John,

Actually that does not hold up any more. We have had a lot of discussions on that exact thing in Nashville by attorney's and other things.

google: Performing Songwriter Magazine/songwriter lawsuits. It should take you to the article from one of the issues last year, which outlines the ten most famous case and mentions changes in the copyright law, which has been updated lately.

In the past few years, NSAI, ASCAP, BMI, and other entities have been working on increasing the royalty rates from 9 cents to 10 cents per copy sold, addressing the licensing issues for digital downloads, ring tones, etc. and addressing the peer to peer and pirating issues. Much of this law has been re-written and new statues are constantly going into effect. You need to consult entities that deal with those issues mainly PROS, publishers, etc. Don't go get some divorce attorney to look over contracts, they are not suited or educated for that.

Basically if I could get people to spend ONE hour on writing better songs and building relationships, instead of focusing on the BIGGEST waste of time, which is copyright and registering non sense, I would have fulfilled my purpose in life.

Let's be real for a minute. Without some solid
networking connections, and real time relationships, your chance of getting anything even heard is not as good as being struck by lighting.

Your chances of getting a top level, writer, publisher, plugger, record exec, artist, is not as good as being struck by lighting in a submarine underwater. You can stick a lighting rod up your butt and stay in a basement, but it would be pretty unlikely you would need to.

If you have a web site, You Tube, My Space,Face book site, great. There are about five billion communications daily on the Internet. Building a billboard in your living room. You have to get people there.
That is why we don't worry about copyrights and such non-sense. You have all been finding out just what we are talking about. The copyright office, PRO's, publishers are all so backed up it gets years to work through this. They lose CD's from people they don't know.
As a publisher, plugger, record company, when you have two hundred songs on your desk you have to go through in two hours, another two hundred on your desk you have listened to and have to try to do something with and another 500 in a basket you are trying to throw away, and these are ALL from people you know who have referred them to you, you just ain't going to somebody's web site to hear their song. Period.
So my advice is get it out there, take your chances, suit up for the game. This is the real world. Trust me, nobody is stealing songs. That is non-sense passed around from people who are as clueless as you can imagine.

All that song theft non-sense would resonate with me if it wasn't some guy who lives with his mother and has never been outside of his living room, trying to sue someone like Jeffery Steele. Jeffery Steele is the top writer in Nashville. In six years he has had 800 cuts, 87 singles, 12 number ones. he has made the careers of Montgomery Gentry, Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, Faith Hill, Martina McBride, George Straight, and damn near every new artist that has come out in the past five years. Lately he has spent a lot of time in LA writing with Johnny Depp, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Costner and other Hollywood "A" Listers who are trying to be singers.
He writes two songs a day, and at any one time has between 20 and 30 cuts floating around out there, not to mention up and coming artists, every new one coming to him, every other hit writer trying to work with him, every record company after him to write with their current and future artists or to save an artist about to be dropped from their label.
He has been BMI's writer of the year multiple time and probably makes around 10 million dollars a year. Trust me, the practicioners of this art would not be up there if they had to steal ideas. They might get a chance but staying up there 6-7 years? Not a chance.

So before a lot of effort and money is expended protecting something, best make sure you have something worth protecting. And remember. you compete against people like myself and Rand, who do this every single day, run in the right circles and have sacrificed everything for this life. it is a pretty good one and we really do want all of you to see it. That is why we do what we do, and along the way if we have a service, book workshop,or song that you like, the more the better. But we do all of this because we care, and we want better writers. And because you ask questions, participate in discussions, and want to better yourself through things like this, you deserve it.

MAB