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Originally Posted by Winfred
Hi!
I write my own music, and I've played guitar and sang solo for 2 years at open mics. To my surprise people have been liking my songs a lot. I was on the fringe of arranging with coffeehouses to have me as a featured entertainer when CoVid19 happened. I still want to test my songs on listeners beyond the empathetic open mic type of audience.
I'm thinking of digging deep and buying for $200 a "Zoom 2qn 4K" small video camera designed for musicians and post my songs on YouTube. Does that mean facing a huge wall being an unknown? An idea... I also got a huge applause playing my version of "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell, and some other cover songs. Should I do that first to attract hits then post my originals?
Also, do I need to copyright my originals first before putting on YouTube? I hope to see if my music catches on and people buy my original songs on like Spotify. I hope, just a "maybe", I get at least a little pay, even $50 a month would help. I also like the feeling of others being happy hearing my music. Am I being unrealistic as I think for one to reach a level of renowned takes many years, right? Any advice or name of someone who would know would be much appreciated.
Carpe Diem! Winfred
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Good input so far > I will Back up a bit for some overall general perspective.
My guess is nobody "knows" about how to become "renowned" there is no one proven method . Other than understanding it will almost assuredly take a tremendous amount dedication, dogged persistence, hard work and YES will likely take years and will likely take some luck in the mix also , to become "known" .
That said: There is no reason not to pursue continuing to expand the methods you employ to get your music out . And Youtube is certainly one avenue.
As far as copyright ? As has been noted: In the US your original work is considered "legally copyrighted" as soon as you "affix it to any tangible medium" = written - audio - video, digital or analog .
However having it considered as "legally copyrighted" is not the same as registering that copyright with the copyright office.
So you do not need to register your work to be copyrighted no , but it does add an additional layer of proof of ownership. If you do decide to register it (Haven't done so in many years but) to save some money and time, you used to be able to, register a compilation of up to something like 10 songs at once.
So legally your songs are already "copyrighted" before you post them on Youtube. But you should probably also have the video include the date, and the text "All rights are reserved" in the intro.
Now as far as Youtube being a "huge wall of unknown" NO it is not a "wall" per se. but it is a "huge ocean" to be a single floating bit of driftwood, to actually be spotted in .
For perspective here is an excerpt from an article on the subject:
"More than 400 hours of footage is uploaded to YouTube every minute, and around five billion videos are watched daily on the world's biggest video-sharing platform. In 2014, the most-searched term on the site was music and music videos top the charts for popularity.Jun 25, 2018"