el-bo Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 hi guys i've just done some 'soundbed' composition for my flatmates website i'm not gonna charge him for it, but my name will be credited on the website, in the hope that i may be able to secure some paid work from it SO i need to know how best, and most easily (read- cheaply), i can protect my work......does the old legend of mailing ones-self a copy actually hold any water ??? AND if i am able to get some paid work as a result, how would i price myself....by time ????....or maybe each sound clip/bed ???? any help would be greatly appreciated Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beer Moth Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 Mailing it to yourself sealed and registered is the least good option,but beter than nowt. The procrdure/law varies with location. You may have to check the Spanish take on this,and then you may have to do other stuff for wider protection. Pricing is always a bummer. As a composer you're contracted or sell for a price,as a rule. If you go over time/budget,it's your loss. As a session player that's a different bag. There used to be strong union minimums,but Thatcher$&@+% that in Blighty.... Aahhh....the good old days. Still! Not long now! There's a thread somewhere with similar q's. I'm crap at searching. Here somewhere. If it were on time.....whoooaa. Cool! Squids! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkgross Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 Congrats! The simple fact that your are credited for it should 'protect' you, but, in reality, anyone can lift the file off the website. If you've delivered MP3's to him, you can certainly embed 'copyright 2008 ElBoMusic' in the metadata when you make the MP3. I dunno about the 'mailing yourself a copy' thing. One thing for sure is to get signed up with either BMI or ASCAP. And, for $25 or so, you can start your OWN publishing company with them. I'm with BMI...but, ASCAP is fine as well. For future work...what you charge is based on your skill and experience, as well as what the market will bear. A big mistake a lot of people make is NOT charging enough for their work. and, it's tough..there's a LOT of great 'library' music out there, if you know where to look for it. And, for website use, it doesn't cost a lot ($80-$100 per cut, or so). Take a look at www.soundrangers.com. Their one of my favorites (probably because I write for them..hahaha). But, their fees are very reasonable for the usage, and their stuff sound great. If you start writing a lot of stuff, you can certainly file copyright forms SR, etc, if you want to put a compilation CD together. I do that about twice a year, just to be safe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m-m-m Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 well, this doesn't relate so much to your question, but the site that hosts this article has a lot of good info on it re:copyright law and why it's all pretty messed up. This is all stuff that relates primarily to musician's rights and how copyright works against a lot of musicians. FYI ... As soon as you create a piece it is copyrighted to you. Registering for a copyright only allows you to sue for more money (read that again .... more money), should the need ever arise. IOW, should someone actually steal your work, you are still protected even if you don't register for a copyright. Should you actually decide to take them to court over this you won't be able to get as much money out of them, even if you can manage to prove that the took your song (which is very hard to do, unless they literally take the version of the song that you recorded, and put it on their album or in their commercial, or whatever). To sum up ... my position is that registering for a copyright is a waste of time for the average musician. The only time it really makes sense is if your a big label and you want to be able to sue the pants off of some single mom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m-m-m Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 I forgot to add ... even if you haven't filed for a copyright, you can still put the little 'c' in a circle and the year as a deterrent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logic Pro Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 well, this doesn't relate so much to your question, but the site that hosts this article has a lot of good info on it re:copyright law and why it's all pretty messed up. This is all stuff that relates primarily to musician's rights and how copyright works against a lot of musicians. FYI ... As soon as you create a piece it is copyrighted to you. Registering for a copyright only allows you to sue for more money (read that again .... more money), should the need ever arise. IOW, should someone actually steal your work, you are still protected even if you don't register for a copyright. Should you actually decide to take them to court over this you won't be able to get as much money out of them, even if you can manage to prove that the took your song (which is very hard to do, unless they literally take the version of the song that you recorded, and put it on their album or in their commercial, or whatever). To sum up ... my position is that registering for a copyright is a waste of time for the average musician. The only time it really makes sense is if your a big label and you want to be able to sue the pants off of some single mom. I have seen disputes where the copies mailed to oneself won the court case against people like Bon Jovi, Modanna etc etc who ended up buying a license from the original writer along with a letter of confidentiality to not dispose the amount of money they got for there songs or how long the artists has control of distribution. but lets say around between $250,000 to 2 million back in the 80s. And if that is not enough some record companies scrapped and shelved records due to artists who got there deals with other people's demos, even confirmed with lawyers who double checked there registered copies at the library of congress. So you mail a copy of the music to yourself in a impossible to open envelope, never open it, thats all., but this will not help a legal team at BMG or any major or indie label who needs to see that you registered the works with the library of congress so that they can evaluate that it is really your work. And as far as your work, it is one thing someone uses the song so that you get mechanical rights automatically or not based on what you agree to and another thing when you play a cool guitar progression at a jam and the other guitar player goes abroad and says he wrote it. my advise is to mail it to yourself, then make short demo versions of your songs in one single mp3., i know its a pain but that is one idea, then or also use the common copyrights option online, A NOTE there, if your performance is so good and original no can copy you, but if you just have a song progression, a great hook, your screwed and may have to chase down established music related legal teams from hell. I run into people who make a living selling other people's music all the time, usually (forgive m for saying but very true) ITALIANS., in Italy it seems that they believe they can buy something that takes individuals a life time for loly pops , i have even seen creeps walking around rehearsal buildings with tape recorders going from door to door.