Copywriting

[Dunlakin]

Hi, Just wondered, what is to stop any member taking a song posted and passing it off as their own on here? What can someone do to protect their work?

[Dunlakin]

The only fool-proof way to protect your work, is to never let anyone else know it.

So if something here made it big for someone else then it's just tough? No comebacks?

[john]

What is to stop you taking a song by any famous band and passing it off as your own here?

Absolutely nothing. As soon as you put your music in the public arena, anywhere, including your local bar, anyone can take your song and pass it off as their own.

Why don't they?

Multiple reasons. The shame of being caught, because they would be. The threat of being sued, which is very real. It would likely be the end of their musical career. No one would trust them.

Okay but is that likely with a song posted on Songstuff?

Yes. We at Songstuff retain time stamped entries that would go towards constituting proof of authorship (based on who posted first is more likely the owner/author). That aside many authors have their work posted elsewhere too, which all goes towards a burden of proof.

Stronger proof than Songstuff, and many writers on Songstuff do this, and we definitely recommend it, is to register your works with the US copyright registration service. I would recommend this no matter what country you are in. Why? Because it is the biggest jurisdiction on the Internet, and because it is still a respected organisation worldwide.

So nothing can stop someone doing it, but protection comes in the form of proof of ownership, which for a large part comes down to who can show they had what, first.

[john]

As Hobosage says, the only way, no matter who you are, is to never share your music. That is not down to Songstuff, or the Internet. If you let someone hear it or read it, they can steal it. They can then try to pass it as theirs.

 

You have better protection here than you do when you play your song at a local gig, but then there is a HUGE difference between someone passing something off as their own and their being no comebacks isn't there?

 

I can hear a chart song, pass it off as my own. The comeback is as it always is, the threat of being sued and the threat of exposure

[Dunlakin]

What is to stop you taking a song by any famous band and passing it off as your own here?

Absolutely nothing. As soon as you put your music in the public arena, anywhere, including your local bar, anyone can take your song and pass it off as their own.

Why don't they?

Multiple reasons. The shame of being caught, because they would be. The threat of being sued, which is very real. It would likely be the end of their musical career. No one would trust them.

Okay but is that likely with a song posted on Songstuff?

Yes. We at Songstuff retain time stamped entries that would go towards constituting proof of authorship (based on who posted first is more likely the owner/author). That aside many authors have their work posted elsewhere too, which all goes towards a burden of proof.

Stronger proof than Songstuff, and many writers on Songstuff do this, and we definitely recommend it, is to register your works with the US copyright registration service. I would recommend this no matter what country you are in. Why? Because it is the biggest jurisdiction on the Internet, and because it is still a respected organisation worldwide.

 

 

Thanks I just looked at the registration thingy and it looks like it costs $35 to register and I thought, is what i wrote worth $35? nah lol No one would pay me that! lol Call me a cheapskate, I'll take my chance hehehe

[Dunlakin]

John & David have already handled your question, but I wanted to interject some different advice. Not so much for you, as for those who have asked and those who will ask....that same question over and over again on sites like ours.

 

My advice is simple....do not ask the question!

 

In the end, you satisfied your curiousity by doing a little research of your own, then reaching your own concusions. So....why didn't you simply do that to begin with?

Last year, I wrote an entire blog article called "Will My Songs Get Stolen?". I never posted it because I didn't wnat to risk offending members. That being said, I've pasted an exerpt from it below. Hopefully it explains the reasons for my advice.

 

"Ask yourself this........if you don't post your work online somewhere, exactly what do you think you're gonna do with it....stick it in a drawer & protect it from everyone and everything forever?

If that's the case, then why write it in the first place? Unless you're simply writing because you enjoy it.

But if that's the reason, then why would you be so concerned about it being stolen?

The bottom line is this........it's never a good question....ever!

Why?

- Because it immediately alienates folks who know more than yourself

- Advertises your inexperience & lack of knowledge about the functioning of the industry

- Makes you look a bit egotistical about your place in the overall scheme of things. Out of everyone here, you must think that yours is the most worthy of stealing...right?

- And most of all, because.....you're never gonna get an answer that makes you comfortable!

In the final analysis, you'll have to ask yourself....why you should trust a bunch of strangers online? Right?"

 

People.....please get a clue! We live in an age where professional writers and musicians can't make money from their own material. What in the world makes you think someone can make money from stealing yours?

