I have songs I want to collab with. Should I copyright them now or later?

Valentino1

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I have songs I want to collab with. Should I copyright them now or later? cause I want a producer to assist me.
 
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You should establish proof that the copyright of the song belongs to you first, before anyone else gets to hear it.

How to do this differs depending on what country you live in. I live in the UK and make sure that I have 2 secure methods of copyright proof per song before I use them.

Copyright theft of songs is rare but it is good to be safe.
 
Yeah, protect you intellectual property and get you copyrights before seeking out a collaboration project. You should read this.
 
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Establish copyright as soon as you're able to have your song in fixed, tangible form. Remember that there's SONGWRITING copyright and then there's RECORDING copyright and they're completely separate.
As far as songwriting goes, the only thing copyright-able is the lyrics and the melody that can be sung. Everything else is, unfortunately, unable to be protected by law (as far as songwriting goes.) Sound recordings (samples, etc) however, ARE copyrightable. This becomes copywritten as soon as its in fixed, tangible form. Registering your copyright just protects you from having to register it later. If its fixed and in tangible form and you can prove it, you can actually register your copyright AFTER filing a lawsuit (which is pretty much the only time you're ever going to worry about having a copyright.)

Hope this helps!
 
Also when I copyrighted the song it said something about a deposit shipping slip. What is it and what do I have to do?
 
You're going to have to deposit a recorded version of this in the library of congress, along with everything else that's ever been recored. They'll be sending you a slip for shipping with information on it. Just follow the directions when it arrives.

copyright.gov/eco/help-deposit.html

There's a little more information on the matter.
 
When it saids upload the file you can upload more then 1 can you copyright the lyrics and the audio at the same time?
 
You have to apply for the songwriting copyright and the audio recording copyright separately, they're separate files. The songwriting copyright can be attained with the same recording as the sound recording copyright, but can also be attained with sheet music, written lyrics, etc. If you're applying for a songwriting (c), be sure to include a written version of the lyrics and sheet music if you can produce it.
 
Copyright the recording. That means that if the song has lyrics on it they are protected as well. You upload a lot of songs, I'm not sure what the limit is though.

---------- Post added at 06:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:36 PM ----------

Copyright the recording. That means that if the song has lyrics on it they are protected as well. You upload a lot of songs, I'm not sure what the limit is though.

I say that because the dates of copyright are in stone once they hit the LBC. Nobody can dispute dates official date and time stamps.
 
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I'm gonna go ahead and tell you the easiest thing to do. If your an unestablished producer/artist and your just starting out. Seriously, don't even sweat copyrighting your stuff. Unless you seriously make some mean ass beats, or vocal tracks. To know if your making mean ass beats ask yourself how many copies of your work have you actually sold or are you just posting a video on youtube every week to get noticed. If your posting a youtube every week then more than likely you just make songs to improve, which is okay. I'm not saying that your a "loser" or "not good" but, you just seriously aren't good enough. If that's the case don't bother copyrighting your work. More then likely no one will want it and you'll just end up wasting money to copyright nothing. It's a rough thing to hear but, back in the day when I first started making beats everything was "The Shit" or "My Best Work" and now I look back on them and they are shit, and were my best work at the time. Hope this helps!

- Brian
 
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