I had a young musician email me with this question:
“Hey, I just joined ASCAP – but I don’t know about copyrighting my songs and such. Help!”
CAVEAT: I’m no lawyer, and I’ve never played one on TV – but here’s my layman’s understanding of what he should do [and basically what I told him]
First, some BG info:
1) Copyright exists the moment a work is placed in a fixed form [i.e. written down]. REGISTERING the work with the copyright office gives you legal proof that will stand up in a court of law.
2) There are two parts of copyright. When a royalty is generated because of a “performance” of a piece – 50% goes to the WRITER, and 50% to the PUBLISHER.
3) You’ll read about a variety of LICENSES that can be granted [mechanical, compulsory, etc] – they all boil down to the ability [sometimes obligation] of the copyright holder to give permission for their work to be used by someone else.
4) The Performing Rights Organizations [ASCAP, BMI, SESAC in the US – there are others in other parts of the world] basically track uses of their member’s material, receive royalty monies, and pay the writers and publishers.
Yeah, it’s more complicated than that, but that really is the gist of it.
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So now that you’ve joined ASCAP [I’m an ASCAP writer myself]….what now?
1) I suggest also joining as a publisher – i.e. you’ll become your own publishing company. Since you’ll just be “publishing” your own stuff, you really don’t have to do anything else other than tell ASCAP. Click on the Join Ascap link, and join as a publisher – they’ll ask you for 3 possible publisher names [think carefully – you’ll be stuck with it for hopefully a loooong time!].
It’ll cost another $35. That’s much cheaper than BMI!
Once that’s done and confirmed…..
2) Get works in the ACE database.
http://ascap.com/ace/index.aspx
http://members.ascap.com – login, then click “register a work”.
…and make “your” publishing company the publisher. If there’s no publisher listed, the publisher share goes into the $ stash for use by ASCAP. [That’s a generalization, by the way.]
3) At some point you’ll want to register your copyright with the Copyright Office {@ the Library of Congress}. You can register each work individually, or as a group [or “book”]. The Group version is cheaper, but is more difficult if your have to break it out of the group later because you want to sell the rights to another publisher.
4) Then register with Soundexchange. [ http://www.Soundexchange.com ]. It’s a nonprofit organzation that tracks and pays the royalties for online streaming stuff [like Pandora or Last.fm, NOT like Spotify].
Now that your bases are covered, it’s time for finding places where your material can be used….but that’s marketing, and a whole ‘nother series of articles.
5) As a practical matter, setup a bank account that’s just for your music/online stuff. Many banks have free business checking, especially as long as you don’t have tons of checks being written.
The best long-term advice I can give: Your creation is YOURS, legally speaking, and has value. Don’t just give it away willy-nilly. If you choose to give it away, make sure that is part of a strategic plan – i.e. there’s a solid REASON for that decision, not just “Some website said it was the best way to market my music”.
There are a lot of voices online who claim that “music should be free” – most of those writers have never actually created any, and have no clue how long or how much effort it takes!
Tom Rule, the MacMusicGuy
http://www.tomrule.info
http://www.last.fm/music/Tom+Rule
http://www.tom-and-co.com
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