 

Tom

 

So if people have questions....... anything? then this is not the place to ask? Is this not a community based forum? It seems to me that by your patronising response that only those who have a little experience are welcome here. 

[snabbu]

So if something here made it big for someone else then it's just tough? No comebacks?

No totally not the case. I actually post songs here to protect them. I will take you through the US system as I am guessing you are in that duristiction. If your not other Berne signatories are pretty similar the differences are procedural.

Point one any work has copyright automatically when it is created. There is no need to register the work.

Copyright protection exists whether you include a statement to that effect or not. The reason for using a

Copyright or phonocord statement symbol and date is to indicate to others that you are aware of your rights and may well peruse them.

Infringement

Unless you are wealthy in the United States and Australia owners of patents copyrights and trademarks would need to carry intellectual property insurance otherwise they would be unlikely to have the wear withal to mount a case.

Proof

Step one the court will not hear the case unless you can prove access. That is it the case goes no further unless you can show on the balance of probabilities that the infringer had access to the work the case closed. Does not matter if it's a direct knock off , if you can not prove access case is closed. That is why posting on sound click or sound cloud is so wonderful as evidence. A time stamped upload (proof of time of creation) a public arena proof of possible access. So you can get past stage one.

The next question of proof. Is to do with creation of the work. The evidence here is earlier drafts, work tapes, discussions on critique forums. Notes in your DAW as you worked the song up. There are dates on all these revisions in your computer system. These can be extracted and are good evidence of creation. Can the infringer show these workings, well he could if he could be bothered forging them but he would need a tech head to manipulate his computer. And it would be a lot of work. If a person is too lazy or so lacking in talent they can't write their own song are they going to be up to faking this? Highly unlikely. One thing they can not fake is the time stamp on the upload, unless they conspire with sys admin at click and cloud and sonsgtuff, plus all the members.

The next question for the court is substantial similarity this is a matter for expert witnesses a musicologist who will give evidence on which bits are substantially similar and what the contribution is to the work as a whole. A stupid myth is you can copy ten percent and get away with it. This is nonsense it is all about the contribution of the similar bits to the work. For example if the riff for jumping jack flash had been written by any other than Kieth Richards there would have been plagiarism of the riff from satisfaction. That would be under two percent of the work yet those riffs are central to the success of both works. The flash riff is a variation of the satisfaction riff and not a disticnt new work.

The next question is an opinion by qualified witnesses, musicologist to review other works and make a call as to whether it is plausible that you wrote the work.

The final question in the US only is that of intent as US courts award punitive damages. That is to say that if after they have ordered the infringer to remove all the plagiarised material from the market place and have it destroyed, and or remit all royalties and court costs to the court for payent to the injured party. If the court feels it was a deliberate act they will punish the offender by awarding you extra money in punitive damages. This amount is dependent on the means of the defendants if they are a multinational record company that could be several million dollars, if it's joe blow fron hickory hollows it could be $5,000.00 the idea is for it to hurt.

Now having said all this most judgements of unintended plagiarism are settled somewhere between these outcomes. In the Harrson case while royalties were handed over no destruction of the phonocord my sweet lord was ordered. In the Lennon case which was settled out of court additional royalties were generated by the rock and roll album to compensate the injured party. There was a subsequent action in that matter but it related to damage to artistic integrity by breach of contract. Which Lennon won with a four hundred odd grand punitive damage award.

Here endeth the copyright rant which is copyright BTW

Cheers

Gary

[snabbu]

Honestly, that wasn't my point. You're a fairly new member, so it's understandable that you don't realize. The staff on this forum go above and beyond in their attempt to be helpful. There are very few questions that we can't or won't at least attempt to address. But....this particular questiion "Will My songs Get Stolen" is NEVER worth asking. That was my one and only point!

 

I went out of my way to specify the context of my reply - "Not so much for you, as for those who have asked and those who will ask....that same question over and over again on sites like ours".

 

If you see some point in attempting to make this about you....and about questions in general, I certainly can't stop you.

But again, my response was about one specific question. You just happened to be the most recent member to ask it.

For all the reasons I listed above, it's not a valid question and there are no good answers to be given.

 

Tom

 

BTW - I've just spend approx. 30 minutes this morning on responses to your post. That's 30 minutes of my personal time (unpaid) that I'll never get back. Does that really sound like we don't try to be helpful?

