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...Φιλοι και φίλες!
Διαβάστε τα COPYRIGHT LAWS για τα έργα σας ωστε η κατοχυρωση να γινεται σωστα και νομιμα! (στα Αγγλικά)
Υ.Γ. ‘Οποιος/α θέλει να μας το μεταφράσει στα Ελληνικά, θα του είμαστε υπόχρεοι (λόγω φόρτου εργασίας..)
--------------------------------------------- COPYRIGHT LAWS -------------------------------------------
HOW TO LEGAL COPYRIGHT YOUR WORK, MUSIC OR LYRICS!
01 Copyright
In simple terms the copyright of your music is your way of protecting it and your ownership of it. It's a legal right, and like most legal things it's not that straight-forward. But it's not that difficult either and it's useful to understand it.
Exploiting your rights as a copyright owner is how you make your money as a songwriter.
This section takes you through copyright, including:
The different types
Copyright protection
Your rights
Publishing and copyright
Moral rights
Copyright of recordings
Performers' rights
02 Copyright in Songs/Compositions
With songs, there are two different forms of copyright which run along side each other.
The first covers the actual composition of the song.
This is the copyright of the actual words and music.
The copyright is automatic and belongs to the writer or writers of the song as soon as it comes out of their head and is put into some kind of recorded form. This could be recording it on tape, CD, DAT etc, or it could be writing out the lyrics and music on paper.
The second form of copyright is the copyright in an actual recording.
We'll cover that later in this section.
03 Copyright Protection
These copyrights are automatic. Many people talk of 'copyrighting' a song but this isn't really accurate.
Copyright is a thing you have not a thing you do - and you have it from the moment you've written the music.
In the music copyright lasts for 70 years after the death of the writer, so it's something you can pass on to your grandchildren.
You may need to prove you are the copyright owner if there's a dispute over the ownership of a song. For example, if in a few years someone releases a song with lyrics that are extremely similar to yours, and you believe that they've actually nicked them, you will need to prove that you wrote them first.
The easiest way to protect your copyright is to send yourself a copy of your material by recorded
delivery.
Remembering to do the following:
Put a note inside of when and where the material was recorded, a list of performers on the recording, and the names of writers of the song. Include their addresses.
Make sure that you write the name of the song on the outside of the package.
Get the post office to date stamp across the seal.
Don't open the package when it arrives, just put it somewhere safe.
You don't necessarily need a recording, a manuscript of the music and a lyric sheet will do.
04 Your Rights as the Owner
As the owner or owners of a copyright, you have a number of rights set down in law. Among them are:
The right to perform the song in public or for a recording of it to be played in public or broadcast (the performance rights)
The right to make copies of the song for sale (the mechanical copyright)
The right not to have your music treated derogatorily - e.g. it being used in the soundtrack to a porn film
The right to be credited as the owner (so no-one else can claim to own it)
The last two of these are moral rights, which we'll cover later.
Money
The first two rights are what generate money on behalf of the songwriters.
Every time a song is performed live, recorded, or when a CD or vinyl copy of a recording is made for sale, the writers are due some money, known as a royalty.
This applies whether you perform or record the song yourself or if someone else does a cover version.
Over time, various societies have been set up which collect these royalties communally and distribute the money to the rightful owners. MCPS and PRS are the main societies in this country, to find out more about them have a look at their 'How To...' sections.
Groups
When writing with other people, each of you has a claim on the copyright of the song and you will need to agree how to divide the royalties, so it is important to confirm in writing what share each of you has written.
Two broad rules of thumb have developed to help you work this out. The first and most common is that the words/lyrics of a song attract 50% of the copyright and the music attracts the other 50%.
The second school of thought says that the words attract one third, another third goes to the writer of the melody and the remaining third goes to the writer(s) of the rest of the music.
It is up to the writers to decide what they feel is fair.
Problems
When it comes to bands, this sort of thing can cause huge tensions.
The copyright in the songs is what generates most of the money in music. You can end up with one or two members who are raking it in, while the non-writing members are still broke.
It's especially contentious with a band, where the bass player, for example, may write the bass-line but not get a credit as a writer.
Some well-known bands have credited every member on every song so that each receives an equal royalty. Others have used voting systems to decide how big a contribution each member made. And some, famously, have chosen not to be so generous.
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