Copyright, BMI, ASCAP - oh my!

[jeffrey]

As we're about to release our first CD (that's actually garnering quite a bit of interest already!) I have some concerns about a few things.

Is registering with BMI or ASCAP necessary or something you should really do as an artist? I read into both (to the best of my abilities) and it seems they do little more than collect royalties for airplay (of any sort). Not that it's a bad thing, but that's all I gathered from it. Currently we are getting regular airplay on one of the San Antonio radio stations (KISS 99.5).

It almost seems like a union from what I read, it reminds me a lot of the musician's union in New Orleans... I'm still unsure if it's worth it, however.

I read the information on the US Copyright site. Basically it says you are protected once it's recorded, but how secure is that? Should we copyright it or the name anyway? Hell, I don't even know how to copyright a name. I couldn't find any information on that specifically.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Thirdpole]

It must be similar to what we have here in Canada ... like you said, once it's recorded, it's protected.

One of the safe ways to guarantee security is that i mail a bundle of demo CD's to myself. This way i have the post office timestamp and i can prove that it was recorded by that date. I believe you are responsible for taking legal actions in case of infrigement, no one will take care of that for you ...

... well ...

.... maybe Cochran and his crack team of super lawyers ... The question is, can you afford them?

 

[Wide'Iwas]

Thirdpole ..is right that is called a poorman's copyright. Sending it to yourself with the postage as date of copyright!

Theres alot good books on this topic but as long as you have a (C) 2006 you are cool!

I never join ascap or anything they put a bad taste in my mouth after they started strong arm'ing pubs and clubs to pay lisence fee's for live music and raising the price year to year when its hard enough to get people out to see live music! Now the club owners have to pay more for a stupid sticker in the window!

 

[Tolerate]

From someone who is studying music business as part of my course. If I had music being played on radio, I would join a Collection Society. Why should the radio station not have to pay to play your songs that you have put so much hard work, effort and time into?

Same goes for pubs and clubs. Why should you provide their clientelle with entertainment and not get paid for it? Your music is providing these other companies a service, for which you are morally entitled to renumeration for.

Also, here in the UK (believe its the same in the USA, not sure) there are 3 types of Copyright. The music itself is copyrighted, which can be assigned to someone else (eg a record label), however the song need to be written down or recorded to be recognised as in copyright. The recording is copyrighted as soon as it is created, however, the owner of the recording copyright is granted to "the person by whom the arrangements necessary for making the recording or film are undertaken. So in other words, if you go to a studio to record as song, and the producer who you are paying to record it makes the arrangments of booking studio time, getting session players in etc, he will own the copyright of the recording, not you. lastly is the copyright on the performance of the music, which the artist always owns. By performance I don't mean, a performance on stage. It means the performance os the recorded material, that protects you for people being able to sample, for example, a bit of your recording without your permission.

Copyright is a lot more complicated than simply sending it to yourself, as there are already 3 copyrights in place before you have even put a stamp on the jiffy bag. And, people how sent items to themselves, have actually lost court cases. This technique doesn't guarentee proof of copyright, a better way is to keep all you work in progress material. Unfortunately, there is no guarenteed way of 100% prooving it, as law is all down to interpretation

 

[Colin]

I never join ascap or anything they put a bad taste in my mouth after they started strong arm'ing pubs and clubs to pay license fee's for live music and raising the price year to year when its hard enough to get people out to see live music! Now the club owners have to pay more for a stupid sticker in the window!

While the fee's do cover live music, it's more for commercial pre-recorded music. Not sure why you feel like you have a bad taste in your mouth for the club owners. The songwriters benefit from these fees.

 

[Wide'Iwas]

And hence the problem Why is there no fee to play a jukebox? thats the same thing! Its a double standard! A juke box is free but play it on a insturment and owners have pay a fee for live music. And secondly artists have record or cd's sales thats how they make there money now everytime some bloke plays it on a juke box in a pub do you think the artist gets paid? come back to reality!

 

[Tolerate]

like most things, USA has different laws than UK. In UK, you do pay to play songs on jukeboxs. andthe artist does get paid everytime its played on the jukebox, that is what the license fee is for.

on average, an artist gets paid about 10%-15% of the price the retailer (not you) pays for the record. most artists make there money, through merchendise, sync-ing to tv. Even the record labels that take beween 80% and 90% of the price of a cd say theres not much money to be made in music sales anymore

 

[adambilz]

I have recorded several albums and so far this is my experience: We finish the cd and any other ideas we have, put it on a disc and mail it to the US copyright artist as being our intellectual sound property (http://www.copyright.gov/). The application has the date and the stamp from the US office of copyright.
As far as ASCAP, I haven't looked into BMI but our application was sent back to us from ASCAP because we are not on a record label, so if you're on some type of label and you're already getting airplay I would say go for it. It can only help in the longrun.
Lastly, I could be wrong, but as far as your band name, I believe you need to patent that or trademark it, a copyright doesn't work for a name. That needs an entertainment lawyer of some kind if you are serious about it. I think the fee started at $300, but this was also a few years ago. There could be no fee now or it could have gone up, I'm just letting you know my experiences.
Hope any of this helps!

 

[jeffrey]

Thanks for all the replies guys, definately helping out. I really appreciate it!