Funkworm
Master Beater
Here's an excerpt from a 2 part blog post about copyrighting. I'm always surprised at how so many artists misunderstand the process. Hope some find it useful.
Songwriters need to protect their work. You would not pitch your billion-dollar reality show to MTV without protecting it would you? Well maybe you would, but remember, when you record and send out samples of your songs they can be spread all over the world in the amount of time it takes to upload an MP3. That dude in Russia who wants that American pop sound can re-record your song and get his US partner (that he pays in petrodollars) to pay the $35 filing fee and register the song first with the US Copyright Office, and you are **** out of luck and out of a hit song. Sure you could try and sue some day when the song is a hit for Sergey Putin.
Just try and get a lawyer to represent you in a copyright claim using the CD of the song you mailed to yourself via U.S. post as evidence. If you came to me I would charge you a $10,000 retainer just to get started. That’s a bit more than the $35 filing fee, isn’t it? I would never take a case without copyright registration on spec or contingency fee as we call it, though artists and writers always try and get me to do so. Do you know why I won’t take it? Because without the official filed copyright form, registered with the copyright office you cannot get into federal court.
Read the rest of the article:
Songwriters need to protect their work. You would not pitch your billion-dollar reality show to MTV without protecting it would you? Well maybe you would, but remember, when you record and send out samples of your songs they can be spread all over the world in the amount of time it takes to upload an MP3. That dude in Russia who wants that American pop sound can re-record your song and get his US partner (that he pays in petrodollars) to pay the $35 filing fee and register the song first with the US Copyright Office, and you are **** out of luck and out of a hit song. Sure you could try and sue some day when the song is a hit for Sergey Putin.
Just try and get a lawyer to represent you in a copyright claim using the CD of the song you mailed to yourself via U.S. post as evidence. If you came to me I would charge you a $10,000 retainer just to get started. That’s a bit more than the $35 filing fee, isn’t it? I would never take a case without copyright registration on spec or contingency fee as we call it, though artists and writers always try and get me to do so. Do you know why I won’t take it? Because without the official filed copyright form, registered with the copyright office you cannot get into federal court.
Read the rest of the article:
