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Message |
Scott Dorsey
Guest
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 Posted:
Sat Nov 12, 2005 12:55 am Post subject:
Re: - Copyrighting your songs... best way? |
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Gregor <jiff@nospam.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Michael J. Anthony wrote:
In article <43738d07$1_2@x-privat.org>, nospam@thanks.com says...
I write songs that are so bad that no one would steal them.
You got a lyric there. Run with it! ;-)
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I write the songs that make my agent cry,
I write the songs that nobody will buy
I write the songs, I write the songs.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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Malachi
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Nov 12, 2005 1:00 am Post subject:
Re: - Copyrighting your songs... best way? |
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You'd better register that before it shows up on a Brittany Spears CD.
malachi
"Scott Dorsey" <kludge@panix.com> wrote in message
news:dl2pfq$591$1@panix2.panix.com...
| Quote: | Gregor <jiff@nospam.com> wrote:
Michael J. Anthony wrote:
In article <43738d07$1_2@x-privat.org>, nospam@thanks.com says...
I write songs that are so bad that no one would steal them.
You got a lyric there. Run with it! ;-)
I write the songs that make my agent cry,
I write the songs that nobody will buy
I write the songs, I write the songs.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
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Time Traveler
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Nov 12, 2005 1:13 am Post subject:
Re: - Copyrighting your songs... best way? |
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For some reason, on Friday 11 November 2005 10:01, jaynews said:
| Quote: | It would cost you more to have every page notarized than copyright
registration fees, wouldn't it?
No, my bank has a notary that will do this for free.
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If you care about your work you'll *just* *copyright* *it.*
--
_____ _ _____ _
|_ _(_)_ __ ___ ___ |_ _| __ __ ___ _____| | ___ _ __
| | | | '_ ` _ \ / _ \ | || '__/ _` \ \ / / _ \ |/ _ \ '__|
| | | | | | | | | __/ | || | | (_| |\ V / __/ | __/ |
|_| |_|_| |_| |_|\___| |_||_| \__,_| \_/ \___|_|\___|_|
Where words fail, music speaks.
- Hans Christian Andersen |
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Malcolm Dew-Jones
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Nov 12, 2005 1:21 am Post subject:
Re: How about this....www.protectmywork.com |
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jaynews (jaynews@verizon.net) wrote:
: This is a service that will serve as an independent witness to protect your
: copyright. "Only $35 p.a. membership & $1.85 per submission thereafter"
: http://www.protectmywork.com/index.php?country=usa
What if www.protectmywork.com is no longer on line in ten years time?
It would be much cheaper to simply encode your song and then post it in
some inoculous note somewhere on usenet.
alt.pictures.cows
"Hello, this is a picture of milk".
milk.gif
(But in fact it is base64 of text of your song).
That would be particularly easy for lyrics, but would be easy enough for a
melody using ABC notation.
Google will archive the message, and thereby provide a third party time
stamp of when the the song was created. A consistent use of such a
technique over the years with your name visible would prove ownership of
the messages.
I am not recommending this method, simply pointing out that it would be
cheaper and likely just as good.
$0.10 |
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hank alrich
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Nov 12, 2005 2:57 am Post subject:
Re: - Copyrighting your songs... best way? |
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jaynews wrote:
| Quote: | Why not just properly register your copyright?
I'd imagine that the odds are HIGHLY in favor of copyright registration
being a waste of money for most aspiring songwriters. Probably in most
cases, the songwriter never makes any money off of the song, and nobody
steals the song either. Some banks offer a notary public service for free.
I'm thinking that getting a Notary Public to notarize a lead sheet and
Affidavit of Authorship for FREE would protect one's work and would beat
the living heck out of flushing $30 down the toilet (which is what the
majority of aspiring songwriters likely are doing).
|
So decide whether or not you are serious about professional songwriting.
If so, follow the mandated procedure to obtain a proper copyright. If
not, do whatever and then don't complain when or if somebody rips it
off.
One can acquire a copyright on a collection that includes a lot of
songs, and then get individual copyrights as need is anticipated. That
route provides incontravertible evidence of one's authorship claim(s).
If you follow any other procedure, whether or not it will hold in court,
in order to recover court costs and attorney's fees from the
ripper-offers you will still need to be holding a valid copyright in
order to avail yourself of the terms of the law. In the meantime, the
ripper-offers are earning on your account (and you won't get back the
interest they earned on your money), and you are paying a lot of extra
legal bills you could have avoided by just getting a copyright in the
first place.
In the stated case the writer's costs for having copyrighted the song
would have paled against his revenues. Now he's also out whatever it
cost to contend the issue, and lose.
That said, if he did write the song, then Ms. Spears and her handlers
would be absolute slime, sucking blood from another's work without just
compensation.
--
ha |
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Mike Rivers
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Nov 12, 2005 3:19 am Post subject:
Re: - Copyrighting your songs... best way? |
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Malcolm Dew-Jones wrote:
| Quote: | She can't "obtain a copyright" to someone else's song, she can only
"steal" the song.
