Poor Man`s Copywrite....

[JohnZ]

Originally Posted by Chicago Sandy

"I'm not a lawyer, but I pl....." No, wait, I AM a lawyer! Your testimony (and that of your friends and anyone who's heard you perform the song) may or may not work in court, but that envelope sure as heck won't. In fact, it might not even be admitted into evidence. And in order to register your work (online, for free) with your performing rights org. for royalties, you need either a US Copyright Office Registration No, or a pending registration, citing the date you sent it to the Copyright Ofice.

I think Bob W.'s suggestion to spread the thirty bucks' cost (actually, $35) amongst you and your friends is spot-on.

In 35 + years of songwriting I've yet to hear of a successful defense of a poor man's copyright. Doesn't mean it has never happened, but I've never heard of it. Notarized lyrics with a date may have a chance but I'd trust registration a lot more.

Use the © symbol freely, you have a right to do so with or without registration. Fees are still $30 to register.

[ME@VT]

In Engineering, we use an Engineering Sketch book. When we have an idea for something, we can sketch it, write details, thoughts, and anything else that comes out in the writing/drawing/invisioning session. We then Sign and date the page and cross out all extra space on the sheet of paper so that nothing else can be added. If this is very important we can have another person sign and date the page... in my case a professor.

The point of the book, as expressed by my Engineering Design and Economics Professor (and holder of many singular and team patents for her company, Electro Tech), is it is PROOF of intelectual property. By signing and Dating, and getting another person to co-sign and date, it prooves without a doubt that the design and spec's for your project were from your mind, and they were concieved on a particular date. This CAN and IS used in a court (from what I understand) if, say, two people "simultaneously" come up with the same idea. This book prooves which person had the thought a little before or after the other.

That being said... I do not understand why the "Poor Man's Copywrite" would not be able to help proove the date in which a song, intellectual property, was concieved.

Hmmmm. Anyone got an answer?

Thanks,

Devon

[cocobolo_guy]

Thanks for the great info,I`m going to register asap,a friend suggested the pmc as an effort to protect my music until it is copywrited.thanks everyone.BK

[JohnZ]

Originally Posted by cocobolo_guy

Thanks for the great info,I`m going to register asap,a friend suggested the pmc as an effort to protect my music until it is copywrited.thanks everyone.BK

Go to their site and follow instructions and send your stuff in and don't expect to hear from them anytime soon with a PA number. About 6 months. Figure your registration date to be about 5 working days from the day you sent in the material. Also, they're nuking the heck out of everything that comes in now and a CD burned at 1x has a better survival rate.

Good luck

[Heliman]

Also, make sure the material you copyright is of monumental importance:



This was some of the mischief I created while a grad student at N. C. State.

Respectfully yours,

Heliman

[jastevens]

Originally Posted by ME@VT

The point of the book, as expressed by my Engineering Design and Economics Professor (and holder of many singular and team patents for her company, Electro Tech), is it is PROOF of intelectual property. By signing and Dating, and getting another person to co-sign and date, it prooves without a doubt that the design and spec's for your project were from your mind, and they were concieved on a particular date.

Sorry (and no offense), but that book doesn't PROVE anything. I could take every design in that book, copy it verbatim and then sign and date it myself (with an earlier date of course). Now we only have two people's words to go by. In fact I could take my copies of your book and send it in for registration... since yours aren't legally documented, my copyright would be granted. If you protested I would simply say that you copied my work and falsified the date. In a court of law... I would most likely win.

Originally Posted by ME@VT

That being said... I do not understand why the "Poor Man's Copywrite" would not be able to help proove the date in which a song, intellectual property, was concieved.

I think Sandy made this pretty clear earlier. ANYONE can steam open an envelope, thusly invalidating the dating of the envelope. Without a verified date it is useless.

Sorry if I sound like I'm making a big deal of this, but spreading the "PMC" myth only serves to hurt legitimate artists.

[ME@VT]

I could take every design in that book, copy it verbatim and then sign and date it myself (with an earlier date of course).

Thus the reason for keeping it guarded.

Devon

[randyfromde]

Thus the reason for keeping it guarded.

If that was the case, then why do the whole signature bit?

[utah]

I wrestled with this issue myself when I first started writing and recording my songs.

And, I decided to skip it. The odds of someone stealing a song and then it becoming a hit are so remote, it hardly seems worth it. There are so many professional songwriters that have difficulty getting their songs recorded, I figure the odds of myself having a copyright infringement issue is about zero.

I do copyright my mp3's and encode them with dates, artist and composer info etc. Well, they are copyrighted at that point. Just not registered.

I suppose if I hear a song of mine on the radio someday by someone else who stole it...I will regret not spending $30. But, really...

what are the odds of it happening?

[beach bob]

Veddy interesting discussion...

I don't think MT's engineering design analogy is really all that useful for the PMC / music copyright registry issues. In that case, basically the dates & sigs are used to protect your work from others that may see it, i.e., coworkers / students / profs. So there's a very select group that one would be attempting to protect that work from, since the work remains unpublished (& unavailable to the vast majority). Should some part of that work be made public in a trade / professional journal, it would be prudent to register it before it goes to print.

