john

No. Even filing with the library of congress does not constitute proof you are the writer. Neither prove you are the writer. Publishing, posting with your name as the author, registering... all demonstrate that at the time you had the work, and that you asserted ownership (or at a minimum had permission for use from the copyright owner). It does it unequivocally (provided you use it correctly). That is all. As part of proving who controlled the work, at what time, publishing or registering or both, help establish a path and time line. Some paths are quite reliable (library of congress, a national publication etc) and they establish that you assert ownership, or at a minimum permission from the owner, at the time of registration or publication. Proof that you wrote it is presented in court. This includes notepads, draft versions, recordings etc. In the case of our forums, they help establish a path. They demonstrate the evolution of the work. They are time stamped, and would provide a good level of proof. Particularly older, archive posts. Those posts are read only. Topics which are still editable can be tampered with. I and other members of staff can see when any post was last edited, though not what the edit was. This is very similar to the library of congress... ie you can edit your listing, and they store that an edit occurred on this date. In court ideally you want the earliest assertion that the work is yours as demonstrated by registration and publication. You also want as strong a case of proof of authorship as possible. Using the copyright symbol and date is important in some countries and contexts. Using it affords a higher level of protection in some cases. Registering with the library of congress also affords you additional protections... in particular if you are registered you can file to get lost earnings and damages. If you are not registered you are far more limited in what you can file for. What using the copyright symbol and date (along with your name) does, is assert, publicly, your ownership (as opposed to used with permission. It is no longer strictly necessary in all domains. That said, it leaves little room for interpretation as to the nature of your use and the way others can or cannot use your work. It gives a dedicated location to declare certain permissions for re-use, or your use... for example, "all rights reserved", or "used with permission". For clarification, I would think members best advised to assert their ownership using ©your name 2018 all rights reserved or similar. They should register works at a minimum as collections with the US library of congress, and after they have finished with a work on the public critique board, they should ask for the topic to be moved to the restricted access board. The latter just restricts access to members making it less likely to be lifted by non-members. After 1 year the topic will be moved to the restricted access board (read only). It does what it says on the tin. If at a later date someone needs access to time stamps, content etc, a member of staff can let them see the content including the posting times, and the memer of staff can attest to the last date the post content was edited. As such, I would reckon it constitutes a much better proof of creation than note pads and recordings alone.

hi and welcome to Songstuff Ray!

Spirit Of Our Community Rules and Guidelines Although the letter of our site rules is important, the spirit of our rules is more important. Members found to be exploiting loopholes will be deemed as knowing exactly what they are doing. Songstuff reserves the right to suspend or even ban such members. Any member found to be acting against the interests of the community or site may find that their account has been closed. Negatively Commenting About Our Community Making comments or complaints about our community is allowed, but they should be kept to the Site Stuff board. Posting them as off-topic content in a thread outside the site stuff forums is unacceptable. Posting complaints about the site across topics, across boards, blogs, comments, status messages, and any other method of adding content to Songstuff, outside of the Site Stuff board... either direct comments or veiled references, will be considered as TROLLING the community itself. Deliberately antagonistic or inflammatory language will be considered FLAMING the community. Any member trolling or flaming the site will earn warning points, just as they would if trolling or flaming community members. Persistence can result in posting restrictions, loss of privileges, suspension and even a ban. Disruptive Members If you are considered by the site staff to be disruptive, belligerent, argumentative, antagonistic, disrespectful towards members, staff, or in your comments about the site, Songstuff reserves the right to close your account with immediate effect. Causing a site feature not to work, either technically, or by trolling a feature or undermining site rules, will be deemed to be sabotaging the feature and site. Songstuff reserves the right to suspend or close such accounts without explanation. Commenting About Members Negative personal comments, or insults, ARE NOT ALLOWED. Members must treat each each other with respect.. If you have an issue with a member, please speak to a moderator. Unsolicited Comments About Members Before you offer any personal advice, please ask if it is wanted. Offering unsolicited negative comments may result in warning points, suspension or ban depending on the nature and severity of the comments. Bullying Bullying will not be tolerated in any form. Members who are deemed by site staff to be engaging in bullying will have their accounts deleted and they will be banned.