I disagree with your response. I do not agree that it is not a valid question. It is an imminently understandable one. It does not indicate unhealthy opinions as to the worth of your own work as compared to other members. It is indicative to me of a normal healthy artistic ego, and self esteem.

To say there is no good answer is not correct, I have given the answer in another post and I believe it is a good one. The answer is; highly unlikely, with a rider that posting your song makes it even less likely. I have set out the facts and good and valid reasons for my opinion.

Cheers

Gary

[Dunlakin]

No totally not the case. I actually post songs here to protect them. I will take you through the US system as I am guessing you are in that duristiction. If your not other Berne signatories are pretty similar the differences are procedural.

Point one any work has copyright automatically when it is created. There is no need to register the work.

Copyright protection exists whether you include a statement to that effect or not. The reason for using a

Copyright or phonocord statement symbol and date is to indicate to others that you are aware of your rights and may well peruse them.

Infringement

Unless you are wealthy in the United States and Australia owners of patents copyrights and trademarks would need to carry intellectual property insurance otherwise they would be unlikely to have the wear withal to mount a case.

Proof

Step one the court will not hear the case unless you can prove access. That is it the case goes no further unless you can show on the balance of probabilities that the infringer had access to the work the case closed. Does not matter if it's a direct knock off , if you can not prove access case is closed. That is why posting on sound click or sound cloud is so wonderful as evidence. A time stamped upload (proof of time of creation) a public arena proof of possible access. So you can get past stage one.

The next question of proof. Is to do with creation of the work. The evidence here is earlier drafts, work tapes, discussions on critique forums. Notes in your DAW as you worked the song up. There are dates on all these revisions in your computer system. These can be extracted and are good evidence of creation. Can the infringer show these workings, well he could if he could be bothered forging them but he would need a tech head to manipulate his computer. And it would be a lot of work. If a person is too lazy or so lacking in talent they can't write their own song are they going to be up to faking this? Highly unlikely. One thing they can not fake is the time stamp on the upload, unless they conspire with sys admin at click and cloud and sonsgtuff, plus all the members.

The next question for the court is substantial similarity this is a matter for expert witnesses a musicologist who will give evidence on which bits are substantially similar and what the contribution is to the work as a whole. A stupid myth is you can copy ten percent and get away with it. This is nonsense it is all about the contribution of the similar bits to the work. For example if the riff for jumping jack flash had been written by any other than Kieth Richards there would have been plagiarism of the riff from satisfaction. That would be under two percent of the work yet those riffs are central to the success of both works. The flash riff is a variation of the satisfaction riff and not a disticnt new work.

The next question is an opinion by qualified witnesses, musicologist to review other works and make a call as to whether it is plausible that you wrote the work.

The final question in the US only is that of intent as US courts award punitive damages. That is to say that if after they have ordered the infringer to remove all the plagiarised material from the market place and have it destroyed, and or remit all royalties and court costs to the court for payent to the injured party. If the court feels it was a deliberate act they will punish the offender by awarding you extra money in punitive damages. This amount is dependent on the means of the defendants if they are a multinational record company that could be several million dollars, if it's joe blow fron hickory hollows it could be $5,000.00 the idea is for it to hurt.

Now having said all this most judgements of unintended plagiarism are settled somewhere between these outcomes. In the Harrson case while royalties were handed over no destruction of the phonocord my sweet lord was ordered. In the Lennon case which was settled out of court additional royalties were generated by the rock and roll album to compensate the injured party. There was a subsequent action in that matter but it related to damage to artistic integrity by breach of contract. Which Lennon won with a four hundred odd grand punitive damage award.

Here endeth the copyright rant which is copyright BTW

Cheers

Gary

Thank you Gary, I am glad that you have replied so constructively to me, I was beginning to lose faith in this place. Thank you so much for your input

[snabbu]

What is to stop you taking a song by any famous band and passing it off

Snip

stamped entries that would go towards constituting proof of authorship (based on who posted first is more likely the owner/author). That aside many authors have their work posted elsewhere too, which all goes towards a burden of proof.

Stronger proof than Songstuff, and many writers on Songstuff do this, and we definitely recommend it, is to register your works with the US copyright registration service. I would recommend this no matter what country you are in. Why? Because it is the biggest jurisdiction on the Internet, and because it is still a respected organisation worldwide.