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And apparently the court said that she didn't. My question, which
probably nobody here can answer, is whether the song that she recorded
was indeed the same song that someone else claimed was his, or had a
similar melody, or a phrase in common. Or was it different but
obviously derivitive? Might she have heard the other person's song? Did
he send her a demo? Did she hear him at a coffee house?
Or did he just hear her recording, say "hey, that sounds a little like
a song I wrote" and without having any knowledge of the Britney Spears
Music Machine (other than that they have a lot of money) decided to
sue?
| Quote: | Her songs are pretty bland, from what little I've heard. There are
thousands upon thousands of bland slightly melodic songs hanging around
that all sound very much the same as each other.
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Hence my question. |
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Mike Rivers
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Nov 12, 2005 3:23 am Post subject:
Re: How about this....www.protectmywork.com |
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Malcolm Dew-Jones wrote:
| Quote: | I am not recommending this method, simply pointing out that it would be
cheaper and likely just as good.
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Yeah, just as good as any other method than using the official
copyright registration procedure.
Has anyone ever won an ownership case based on a registered letter or
Internet posting?
Has anyone ever won an ownership case based on a properly executed
copyright registration? |
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Malcolm Dew-Jones
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Nov 12, 2005 3:24 am Post subject:
Re: - Copyrighting your songs... best way? |
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Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com) wrote:
: Malcolm Dew-Jones wrote:
: > She can't "obtain a copyright" to someone else's song, she can only
: > "steal" the song.
: And apparently the court said that she didn't. My question, which
: probably nobody here can answer, is whether the song that she recorded
: was indeed the same song that someone else claimed was his, or had a
: similar melody, or a phrase in common. Or was it different but
: obviously derivitive?
I do not think the Judge would simply dismiss the case if the claims
looked like there was any chance they were valid. At that stage the Judge
doesn't care about technicalities such as copyright regitration, but only
on the various bits of evidence provided - basically the judge is looking
for obvious BS and tossing it out.
Therefore, by dismissing the case the Judge is telling us that the guy was
full of it.
So the question is whether you trust the judge (indeed the "system" as a
whole). Either you trust the judge in which case you "know" the songs
were different, or you think the system sucks and worry that some poor
song writer got ripped off by the rich kid.
It would be interesting to hear both songs side by side. |
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Wilbur Slice
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Nov 12, 2005 4:29 am Post subject:
Re: - Copyrighting your songs... best way? |
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On 11 Nov 2005 14:24:17 -0700, yf110@vtn1.victoria.tc.ca (Malcolm
Dew-Jones) wrote:
| Quote: | Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com) wrote:
: Malcolm Dew-Jones wrote:
: > She can't "obtain a copyright" to someone else's song, she can only
: > "steal" the song.
: And apparently the court said that she didn't. My question, which
: probably nobody here can answer, is whether the song that she recorded
: was indeed the same song that someone else claimed was his, or had a
: similar melody, or a phrase in common. Or was it different but
: obviously derivitive?
I do not think the Judge would simply dismiss the case if the claims
looked like there was any chance they were valid. At that stage the Judge
doesn't care about technicalities such as copyright regitration, but only
on the various bits of evidence provided - basically the judge is looking
for obvious BS and tossing it out.
Therefore, by dismissing the case the Judge is telling us that the guy was
full of it.
So the question is whether you trust the judge (indeed the "system" as a
whole). Either you trust the judge in which case you "know" the songs
were different, or you think the system sucks and worry that some poor
song writer got ripped off by the rich kid.
It would be interesting to hear both songs side by side.
|
This is Britney Spears we're talking about. And a guy who says he
wrote a song that sounds just like a Britney Spears song. So I
imagine it wouldn't be THAT interesting to hear the songs side by
side. |
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Elmer Tiberius Fudd
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Nov 12, 2005 5:42 am Post subject:
Re: - Copyrighting your songs... best way? |
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Wilbur Slice <wilbur@wilburslice.com> had a hissy fit and proceeded to
hunt'n'peck news:fn6an11blc8sf2tn1upct636qk09mo1cle@4ax.com:
| Quote: | This is Britney Spears we're talking about. And a guy who says he
wrote a song that sounds just like a Britney Spears song. So I
imagine it wouldn't be THAT interesting to hear the songs side by
side.
|
Isn't "Oops, I Did it Again" just a re-working of "Baby, One More Time"?
