The copyright law states that as soon as the song achieves some physical form, sheet music, CD, or digital form, it is protected by copyright.

But, the catch 22 is that without a registration of that copyright with the copyright office, you cannot sue for infringement.

I don't believe music has to have notice of copyright, it's copyrighted by default if in digital or material form.

Also, and collaborators take note, as soon as music and lyrics are in digital or material form, they are bound forever as a single creative work, unless.....
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by written agreement it states otherwise. THis is why I never collaborate with anyone without a collab agreement that states a permanent state of copyright only exists when I, myself, and no other person allowed to do it, registers it with the copyright office, and that any claim of binding lyric to music is waived until I register it with the copyright office, noting that I will provide the lyricist a PDF of the application for his acceptance of the application before I finalize the copyright. But, of course, if a famous lyricist wants me to put music to lyrics, he or she would be allowed to be in the driver's seat. It is my feeling that one of the two collaborators should be controlling the copyright account, otherwise it could be chaotic.

But, in the last decade or so, what I've been doing is creating the music/instrumental version of the song, ( while I hunt for a lyricist ) and I copyright the music, perhaps as "melody 45" etc, and when I do find a good lyric, I register the lyric ( where the lyricist is named "author" and 'claimant" and I'm not on the registration of the lyric at all ) and the music is excluded in the application.

That way, the lyricist cannot prevent me from finding a new lyricist if his lyrics hold the music down, I'm getting bad feedback from music industry types, etc. So, in this way, the song is a derivative copyright, i.e, there are two separate copyrights controlling the song.








Last edited by Pat Hardy; 10/14/19 09:14 PM.