Infringements and Penalties Update Infringements No Points Warning A no points warning is a way of logging a warning while awarding no points. A shot across the bows. A message is automatically sent to the member. Warning A 1 temporary point general warning for minor infringements of rules. Signature Violation Any violation of the signature other than spamming. (see site rules) Pemalty: 2 temporary point, removed after 30 days. Moderator can change the points according to severity. Inappropriate Language Profanity, use of overtly sexual language, racism, sexism, religious intolerance. Penalty: If 1 point it will be temporary points, they will automatically be removed in 7 days. If 2 or more points, they will be permanent points. Moderator decides the points according to severity. Topic Bumping Deliberately posting for no reason other than to bump a topic to the top of the active topics list. Pemalty: 1 temporary point, removed after 30 days. Trolling Trolling is the act of sowing discord on the forums by starting quarrels or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion,often for the troll's amusement. Trolling the site is posting deliberately inflammatory or off-topic negative comments about the site or community. If you have such comments, keep them civil and keep them to the site stuff board. Penalty: 5 PERMANENT POINTS Flaming Flaming is a hostile and insulting interaction between members, often involving the use of profanity. It can also be the swapping of insults back and forth or with many members teaming up on a single victim. If flaming is deemed to be deliberate, it will be classed as TROLLING. If members trade insults this will be classed as flaming, unless provocation by a member or members can be demonstrated. Penalty: 5 TEMPORARY POINTS. Points removed after 24 hours. Spamming If something is determined to be spamming, there is only one penalty. Penalty: IMMEDIATE BAN. Bullying Threats and intimidation, attempts to force a member to do or not do something, to affect their behaviour. If your behaviour is deemed to be bullying. Penalty: IMMEDIATE BAN. Abuse Anything considered to be severe flaming / trolling will be termed as "abuse". This includes a post that is a tirade of insults, a series of posts that are personally insulting. Penalty: IMMEDIATE BAN. Bullying & Abuse Additional Moderators will determine the above. In order for Bullying or Abuse to be determined, two or more moderators will be required to review the circumstances. The first moderator to review will suspend posting privileges for anyone suspected or accused of such behaviour while it is investigated. Penalties If your points tally to 10 or above you will be SUSPENDED from posting automatically for 24 hours. If your points tally to 15 or above you will be SUSPENDED from posting automatically for 7 days. If your points tally to 20 or above you will be AUTOMATICALLY BANNED.

Nice to see you playing Rudi!

Hi and welcome to Songstuff Jackson!

Hey Joachim, good to meet you! Welcome to Songstuff

Again

Hey Tom, welcome to Songstuff!

Block chain was developed for bitcoin, I think that is why it is mention. It should be very easy to build in micro payments as part of the blockchain native currency.

Hi and welcome Kev

Funnily enough I have been looking into how Songstuff could use blockchain tech for networking over the last few months. It has some posdibilities. As for bitcoin, it certainly has possibilities. You can exchange bitcoin for regular currency, it’s very established. The general trend has been increasing value, but the exchange rate has been relatively volatile. The value is in protecting songs and ensuring income... as said I am looking into it. Will report back soon.

Hi Recently there has been a growth in off-topic noise. It lowers the ability of members to navigate the forums and find specific topics, and it reduces the value of individual effected topics. Even staff have been guilty of this at points, myself included. For the good of the community it has to stop. Please focus on answering the patient OP. We all want this forum to be as useful as possible, and the trend of the community to be improving. While some related topic wandering might be ok, to start discussing entirely different topics is rude, disrespectful to the OP, and it has to come to a halt. A brief mention within a post that relates to the OP is generally ok (unless it breaches another site rule), but if you find most or all of your post does not relate to the OP, and it otherwise meets our community rules, please start a new topic in an appropriate board and discuss it there. Members who choose to ignore this basic netiquette will receive a friendly warning to get back to topic. If a member persists, they may well find themselves earning some warning points. More meandering topics should be permitted within the musician’s lounge (as it an informal chat board). Members should still try to stay on-topic, however it is a bit more relaxed. Elsewhere in the community, induldging off-topic conversation is largely counter-productive and it doesn’t promote a healthy community forum. Cheers John

