How to Copyright ©

It’s important to get your music registered with the US Copyright office. In the unfortunate instance that someone copies your song and makes a profit, you should be able to get some of that money! It’s not hard. At Copyright.gov you can register each song individually so the Library of Congress lists each song title next to your birth name. It costs $35 for an electronic filing and $55 to file manually through a postal carrier.  The filing fee is per registration/application, meaning you pay the same for one song as you would for multiple songs.

Once your song is registered, it negates the worrying about someone stealing your ideas and claiming it as their own. If someone does that, gets a hit out of it and you’ve registered a copyright, you are going to smile all the way to the bank when the court awards you damages, which can be very high for copyright theft

Registering a copyright is not that difficult, but the technical language can make it feel it bit cumbersome, but there are tools that will help you through the process. (Electronic Copyright tutorial pdf). The online process does walk you step-by-step through filling out the document, but even so, take your time. Carefully read the help links provided each step of the way. If you do that, it will help you understand what information goes where. I’d recommend that you take a look before you start the process to familiarize yourself with it.

A few tips that I think might help: Register your music as a “sound recording” this type of registration includes not only the performance, but the underlying music itself. Under “Title of Work” add the name of your CD first and set the “Type” as “Title of work being registered.” Then list your song titles and set the “Type” for those as “Contents Title.” So the album name is the “Title,” the individual songs are the “Contents.” If you have cover songs, (duplications or a remake of a song that’s already been published and preformed by another artist) on your album, you’ll exclude those under the “Limitation of Claim” section. For example, if track 7 on your CD is a cover tune, under “Material Excluded” check the boxes for “Music” and “Lyrics” (if you have lyrics) and then in the space for “Other” indicate “Track 7.” Then under “New Material Included” check all the boxes and under “Other” list the track numbers for your original songs. So here you specify what tracks to exclude for copyright registration (because they belong to someone else) and which tracks to register under your own name. If all the songs on your album are original, you can skip this section entirely.

Once you have filled out the form and verified all your information, add it to your cart and submit your payment. You’ll receive an email with instructions on how to print out your registration and mail it in with copies of your CD. You can also upload the files digitally, if you prefer.

Registering your work for copyright grants you these exclusive rights:

• The right to make copies and duplicate your CD
• The right to distribute your music
• The right to prepare derivative works (alternate versions, new arrangements)
• The right to perform the songs publicly
• The right to display the product publicly
• The right to perform publicly via digital audio transmission.
• If registration is made within three months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney’s fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.