Originally Posted By: Mike Halloran


Unpublished Works have two sets of rights: You can take action against plagiarism and you have the Right to the First Recording. Although you are protected from the date of creation and you are not required to register them, the problem is proving Authorship and Date of Creation. You can register up to 10 Works (not 20!) with the LOC on a Form PA or SR as Unpublished. There are 3rd party entities that let you do the same for a lower fee. You cannot protect your rights by mailing anything to yourself, aka the Poor Man's Copyright. It must be a 3rd party with no interest in the work and there are many out there—Google is your friend.


Thank you Mike, I really appreciate you sharing your expertise on the subject, very informative.

I have a few follow up questions, if that's OK:

1. I've heard a few music industry people (including a lawyer) state that you should copyright each song individually, for various reasons, including:

- Easier to manage the song, for licensing, etc. If it's within a catalog of 10 songs, if you want to license / sell that song, you have to sell / license the whole catalog. (I might be wrong on this, but this is what I understood from that conversation).

- If someone does plagiarize the song, the judge looks at the plagiarized snippet compared to the whole registered body of work. If it's a melody line, and only 1 song is registered, it's can be a large portion of the plagiarized work. However if that melody line is compared to the whole body of 10 songs, it could be considered a small part, and warrant a much smaller compensation for plagiarism, or be thrown out, etc. (Once again this is what I heard, I know I might be wrong).

Is this true, in your experience?

I'd much rather register in groups of 10, to save money, but this is what I have been told (ie register each song copyright individually).

2. I remember reading that with registering an unpublished copyright, one has 3 months from the date of registration to publish the work, otherwise they lose some sort of protection? Is that true?

Quote:


The Right to the First Recording is often overlooked. The second you make a work available to the Public, a song is Published (Public is the root of Published) and you lose this right—this includes posting to Facebook, Youtube. Soundcloud etc. unless your chanel is Private. Established songwriters can and do charge for that first recording if they can and, if that first artist never releases, they can charge someone else and so on. Songwriter Demos are not considered First Recording unless a rights holder posts it or includes it on a CD sold at a gig etc. Anyway, once a First Recording is released or otherwise Published, that right is gone.



Quote:

Many in the industry will not accept an unpublished Work (Songwriter demo, script, screenplay etc.) with any kind of Copyright notice on it. It is considered amateurish at best and a possible setup for a lawsuit at worst. Since copyright notices are not required, even if registered, don't make that mistake.


3. Another thing I'm confused about is this - so if pitching a song to a producer or publisher (with the intent of having another artist using it), it should not be copyrighted in any way, not even as an unpublished work? How does the Right to First Recording tie into that situation?