Hi John

There is a couple of things I would like to say about song registration services. I suppose it is offered free to published writers in the US by ASCAP or whoever is your collection agency. The United Kingdom has a registration service as well. These services are businesses they may even be quangos but they are about making money. There is absolutely no difference in evidential value between their time stamp and yours, zero. Unless the times were identical and that is not possible, yours will always precede theirs. Consider this you post your song to sound cloud and sound click you then upload the links to sonsgtuff. 3 time stamps. Hobosage comments,another time stamp and on it goes. You are well protected. Or you send you registration off and make a $35.00. Payment. And don't post the song anywhere. You have Zero protection because no court will hear your case for an unpublished work as you will be unable to prove access.

In regards to venues for copyright infringements it is common for Americans to assume they run the net. This is incorrect. The choice for venue is up to the injured party, and justifications for venue choices are such things as domicile. If that jurisdiction is a signatory to Berne the judgement is enforceable in all signature countries. Now if I was infringed it would depend on the nature of the infringement.

If it was obviously deliberate or a good chance of being thought so by a reasonable person and the defendant had means, I would choose the US Supreme Court system no question about it. The reason being punitive damages. If the plagiarism could be passed off as unintentional then I would choose the Supreme Court of NSW particularly if the defendant is domicile in the US. The reason being the defendant has to instruct two solicitors one US one NSW and one barrister, Australian. This doubles his costs, plus he has to come here to run his case. So it's a judgement call.

Cheers

Gary

Edited August 4, 2013 by snabbu

[snabbu]

Thank you Gary, I am glad that you have replied so constructively to me, I was beginning to lose faith in this place. Thank you so much for your input

http://www.copyright.org.au/admin/cms-acc1/_images/21445036164f389f7a9a289.pdf

Hi

Here's a link to an advice sheet for musicians. The only thing you need to be aware of in addition to what is contained in the sheet is that in the US you have to register your copyright before you can take legal action. You do not have to register your copyright before you are infringed to be protected. The time stamp on the registration of the work is not evidence of creation for that you are relying on other time stamps. Read the sheet. Get into the habit of making notes within your song file in your DAW if you are using a program that doesn't allow this use word documents. Use a separate document for each notation so as not to disturb the time stamp. When you finish a project archive everything. Every work tape, note, email. Post your stuff to at least two online services, say sound cloud and sound click. Post your work to online forums such as song stuff plain folks or RMMS. Discuss your songs on line etc.

Cheers

Gary

[john]

Hi Gary

I am not a legal expert, far from but for artists puting their music on the web, at some point their music will be available within the United States and likely to be subject to the laws of the US at some point. In the US my understanding is that songs and other artistic works are required to be be registered with the US copyright office for the circumstance where you are ever in the position of having to defend your copyright in the US courts.

In the UK you are quite right, no registration is necessary in order to provide proof of ownership of copyright. I was not suggesting that any other site has better time stamps, nor did I suggest that as a UK resident you should register with a UK copyright service. In fact I would say don't.

As it happens the UK does not have a copyright service just like the USA. The US Copyright Registration Service is a government service. Any services based in the UK are not affiliated with the government, they are purely commercial in nature.

By laying out the evidence chain of time stamps you are agreeing with me (check my many posts on the subject), by posting here you are strengthening your evidence of authorship, you are providing a verifiable timeline and achieving a burden of proof. Even in the UK registering with the US copyright service helps to establish that timeline with a degree of certainty that no tampering has occurred.

That is why I say, no matter where you are, it is a wise idea to register your song at least in the US. Idealy you should do so in other jurisdictions too and follow what is required, jurisdictionally, if you are making your music available on sites hosted in those countries.

For me this is about safety. I Get both Hobosage's point and to a degree Tom's in that regard. Copyright law is all about what happens when someone has stolen your work. It is nor preventative in nature. Safety wise, the larger the body of, and more authoritative the evidence of authorship and ownership, the better protected you are should you ever be unfortunate enough to have to go to court.

So I recommend both. I would be pretty stupid and self centered if I ran a music site and thought that members posting here weakened their copyright claim or otherwise damaged them as a writer or artist.

When it comes to legal fees for such legal proceedings membership iof local songwriter's societies, musician's unions etc usually provide some form or legal coverage for for members.

Regarding the quoted $35, you can also submit collections of works. Have a look at their guidelines for this.

