john

Using a paid for views service can get you into trouble. Far better to promote your channel and vids to get genuine views. It doesn't even need to cost much, just be creative!

That's the thing, there is no equivalent of the US copyright office in the UK. The sites that offer the service are private companies, not government agencies. Canada has a government based copyright registration service. In the UK, copyright is established (and therfore proveable), by the act of publication. There is no central registration. As far as I know there is no big advantage in the private copyright registration services, though I should check on any court cases that cite a registration. I am not a lawyer. This is all just my opinion and experience. As I mentioned earlier, the strength of a copyright service is the belief that a jury will have that the copyright claim has not been tampered with and any accesses have been tracked and recorded. Fundamentally, although outwith the UK jurisdiction, a jury would still have a higher level of belief that a song registered with a government agency (albeit a foreign one) would have a higher degree of integrity to a private company. Additionally you have to think of where the market is and where the biggest threat to your songs would be. That would be the USA. The defacto standard for evidence, and I understand it is essential, is the US copyright service. All just my thoughts.

Out of interest, the site domain was only registered in 2007. 6 Years trading maybe doesn't exactly inspire you with confidence in a realm where you want the site to be around for your entire lifetime and then some. I would be interested to hear of any court cases where songregistration.com were cited as proof of a copyright claim, after all, that is the true test.

For any English language person on the internet these days I would say, if you are going to register your songs anywhere, register them with the US Copyright office. Why? By far the biggest active English speaking area is the United States. It's where the majority of your plays and downloads are likely to be. It is the biggest market. So, protect your songs by registering your copyright claim there. The US recognises the US Copyright service (they run it after all). 3rd party copyright registration services really have no legitimacy in the States. Where a 3rd party service may be of use is in countries like the UK which has no official copyright service. However, courts need to believe that the copyright claim has not been tampered with. This is where poor man's copyright falls down. it is too easy to tamper with mail. But when it comes to trusting 3rd party copyright services, the US copyright service is, to the UK courts, a 3rd party. We thought about implementing a copyright service here on Songstuff. The one thing that puts me off is the fact that in most situations the legitimacy and integrity of the data in a copyright claim, the US copyright service wins hands down. At least that is my opinion.