OTOH, with music, it's there to be presented to others in performance, download, etc etc. so the need to register is much greater...


Indulge me in the following lyric... it loses something w/o Tom's hilarious Russian accented delivery, but the gist hopefully still comes across:

Lobachevsky - Tom Lehrer

Who made me the genius I am today,
The mathematician that others all quote,
Who's the professor that made me that way?
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat.

One man deserves the credit,
One man deserves the blame,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach-

I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics:
Plagiarize!

Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize -
Only be sure always to call it please 'research'.

And ever since I meet this man
My life is not the same,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach-

I am never forget the day I am given first original paper
to write. It was on analytic and algebraic topology of
locally Euclidean parameterization of infinitely differentiable
Riemannian manifold.
Bozhe moi!
This I know from nothing.
But I think of great Lobachevsky and get idea - ahah!

I have a friend in Minsk,
Who has a friend in Pinsk,
Whose friend in Omsk
Has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk.
His friend in Alexandrovsk
Has friend in Petropavlovsk,
Whose friend somehow
Is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk.

And when his work is done -
Ha ha! - begins the fun.
From Dnepropetrovsk
To Petropavlovsk,
By way of Iliysk,
And Novorossiysk,
To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk
To Tomsk to Omsk
To Pinsk to Minsk
To me the news will run,
Yes, to me the news will run!

And then I write
By morning, night,
And afternoon,
And pretty soon
My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed,
When he finds out I publish first!

And who made me a big success
And brought me wealth and fame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach -

I am never forget the day my first book is published.
Every chapter I stole from somewhere else.
Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.
This book was sensational!
Pravda - well, Pravda - Pravda said: (Russian double-talk)
It stinks.
But Izvestia! Izvestia said: (Russian double-talk)
It stinks.
Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva buys movie rights for six million rubles,
Changing title to 'The Eternal Triangle',
With Brigitte Bardot playing part of hypotenuse.

And who deserves the credit?
And who deserves the blame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!

[cpmusic]

Originally Posted by bkc56

I too had a bunch of songs to register and I looked into sending them all in for one fee. What I discovered is when you do that you're registering the collection not the individual songs. That is, you're registering that particular set of songs in that particular order (much like a performance). But you are not registering (protecting) the individual songs.

This is not true. In fact, you are copyrighting all the individual songs.

The problem with registering a collection is that the collection's name is what gets entered in the Copyright Office's database, so a search in that database for an individual title will not turn up positive results. This doesn't mean that you have less protection, but as I understand it, it does mean that someone else could play innocent because they couldn't find the title, and therefore not be found guilty. I would expect that they still have to give you credit and pay royalties, but I don't think you can sue for damages beyond that. (Sandy, help me out here?)

I don't know how much it helps, but when I published a collection, I put the collection's title at the bottom of every page, along with the copyright notice and page number. That way, if someone makes a photocopy, the collection title goes with it.

BTW, to copyright a collection, you must be the sole copyright owner of every item in that collection, and I think you might also need to be the sole author.

[cpmusic]

Beach Bob, thanks for the post. That song is a gem, and it always comes to mind when people talk about copyrights. I think Lehrer credits Danny Kaye for dialectic inspiration.

"...only be sure always to call it please 'research'." Too much!

[beach bob]

Originally Posted by cpmusic

I think Lehrer credits Danny Kaye for dialectic inspiration.

Yep. I left out the transcribed intro which mentions Danny Kaye... it's from a live concert reissue of the original 10" vinyl release. Great stuff indeed

[JohnZ]

Originally Posted by cpmusic

This is not true. In fact, you are copyrighting all the individual songs.

The problem with registering a collection is that the collection's name is what gets entered in the Copyright Office's database, so a search in that database for an individual title will not turn up positive results. This doesn't mean that you have less protection, but as I understand it, it does mean that someone else could play innocent because they couldn't find the title, and therefore not be found guilty. I would expect that they still have to give you credit and pay royalties, but I don't think you can sue for damages beyond that. (Sandy, help me out here?)

I don't know how much it helps, but when I published a collection, I put the collection's title at the bottom of every page, along with the copyright notice and page number. That way, if someone makes a photocopy, the collection title goes with it.

BTW, to copyright a collection, you must be the sole copyright owner of every item in that collection, and I think you might also need to be the sole author.

That's exactly right. Registration of a compilation protects an individual song, although it would not be listed as such on their site, it'll be the title of the compilation.

Though I have songs registered both ways, I tend to go the compilation route in batches of 30 songs or so in chronological order and get the rather unexciting names of 'Green Book', 'Orange Book', 'Red Book', etc.

Lately I've been writing songs about California's history and developing them into a book/cd format, which is new territory. My read on it is to separately register the text and music.

[bkc56]

Originally Posted by randyfromde

This doesn't sound right to me.

You're right. I went and checked and I got "collection" and "composition" confused. The later is what I was remembering.

Oh well, I still did all my songs individually.