How to Copyright Music

Copyrighting music that you have composed ensures that no one will be able to claim and profit from your music but you, whether or not you ever publish the music. Learn how to copyright your music and protect your creation from being used for someone else's gain.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Record your music, whether by writing it down as sheet music or making a recording of it. This is technically all that needs to be done to secure a copyright. Registering your work with the Copyright Office isn't necessary, but does have certain advantages.

2. Register your copyright by submitting together in one envelope your completed application, filing fee and copy of the music you wish to copyright either in the form of sheet music or a recording to the Library of Congress Copyright Office. The copy of your music will be stored as a matter of public record.

3. Learn that by copyrighting your music through the Copyright Office, you gain the protection of the United States Customs Department from your work being imported illegally for someone else's gain. This falls under Intellectual Property Rights protection. The copyright owner must register their copyright with the U.S. Customs service.

4. Know that if you choose not to register your music, and you find someone else is profiting from it, you must register it with the Copyright Office before you can file a lawsuit. However, having your work registered before an infringement occurs entitles you to collect lawyer's fees and statutory damages, instead of just actual losses.

Tips & Warnings

• You can copyright a piece of music at any time. It does not have to be secured within a certain time frame of when it was created.

Who Can Help:

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Resources

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[DoctorSnot]

on 11/1/2008 Great Information!!!! I was advised to make a cd with as many of my song tracks on it and copyright the disc rather than copyrighting the songs individually (to save money) -is that really an effective means for protecting the songs? Also, does the format of the audio disc matter? (i.e. wave files, redbook format, mp3's?) I've tried to find these answers on copyright.gov with no luck. Anyway, Excellent Article!!!! Well Written!!!! 5 Stars!!!!

[XTC123]

on 9/1/2008 Re: Comment by MacKniven. Are you the owner of provemycopyright? As it states on that website, and in this article the only way to correctly register your work as copyright is to register it with the Library of Congress Copyright Office. The method outlined on the website provemycopyright is basically no different then registered mailing the material to your house as a form of copyright, and keeping the unopened mail as proof of ownership which is probably the better than relying on a website to do that for you. Also I feel it is hard to trust a website that claims a lifetime + 10 years for copyright concidering the domain name was only registered in July 2008, and expires in July 2009, as can be easily found on any domain whois search. I personally would not trust that method.

[MacKniven]

on 8/22/2008 This is good info, but would be expensive if you had lots of new creations to copyright. Also it only applies to Americans.

Most people would be able to use www.provemycopyright.com to be able to have third party proof of their ownership of copyright without having the hassle and delays of the US copyright service.

[thafinest793]

on 5/28/2008 Is that the only way to copyright? On an Acoustica Imix program, it says copyright and you can type in a name or something... can this be a form of copyrighting?