Archive for the ‘Copyright 101’ Category
This post discusses some of the common ways in which music is used on the Internet and the types of licenses required. Please see my earlier post describing common music licenses. A chart summarizing the licenses required for Internet uses is avaliabe here. Read the rest of this entry »
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Like any other property, music copyrights and the individual exclusive rights thereof, can be transferred, sold, licensed, and divided among several owners. In general, to use recorded copyrighted music, you will need permission from both the musical work owner (typically a publisher) and the sound recording owner (typically a record company). Note, however, if you re-record a song (instead of using a pre-recorded version), permission is only required from the musical work owner (since you are not using someone else’s sound recording).
Following are descriptions of common music licensing agreements. In a later post, I will discuss some of the specific ways in which music is used on the Internet and the types of licenses required. Read the rest of this entry »
A common misconception is that all “old” songs are not protected by copyright law. While this is certainly true in some cases, it’s important to understand that determining the length of copyright protection for any particular song is not that simple. Copyright protection can last for a very long time. Read the rest of this entry »
Now that you’ve written and recorded a song, how do you protect it? How do you copyright it?
The good news is that as long as it is your original song and you’ve written it down or recorded it, the song is entitled to copyright protection. Under the Copyright Law, a song is immediately entitled to copyright protection upon the satisfaction of the following criteria:
- It must be an “original work[] of authorship”; and
- It must be fixed “in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed,” such as written sheet music or a CD, MP3, or other recording. Read the rest of this entry »
It is a common misunderstanding that a song only has one copyright. For anyone who creates music, uses existing music, or is otherwise involved in the music business, it is important to understand that there are actually at least 2 copyrights involved in every recorded song: (1) the musical work copyright and (2) the sound recording copyright. Read the rest of this entry »