[john]

http://www.copyright.org.au/admin/cms-acc1/_images/21445036164f389f7a9a289.pdf

Hi

Here's a link to an advice sheet for musicians. The only thing you need to be aware of in addition to what is contained in the sheet is that in the US you have to register your copyright before you can take legal action. You do not have to register your copyright before you are infringed to be protected. The time stamp on the registration of the work is not evidence of creation for that you are relying on other time stamps. Read the sheet. Get into the habit of making notes within your song file in your DAW if you are using a program that doesn't allow this use word documents. Use a separate document for each notation so as not to disturb the time stamp. When you finish a project archive everything. Every work tape, note, email. Post your stuff to at least two online services, say sound cloud and sound click. Post your work to online forums such as song stuff plain folks or RMMS. Discuss your songs on line etc.

Cheers

Gary

Good points all.

[john]

First time I have seen that sheet from Oz. It more or less says what I think we already have and what is in our topics and articles on the topic, but it is a good summary sheet.

If I remember correctly Canada also has a central copyright registration service... I could be wrong.

[snabbu]

Hi John

 

 I think you misunderstood my first post on this probably my fault for using legal Jargon.

"These services are businesses they may even be quangos but they are about making money. "

Quangos refers to the LOC. It stands for Quasi Autonomous government organizations. You can see why we have a nick name.

The LOC is a revenue centre for the US government. Although to be fair a lot of that comes from the mandatory publication lodgments.

I am aware that all others in the UK etc are private businesses.

 

Now on the merits of LOC registration.

On the Basis of "We are affording you protection it therefore behooves you to follow the correct procedure if you want me to hear your case" Paraphrasing a US circuit court Judge. If you do not register your song before taking legal action, you run the risk of a circuit court judge refusing to hear your case. Even though you are legally entitle to protection. He can do this because of precedent law. In addition  the case cannot be escalated for statutory damages.  Having said that a musician does not need to know all that, that's what entertainment attorneys are for. What a musician does need to know is what is and isn't copyrightable, and what he has to prove if infringed so as to protect himself by creating evidence of creation. He must also understand that he limits his remedies if he does not register. In that he can receive actual damages, but he can not receive statutory punitive awards, and court cost awards, if the song is not registered prior to infringement. Or within three months of publication.

 

So to make it quite clear  you  must register your song with the LOC if you want to maintain the remedy of punitive damages. The time you have to do this is up to five years from publication, and prior to infringement. Or up to 3 months from publication. 

 

You must register your song prior to taking court action in the USA.

 

If you don't register your song prior to infringement you can still get actual damages i.e. the royalties and destruction orders for the infringing work.

 

So is it worth registering a song to protect your right to statutory damages and costs?

Answer maybe not,  The reason being I am only aware of statutory damages being awarded where someone has blatantly done something wrong.

In all song copyright cases I am aware of, the infringer will plead unintentional plagiarism. He will admit he's substantially similar, yes he's after you, Oh I must have heard the song, and it was in my subconscious. I have no knowledge of any US judge awarding statutory damages in the light of such a defense.

 

So I think you have an extra remedy that you are most likely never ever going to get to use. 

 

So what I am advocating is.

If your work is published and you are domicile in the US you should register your work within three months. This will protect your remedy of statutory damages which you may never use but you never know. 

If you are not domicile in the US and wish to avail yourself of the US jurisdiction, register your work within three months of publication.

Posting a song on songstuff and putting a link to a file on sound cloud is not publishing. The work is not published.

Therefore if you are not published and infringed then you can go and register the work and proceed with your case and remedy of statutory damages.

Because you have registered the song within three months of publication. Because prima face publication has yet to happen, unless the infringer has published it, then you need to get it registered within the dead line to protect those extra rights.

 

So to get back to my original point which was directed to the proposition amateur song writer posting on this site and concerned about theft.

There is absolutely no advantage in registering your work with the LOC.

The perception that a court will give more weight to date of creation evidence because it comes from a government office is false.

Not even the LOC will say this on their web site. That would obviously be unconstitutional.

There are more powerful time of creation evidences than the LOC. Because they are multiple.

We've discussed creation evidence and archiving it with your DAW files. 

The writer would be infringed by a published or unpublished plagiarism. Even if the plagiarism is published he has three months to register and still get full remedies.

 

There is no intention on my part to insinuate in any way that anything songstuff has or has not done is contributing to a deterioration of musician members rights and protections. If it came across like that it is purely because I simplified my explanations to save time. That was a roaring success   I am saying that advocating LOC registration is unnecessary as it does nothing to protect members rights unless they are published. Then the record company does it anyway. Although they have been known to forget. I am telling you this to inform you not to criticize what songstuff is doing. If songstuff has a policy of advocating registration, that is fine I don't have a problem with that.

