hey guys...does anybody here have personal experience with joining a publishing organization (like ASCAP) and with copyrighting their own works or ideas?

i'm been searching for info online, and even tho i've taken classes- all of it is not clear and i'm hoping one of you have done some of this...


i started a thread in the artist forum, but i guess no one there copyrights or handles the publishing for their own works


can any of you help?

SirPsycho said:

have u tried the ASCAP website they have some info. or the copyright office.

everytime you write something down it is copyrighted. are you talking bout a song?

missmad said:

yes i'm talking about the song...and i have looked into (and still am) those websites, i was just wondering who had personal experience

SirPsycho said:

ah ok, im not there yet sweets, love M

Anxiety should know something about publishing and copyrights, i remember hearing him talk about being a writer or something of the sort

I'm not sure if it's the same in the states as it is in Canada

BUT, i'm taking an Arts Management course, and if you txt me on Tuesday I can ask my professor what she knows about that kinda stuff

I've never copywritten anything myself, because the work I've done has always been copywritten by the publications I've worked for. I have used the commonlaw trademark for some of my artwork.

Here's some information that could be helpful to you until you can get an actual copy. I found it on wikipedia, but I remember learning it in Journalism school too.

"Poor man's copyright"
A widely circulated strategy to avoid the cost of copyright registration is referred to as the "poor man's copyright." It proposes that the creator send the work to himself in a sealed envelope by registered mail, using the postmark to establish the date. This technique has not been recognized in any published opinions of the United States courts. The United States Copyright Office makes clear that the technique is no substitute for actual registration.[8] The United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office discusses the technique but does not recommend its use.[9]

applekisses said:

Someone told me about that but they said I could e-mail myself my stuff

Alej said:

Oh, that's cool! I've never heard of that, but it sounds appropriate.

Creative Commons baby !

http://creativecommons.or...t/license/

1) As soon as you have "fixed" your work into a copy, e.g. recorded your song on tape or wrote the notes and lyrics down on paper, it is already copyright protected.

NO LEGAL NEED OR OBLIGATION to register it to have it copyright protected.

However, registering is helpfull in case you have to sue somebody (allows for statutory damages and attorney fees) or in case you need to prove that you created the work (first).

Go to http://www.copyright.gov/

and find out how to register your work with the US copyright office.

Your question is answered here:





BTW. names generally can not be copyrighted, but trademarked only.

2) ASCAP needs to know what songs you are the author of, or they can't collect and pay you the royalties. Joining ASCAP however only becomes really interesting when your work is played on the airwaves a lot. They use playlists of radio stations for example to assess how much your song has been publicly performed. They do NOT however have a transparant method to determine how much royalties you should get. It's basically a pretty "shadowy" organisation.

Go to www.ascap.com for more info, if the site works that is...

BTW you could also join BMI.

3) One word of advice: don't just sign anything they offer you, thinking you will lose that one big chance if you don't sign it. Study a contract carefully, get proper legal advice and don't sign when you know it's not what you want.

BlueZebra said:

Creative commons is not exactly meant for musicans, but sirpsycho, if you want to spread your work around the globe and see nothing in return but maybe the mention of your name, you should indeed use a creative common license.

But if you want to make some money off it and don't want others to fuck with your songs, like change it into something you don't like, then don't use their license examples.

Tremolina said:

a) Performers nowadays earn more with perfomances than with selling records, that's a hard fact.
b) The Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd) is as restrictive as it can get. It allows people to distribute the content in it's original form for non-commercial purposes and nothing else. Do you have a better promotional vehicle for your first step on the scene ? Enlighten me.

all of my poetry, etc...is copywritten. and i did it myself. you should check out their website. and the library of congress website.

BlueZebra said:

Uhm yeah sure, maybe, but the point was that if he does NOT want it to be spread around for free, he should not use it.


That all sounds great, but such a license does not give you any guarantee people won't fuck with your songs.