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el-bo Posted March 10, 2008 Author Share Posted March 10, 2008 cheers for the advice, guys will look into the bmi/ascap thing who knows...maybe just a 'one-off', or.....well, let's just wait and see i was thinking to mail myself with the mp3, the track notes, the logic project file and the individual tracks as audio bounces....basically the whole track, stripped down to components that i can demonstrate my method in composition/recording......should the need arise i don't think the track is amazing, and certainly doesn't contain any 'once-in-a-lifetime' performances.....but i kinda like it, and would hate to hear some numbnutx ripping it, slapping a coupla apple loops on it and claiming as their own gonna look into all possibilities anyways, i'm trying to upload the track at the moment, for y'all to critique, should you be so inclined....as it's my first outing, i'd be interested to hear what you think can't seem to upload at the moment...the whole world and it's uncle must be trying to upload at the same time. i'll try again tomorrow morning, so if you are interested, maybe check back tomorrow thanks again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beer Moth Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 Who gives a s#!+? We're all gonna dye! I'm colourblind anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el-bo Posted March 10, 2008 Author Share Posted March 10, 2008 so how do you know what colour to 'dye', if you're colourblind ???? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beer Moth Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 Ferzackerley! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el-bo Posted March 10, 2008 Author Share Posted March 10, 2008 okay, here it is http://www.mediafire.com/?maldplmlhzm he gave me an idea of the vibe he wanted, and i made the tune between us we'll work out where to cut the loops, and which pages in the site will contain which part of the choon tell me what you think Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el-bo Posted March 10, 2008 Author Share Posted March 10, 2008 oh, and the 80's 'miami-vice'ness was to his taste Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkgross Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 totally dig it! Mix sounds great. Love the bass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el-bo Posted March 10, 2008 Author Share Posted March 10, 2008 cheers, dude glad the mix translates...i mix mainly with grado's (kickass cans) , as i only have a (better than average) pc desktop 2.1 setup thanks for taking the time the site, when finished, will be for the hosting of various events - one of which will be a pole-dancing kinda thing....my flatmate said he might even want to use this music as a backing for some of the dancers.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el-bo Posted March 10, 2008 Author Share Posted March 10, 2008 oh...and that fretless bass comes from the garageband 'bass' instrument....suped up a bit....you can get that gliss/slide thing with different velocities love it here's the c/strip that i've made.... bo vs jaco.cst bo vs jaco.cst Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkgross Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 thanks for the channel strips. just goes to show that the Garage Band stuff is pretty damn useable Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logic Pro Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 cheers for the advice, guys will look into the bmi/ascap thing thanks again Peace man As for BMI, they pay a fixed near to total amount once a year while ASCAP supports artists more closer and pays accurately according to there work. Remind you, unless it has changed i only became a ASCAP member when i recorded a commercially released CD with a Major label, i could be wrong but someone told me that ASCAP or BMI are not there to protect your music but collect only from commercially released products, in other words you can print you own CD but you have to also provide a bar code proving it is on the shelves at stores so they can fallow up collecting moneys for you from radio, tv and even night clubs that play it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el-bo Posted March 10, 2008 Author Share Posted March 10, 2008 yeah, dave i started to look into the garageband instruments after watching steve wilkie's demonstration video i like them, especially when tweaked, and 'effected' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beer Moth Posted March 10, 2008 Share Posted March 10, 2008 Cool! Some nice vibes.(Not Vibes!). I'd like to see/hear it in situ. Let us know when the website's up and running! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el-bo Posted March 10, 2008 Author Share Posted March 10, 2008 cheers, senor cloggy will let you know Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeAMP Posted May 22, 2008 Share Posted May 22, 2008 I have looked into this at length, and as far as i understand only lyrics and a melody line can be copyrighted. I wuold print meta data ( watermark) into the MP3 to be safe, as DKGross suggested. Then at least if another site starts to use it you can prove they are using it without a lisence, and you are indeed the composer. Well done by the way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ski Posted May 23, 2008 Share Posted May 23, 2008 NO... no... no... In the USA you cannot mail a copy of a song to yourself in the form of a registered letter and use it as a form of proof of copyright. All that does is prove you mailed something to yourself. That it's a "poor man's" form of copyright is an urban legend, totally. Some people just won't give up on this legend, though, citing how it's a valid form of proof of authorship in various European countries. I don't know if this is true or not, but it's not a valid method in the US. YES... yes... yes... When it comes to authorship of a song, only words and melody are copyrightable. However... it IS possible to copyright an arrangement, or an entire album, or a sound recording. All of the specifications for which criteria a work falls under (and which form to file) can be found on the Library of Congress website. Copyright law (in the US) provides immediate copyright protection for the author of original works. You do not have to actually file a copyright application with the Library of Congress in order for your work to be protected. You can put ©2008 My Name on your work immediately without having to officially file a copyright application. If you want government proof of copyright, however, fork out the $40 (or whatever it is) and file (the appropriate) copyright form. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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