 

Cheers

 

Gary

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[snabbu]

Firt time I have seen that sheet from Oz. It more or less says what I think we already have and what is in our topics and articles on the topic, but it is a good summary sheet.

If I remember correctly Canada also has a central copyright registration service... I could be wrong.

Yea well a reasonably cluey bloke wrote quite a bit of it.

I have checked on the loc faq and I can't find where they have issued a similar advice 

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/

I think they should.

 

I am not across Canadian copyright law so I don't know. 

 

Cheers

 

Gary

[snabbu]

I know the original poster is from the U.K.  But, I feel compelled to weigh in regarding registration with the U.S. Copyright Office and putting copyright notices on your works in the U.S.

 

1.    In my opinion, if you are an author and you are at all concerned that your copyrights in a published original work of yours might be infringed, even unintentionally, and you think an infringement could possibly give a U.S. Court or another court jurisdiction to hear the case and likely apply The U.S. Copyright Act in resolving the case, then, if you qualify to register your work with the U.S. Copyright office (e.g., you're a U.S. author or a citizen of or domiciled in a country that's a signatory to the Berne Convention:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_agreements), and you can afford the meager $35.00 fee (the price of an average tank of gas) and you do not promptly register your claim to copyrights in the work with The U.S. Copyright Office within 3 months of the date you first published the work, you're a fool for not doing so.  

 

If you had the foresight to register your published work with the U.S. Copyright office before it was infringed, then even if the infringer registers his/her illegal work, your work will be first-in-time with the Copyright Office.  Your Certificate of Copyright Registration will be prima facie proof in court that you are the rightful author, and, this is key - you will not have to prove you are the author - the infringer will have to prove that you are not the author.  That shifting of the burden of proof in litigation is a huge advantage to you as the plaintiff.  If you don't have a first-in-time Certificate of Copyright Registration, you will have to prove you are the author.  Let's see, you're going to have to amass all of your logs, and computer time-stamps, etc., and get them ready to admit them into evidence.  But, you'll also need an expert witness to testify regarding how computers time-stamp things, etc.  Proof from a website posting?  You'll probably need someone from the website to corroborate that you did post something on a particular date and time - assuming they're even still in business and subject to your subpoena.  Of course, then you'll have to defend the depositions of all your witnesses, and otherwise bear the huge costs of discovery for the litigation - both the cost your own discovery from them, and defending against their discovery from you.  Hmm.  You'll also have to prove that's what's time-stamped in your computer or what was posted online was, in fact, your song, and not something else.  How much do you think all this will cost you to prove?  Trust me.  It will be a lot more than $35.00.  And, this all assumes you can even afford to win the lawsuit.

 

If you promptly register your claim with the Copyright Office within 90 days of the date of first publication, if you prevail in the lawsuit, you can recover all of your attorney fees.  If you do not promptly register your claim, even if you win the lawsuit, you cannot recover your attorney fees.  Also, if you register your claim within 90 days, you can elect to be awarded statutory damages of up to $150,000.00 per each instance of infringement, and you won't have to prove any actual damages at all.  These benefits of prompt registration are also huge.  HUGE!  It is because of these two huge benefits that infringement litigation is even economically feasible for "the little guy."  Good luck getting a lawyer to represent lil ole you if you didn't have the foresight to secure these huge benefits of prompt registration.

 

With a copy of your first-in-time Certificate of Copyright Registration that you send to the infringer along with your "Cease and Desist Letter," the infringer will know you have the best ammo there is against them, and you're much more likely to stop the infringement and reach an out-of-court settlement.  Don't have a Certificate?  Can you hear the infringer laughing at you? 

 

2.   In my opinion, if you don't put notice of your copyright on every copy and phonorecord of your work that you let leave your control - which costs you nothing to do expect a few seconds of your time - then, you're also foolish for not doing that too.

 

A proper notice of copyright does more than just let potential infringers know that you know your rights.  If your work is infringed and you can demonstrate that a copy or phonorecord the infringer had access to had a proper copyright notice with it - whether the work is published or unpublished - then the court will presume that the infringement of the work was intentional, the infringer will be deemed to have no defense of "innocent infringement," and you can recover punitive damages without having to prove the infringement was intentional.  Didn't put notices on your works?  What's that sound?  Yep. It's the infringer laughing again.