=;þ
--
___ __ __ __ __ ___ ___
( \ ( )( \/ ) ___ ( )( _)( \
) ) ) )( ) ( (___) __)( ) _) ) ) )
(___/ (__)(_/\/\_) (___/ (___)(___/
Elmer Tiberius Fudd <-- He's dim, Jed...
remove STUPIDITY to reply, however, STUPIDITY was engaged when send button
was pressed |
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Tommy B
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Nov 12, 2005 8:31 pm Post subject:
Re: - Copyrighting your songs... best way? |
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"That said, if he did write the song, then Ms. Spears and her handlers would
be absolute slime, sucking blood from another's work without just
compensation"
WOW!!! THAT WOULD BE A FIRST!!!!!!!!!
tom |
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musea/Tom Hendricks/H&PD
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Nov 12, 2005 11:07 pm Post subject:
Re: - Copyrighting your songs... best way? |
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zuuum wrote:
| Quote: | Several songs con be copyrighted as a single "work" which cannot be copied
in whole OR in part. This is not intended for "albums" at all. It can be
any body of work, such as an opera. One could compile a single work of
their entire life's songwriting output, or a decade or a year, or while you
were in a particular location. As stated below, one does not have to notate
works that are submitted, as there are sound recordings which could never be
transcribed as musical staff notation.
|
I agree with zuuum. This is the way to go. I copyright 50 or 60 songs
at a time. I label them group #__ .
I've copyrighted over 1200 songs that way. For us songwriters, its
the best protection for little price.
Tom Hendricks,
ed. of Musea
Come visit at:
hunkasaurus.com (music only)
musea.us (the works on all art and media) |
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Malcolm Dew-Jones
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Nov 13, 2005 12:31 am Post subject:
Re: - Copyrighting your songs... best way? |
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Green/Pace (1wise@earthlink.net) wrote:
: If you don't have your songs registered, most judges if any, will not hear
: your case.
In US and Canada they won't ever hear your case if the song is not
registered. That is one of the reasons for registering. From the court's
point of view registering your song is just one of many forms that must be
filled in if you wish to go to court, no different than signing your name
in the correct space, or filling in the correct date.
You can register the song at any time, including the day before if you
wanted.
HOWEVER, the legal problem is that you can't sue the person for things
that happened before the song was registered. So, for example, if they
had a hit last year with your song, and you register it this year, then
you lose all sorts of money from last year _even if you prove they stole
the song_!
(That is not 100% accurate, but you do lose _most_ of the money you could
have gotten from them, I forget the exact details).
The date of the registration is just as important as any thing else about
the registration. |
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Green/Pace
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Nov 13, 2005 12:50 am Post subject:
Re: - Copyrighting your songs... best way? |
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If you don't have your songs registered, most judges if any, will not hear
your case. If you have registered songs & you win, then they have to pay
your legal fees, plus what they have made.
Go to the copyright office url for more info. You can register unlimited
"non published" songs. $30.00. Got my registration for 30 songs back in 3
weeks.
Texas Blue
| Quote: |
"hank alrich" <walkinay@thegrid.net> wrote in message |
news:1h5uzd1.9qa3bb1iz0u32N%walkinay@thegrid.net...
| Quote: | jaynews wrote:
Why not just properly register your copyright?
I'd imagine that the odds are HIGHLY in favor of copyright registration
being a waste of money for most aspiring songwriters. Probably in most
cases, the songwriter never makes any money off of the song, and nobody
steals the song either. Some banks offer a notary public service for
free.
I'm thinking that getting a Notary Public to notarize a lead sheet and
Affidavit of Authorship for FREE would protect one's work and would beat
the living heck out of flushing $30 down the toilet (which is what the
majority of aspiring songwriters likely are doing).
So decide whether or not you are serious about professional songwriting.
If so, follow the mandated procedure to obtain a proper copyright. If
not, do whatever and then don't complain when or if somebody rips it
off.
One can acquire a copyright on a collection that includes a lot of
songs, and then get individual copyrights as need is anticipated. That
route provides incontravertible evidence of one's authorship claim(s).
If you follow any other procedure, whether or not it will hold in court,
in order to recover court costs and attorney's fees from the
ripper-offers you will still need to be holding a valid copyright in
order to avail yourself of the terms of the law. In the meantime, the
ripper-offers are earning on your account (and you won't get back the
interest they earned on your money), and you are paying a lot of extra
legal bills you could have avoided by just getting a copyright in the
first place.
In the stated case the writer's costs for having copyrighted the song
would have paled against his revenues. Now he's also out whatever it
cost to contend the issue, and lose.
That said, if he did write the song, then Ms. Spears and her handlers
would be absolute slime, sucking blood from another's work without just
compensation.
--
ha |
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Chel van Gennip
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Nov 13, 2005 5:04 am Post subject:
Re: - Copyrighting your songs... best way? |
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On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 19:50:37 +0100, Green/Pace wrote:
| Quote: | If you don't have your songs registered, most judges if any, will not
hear your case. If you have registered songs & you win, then they have
to pay your legal fees, plus what they have made. Go to the copyright
office url for more info. You can register unlimited "non published"
songs. $30.00. Got my registration for 30 songs back in 3 weeks. Texas
Blue
|
If you want to register many songs, they do accept data DVD's with WAV or
even MP3 files. Make shure you label the DVD right, to indicate it is a data
DVD and the file format. A printable or lightscribe DVD will give you a
reliable medium and label.
--
Chel van Gennip
Visit Serg van Gennip's site http://www.serg.vangennip.com |
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