your song demos, you'll need blank CDs with printable surfaces and a color printer that can print directly on CDs. The printer will likely come with software you can use to develop a template file for printing song titles and contact information on your CDs and importing your company's logo as a background graphic. Don't use CD labels--if they are applied out-of-round to your CDs, the disc won't play on some players. Buy extra ink tanks or cartridges before you run out. And keep a good supply of slimline CD cases or clamshells on hand for securing your CDs inside mailers.

Print several lyric sheets for each song in your catalog so you'll always have them on hand for urgent mailings. Lyrics should also be stored in electronic form so you can quickly paste them into emails when sending MP3's to industry contacts.

We will discuss the topic of Demo Production tomorrow...

I am overwhelmed by the amount of emails coming in from all of regarding this series. If there is a topic in the music industry you want to further discuss, please continue to feed us the topics. We will review them and discuss them based on your demands.