Formulae are useful as learning tools, perhaps. Understanding song form, for example, is useful as a set of guidelines for sectional songwriting, No different to learning a major triad chord. The trouble comes when we take formula as absolute rules that MUST be adhered to. The adherence is conditional on certain assumptions... and accepting that breaking adherence has consequences which may or may not be desirable. People like rules as opposed to guiding principles. It’s funny that no matter how many times it is underlined that songwriting is based on guidelines, many songwriters still treat them as absolute rules. As to writing to get this reaction or that. Surely both audience and writer and performer all enter into communicating knowing the basic vocabulary. Musically we generally have a fair understanding of what sounds angry, or relaxed, or even romantic We use that vocabulary when writing or performing. We use our vocabulary to express ourselves... and part of that is to be understood. If an audience booed everything we do, we would likely change it because, well no one enjoys being booed. Likewise if we thought we were saying one thing, but everyone took the opposite from it, we would likely examine what we said it and how we said it. If by simple knowledge we know that more people will connect with our song, is it any different whether we express ourselves using a B over G Major, or D over G Minor? If we use simple words so more people understand us over less common words, or use ‘you’ over he/she? Music is almost a universal language. The same does not apply to words. If I go to Egypt and keep relying on people who speak my language to help me get by, it might be a real problem. Chances are I will often fail to be understood... especially when talking of complex issues and abstract concepts. We choose words to be understood all the time. No formula. No trick. Just a basic concept of communication. Just an opinion lol All good, horses for courses, each to their own etc etc

You can also use content dripping and autoresponder to queue up content ahead of schedule. Useful for launches and releases which can be busy enough. For example pre-drafting announcements and offers. You can always augment using normal posting/mailing... but it saves a lot of time at a time when there can be a lot of demand on your time. More so when you start having interviews and reviews, Scheduling means things go out at the optimum time... not when you squeeze it in. No hurried wording, you can spend time and get it right. There are several uses for both tools

While I completely agree with what you are saying, I think there is room for layered lyrics... but there is a lot to learn about writing broader appeal lyrics, by learning about layers of meaning, if for no other reason than it helps you really consider perspective and nuance. It really makes you think about how people connnect with a song. Even where the lyrics are largely “la, la, la, la, la, la, la”. Writing songs where there is a broad, more instant appeal, but written in such a way that there is meat on the bone for those who ponder on lyrics. Not “in jokes” so much as deeper meaning. Deeper connection. Lyrics that allow you, the listener, to have different perspectives. Lessons learned, it then becomes less about writing in deeper meanings, hidden perspectives, and more about writing in a way that lets the song breathe, in a way that lets perspectives and interpretations to exist. You mention smarter, and same goes. Use too flowery, too intellectual a language, and people don’t connect. Still, it shouldn’t always be about a lowest common denominator approach. While songs can say something, make a definite statement, with every statement on group will identify more with a song, another group will identify less with a song. Sometimes that is inevitable. Sometimes it isn’t. For me much is about the connection. Writing something that both has a broad appeal, yet feels personal and evocative. For example, if I write “Sue broke my heart” people who have had their heart broken will identify with that, but a little less if their heart wasn’t broken by Sue. People who have had their heart broken by a Sue will strongly identify with it. ”She broke my heart” leaves more room for interpretation, but it feels a little impersonal. Anyone who identifies with having their heart broken by a woman can easily connect. Those who have had their heart broken by a man, a little less so. ”You broke my heart” feels much more personal. Conversational lyrics often do It has broad appeal, and doesn’t overly fence people in. Indeed, it often allows the listener to have a voice they wish they had, to say what they never had a chance to etc. There is a balance to be had. Was going to say more but gotta dash... ttyl

Such as are thereintegrated usage statistics? Can you use Google Analytics? lol

Some questions you should perhaps ask: Is there a limitation on numbers of pages? Can I easily add my songs? Is there a limitation on numbers of songs? Is there a built in shop? If not can I add one? Can I run a mailing list? Does the mailing list have an autoresponder? (Pretty essential) If not, can you add one? Can you fully export your mailing list members? Can you fully export autoresponder messages? Does it have an integrated blog? If so, is it capable of “dripping” content? (Very useful) Can I add advertising? What social media integration does it have? Does it have an integrated contact mechanism? Does it have a broad range of customisable themes? Is there a broad range of optional modules? Are there 3rd party modules, tools themes? Is the content editor wysiwyg? Is there an integrated audio/video player? It is late, I will no doubt think on more. Feel free to ask questions.

Hi Evanwou Welcome to the Songstuff family.

Come on guys.... lets start by connecting!

Hi Nathan, welcome to the Songstuff family! Good to have you with us.

You’ll find most of those in our site Amazon shop. loads of good reading there. It reminds me, it really is about time I updated the reading list links from my first topic!

Lol