 

 

 

Don't be foolish.  If you can afford the $35.00 fee and you qualify to register there, promptly register your claim with The U.S. Copyright Office within 90 days you first upload your work and make it publicly available online, or otherwise "publish" it, and secure for yourself all of the very substantial benefits of prompt registration under the U.S. Copyright Act.  And, always put proper copyright notices on your copies and phonorecords that leave your control.  

Hi Dave

I'm in Australia. I will ignore the insult

 

I agree with most  of this in regard to published writers domicile in the USA .

 

The exceptions being.

The overstating of the burden of evidence. The judiciary does not need a spotty 21 year old expert to explain the efficacy of computer logs. Nor much to some surprise do they need seeing eye dogs. In short they are reasonably bright people. All of the time line evidence will be written there will be no witnesses after all, all you would be rebutting is another piece of paper. 

 

 

Your interpretation of the defense of unintentional plagiarism is not mine do you have a reference case, I am using the  Harrison/ He's so fine case .

 

The function of © A proper notice of copyright does more than just let potential infringers know that you know your rights. 

This is not right, this is all it does. A work is copyright on fixed formation. It makes no difference to the way the infringement is viewed. 

 

However the original post was not about published songs it is about writers posting stuff on here with links to files on soundcloud.

There is no benefit to them to register with The LOC, other than if they are infringed by a published work and they didn't realize within 90 days. 

Costs and statutory damages are not to my knowledge commonly awarded in cases where unintentional plagiarism is a defense.

 

Yes there is a minimal risk in regard to the 90 days but it's small and a very very long bow. 

 

Cheers

 

Gary

[john]

If you are not domicile in the US and wish to avail yourself of the US jurisdiction, register your work within three months of publication.

Posting a song on songstuff and putting a link to a file on sound cloud is not publishing. The work is not published.

Therefore if you are not published and infringed then you can go and register the work and proceed with your case and remedy of statutory damages.

Just to be clear Gary, this is the US definition of publishing only? Ie the definition in the UK and elsewhere hasn't changed since I last looked. My understanding is that in the US for it to be published money has to change hands between the end user and someone providing it to them... in this situation site visitors would need to pay Songstuff for the lyrics / song for it to be considered published in the USA. In most other jurisdictions money changing hands isn't a qualifying factor as far as I understand it. To further my understanding I am more than happy to be corrected.

Additionally, if you can confirm, even in the USA, posting on Songstuff absolutely strengthens your claim of copyright by way of providing you an independent, verifiable, time stamped, copy of your lyrics and / or embedded songs.

I didn't mean to appear defensive, my interest is in the facts as they affect Songstuffers and when waters get muddied for whatever reason my interest is in boiling it down to as simple and clear an explanation and agreement of understanding as possible to save confusion. That is the reason for my picking through things.

Looking at this discussion like many visitors may do, I may only see all the worrying stuff. Not all the positive things, such as "there are a number of legally versed individuals interested in our well being making sure we are both well-served and well advised to post on Songstuff."

Tom and Hobo took the attitude that there is no satisfactory answer because even after answering the questioner is still left with "someone can steal my work". It might come off as dismissive, but really the motivation is that the fear is there before and after the answer. The answer might possibly ease things in a small way in that there is a potential comeback, but really, it does little to ease that fear of posting your work.

Indeed I would highlight again, we are all discussing this in detail precisely because we want everyone to be informed and because we have everyone' well being at heart.

Regarding Tom's approach of mentioning ego and theft, the intention was to help people get over being crippled into inaction by an unhealthy fear that their work will be targeted because there is an belief that their work is so special. My guess s It was intended to make members who felt that way less protective and more comfortable by pointing out that Songstuff is full of talented people producing talented work, and in general musicians have better things to do than steal their song. Ie the point was not to attack people, it was to free them from inaction by showing another perspective. I can understand te point they were making, although I understand that point can be made in several ways.

[john]

What is the difference in the US, Oz and UK regarding the definition of publication?

In particular, why would it be considered publication on Soundcloud, but not on Songstuff?

For example:

is a poem posted on Songstuff considered published?

Are lyrics?

Is an instrumental?

Is a full song?

If they were paid downloads would that make a definition?

Your comments back an forth have raised these questions for me (where I thought my understanding was good, the points you have raised Gary and David are interesting. Sorry to the OP for this deviation!)

[McnaughtonPark]

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ50.pdf