How to Copyright a Song

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I'm just compiling the information available on the Web for those who want to copyright their songs.  When you Google "How to copyright a song", you immediately get a whole lot of links from those who want to offer you their services to help you do this.  However, the present legal climate is friendly towards holders of intellectual property; a little too friendly, as I have said before.  To not run away with a story or a piece of music or a piece of art as soon as it is made public is a social agreement; the laws are not derived from the principles of natural justice, but carefully put in place by the Constitution to give inventors and creators some degree of encouragement, a lot less encouragement than they are interested in acquiring.  As said before, copyright for books was severely limited initially, but was gradually increased by pressure from lobbyists for such corporations as Disney and various Hollywood studios and media companies.

1. First of all, Wikihow states that
"Under international law, copyright is the automatic right of the creator of the work, this means that copyright exist as soon as you have a tangible version of the music, such as sheet music and/or CDs."

In other words, if you've written a song and recorded it on tape, or had someone videotape you singing it, the song is yours.  The copyrighting is a procedure to deposit the song with the Federal Government, which simply acts as a fair witness, it seems to me (much like making an entry at a Police station that you have been robbed of such-and-such, so that if the stolen goods are subsequently found, you can establish that you declared them lost before credible witnesses, namely the Police).

The Website http://www.copyrightauthority.com/song-copyright.htm gives the following case study to illustrate the situation

[Taken verbatim from "www.copyrightauthority.com, with minor editorial changes]:

CASE STUDY: Imagine you were in the bathroom, and you sang a song to yourself that you made up on the fly. However, your flatmate was outside in the garden, and could hear your song. Whilst you were drying off from the shower, your flatmate writes down the song on paper in a tangible form. It is now copyrighted --and is his work-- since he wrote it down first.

HOWEVER, you don't know that he heard the song. What YOU do is write the song down and visit the copyright office and file a copyright on that song. The date and everything is recorded with that copyright filing.

[Two] years later, you have moved out of your flat, and are driving in the car with your partner.   On the radio is that very song that you made up in the shower - and the DJ announces your old flatmate's name [as being its composer].

You hunt down your old flatmate and he says to you "Yeah - it's your song - but look, I wrote it down first, so I own the copyright [to the song]," and he shows you the two year old piece of paper. It even says on it "Copyright 2003, FlatMate - All Rights Reserved".

The problem is (for your flatmate) that he cannot prove when he wrote it.   YOU, however, have an official US Copyright Office filing, which shows the date, time and content of the song. The fact that your flatmate lived with you and could have heard the song and copied it, sticks out like a sore thumb.

You are now in the winning position, with the backing of the US Copyright Office to take him to court.   All HE has, is a piece of paper that he wrote on.  [He has] no evidence that he created the song before you or that he copyrighted the music before you did.  What you have done --by taking the proper procedures to copyright music-- is win through using the correct procedure. END OF CASE STUDY

2. The Federal Government has set up a website called Electronic Copyright Office(eCO).  Those who want to copyright creations that are completely digital, or which only require references (rather than actual materials) can be copyrighted at this site.  In order to do this, you have to set up an account (no cost), connected to an e-mail address.  Once you have done this, you can take your time over a particular application.  (However, apparently they threw out all incomplete applications at the end of December 2009, and can be expected to toss incomplete applications intermittently.)

Since using this site helps the Government just as much as it helps us, the fee is reduced from the usual $45 per item down to a low, low $35.

More later, as we figure this out!

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