Copyright is a form of legal protection that grants to artist, authors, musicians, and others certain rights in their original creations. This includes literary works, musical works, dramatic works, pictorial, graphic and sculptural works, motion pictures, sound recordings, and architectural works. Copyright only protects original forms of written or recorded expression, it does not protect ideas or concepts.
Copyright generally belongs to the “author” of the work, which was be more than one individual. Two or more songwriters who collaborated on a work will co-own the copyright in the song.
Under United States Copyright law, a musical work is protected by law and inures to the benefit of the authors once it has been “fixed in a tangible medium from which it may be reproduced.” What this means, is that once a writer “records” the work into a media from which it can be reproduced in his absence, it is copyrighted. Examples of this “fixing” would be writing down words and notes on a piece of paper, or even singing a melody and into a recorder.
The filing of a completed copyright form along with a copy of the work fixed in a “tangible media” with the U.S. Copyright Office is a formality with many significant benefits. But the failure to do so does not mean that an author does not own the copyright and the rights attendant thereto. Your copyright exists from the instant you “fix it,” from the moment you put it onto paper, tape, sticks, etc.
There is no time limit after creation when a work can be registered. So if you wrote a song 25 years ago and never registered it with the copyright office, and someone just got a tape of it and put it in a film without your permission, you could presently register the song, and then sue for infringement. But if your evil brother-in-law Smedley copyrighted the song 20 years ago without your knowledge, listing himself as the owner and writer, then you’d have a hard (but not necessarily impossible) time convincing a court that you are the rightful owner and claimant, and entitled to damages and other compensation from the film company.
Songs are registered in the copyright office on what is called a PA form. “PA” stands for “performing arts,” and includes not only musical works, but also dramatic works, motion pictures and other audio-visual works. The charge for a PA copyright is currently $30, and also requires a deposit be made of the work as fixed in its tangible media.
There exists another type of copyright, an SR copyright, which is used to copyright sound recordings. According to the copyright office: “Sound recordings are ‘works that result from the fixation of a series of musical, spoken, or other sounds, but not including the sounds accompanying a motion picture or other audiovisual work.’
Links:
How to Register A Copyright:
