I have written a song and wish to have it copyrighted. How do I do this?!
Question: It really depends on your intent for the song. If you just want to keep it for your personal use, the above procedure of mailing it to yourself will serve your purpose. It probably won't hold up in a court of law if someone really wants to steal the song.
Your copyright on the song exists from the moment of it's creation, that much is clear. If you choose to shop the song with A&R reps for a major record company, you had better have the song registered before you do so. And to do that, you need to send copies to the copyright office, along with a form and a check for $45.
Leaving aside the question of having a major listen to your song (they usually send back unsolicited material unopened),
if they do like the song, and use it, and do not compensate you, the legal course will be long and expensive. Your pockets are probably not deep enough to sustain that battle. However, if your work is registered with the copyright office, at least that part of the procedings are indesputable. If, on the other hand, you use the "poor man's copyright" and a major decides to register your work before you do, you have a major uphill battle just proving that you own the song.
You can reduce your costs if you have more than one song by copyrighting a sound recording of all the songs you own under one submission as an integrated work, and all the songs are copyrighted at the same time. You can register as many songs as you can get on a disc (well over 100 in MP3 format) under a single title like "An evening with.....".
That's the way I copyrighted over 20 songs at once, some years back. See the link below for details and forms.
Answers: It really depends on your intent for the song. If you just want to keep it for your personal use, the above procedure of mailing it to yourself will serve your purpose. It probably won't hold up in a court of law if someone really wants to steal the song.
Your copyright on the song exists from the moment of it's creation, that much is clear. If you choose to shop the song with A&R reps for a major record company, you had better have the song registered before you do so. And to do that, you need to send copies to the copyright office, along with a form and a check for $45.
Leaving aside the question of having a major listen to your song (they usually send back unsolicited material unopened),
if they do like the song, and use it, and do not compensate you, the legal course will be long and expensive. Your pockets are probably not deep enough to sustain that battle. However, if your work is registered with the copyright office, at least that part of the procedings are indesputable. If, on the other hand, you use the "poor man's copyright" and a major decides to register your work before you do, you have a major uphill battle just proving that you own the song.
You can reduce your costs if you have more than one song by copyrighting a sound recording of all the songs you own under one submission as an integrated work, and all the songs are copyrighted at the same time. You can register as many songs as you can get on a disc (well over 100 in MP3 format) under a single title like "An evening with.....".
That's the way I copyrighted over 20 songs at once, some years back. See the link below for details and forms.
An easy and cheap (and unofficial) way is to write the lyrics or music onto some paper, put it in an envelope and mail it to yourself. At the post office they will stamp the envelope over the postage stamp with the date before sending it to your house.
Keep the envelope sealed, and in the future if anyone steals this song you can prove that you wrote it earlier by showing the unopened envelope with the date on it. When opened the song will be inside, proving that you yourself wrote the song before that date on the envelope.
You can do what the first person mentioned in addition to doing the traditional way of getting it copyrighted. Ask your library on documents and how to go about copyrighting. It is advised to record yourself on tape instead of CD as Cd's are easy to copy and cassette tapes are not. I say, when you go to mail yourself your song, to send yourself a copy on cassette or CD so that you have proof you made the music background yourself as well. If you just include lyrics in the envelope, all you can prove is that you wrote the lyrics and can't prove you wrote the music arrangement.
Best of luck! It can take several months before your material gets viewed to copyright the traditional way, that's why I'm also advising you do what the other person advised as well.