In this article we will take a look at what copyright is, how to register your works and how to use your copyright as an author or artist to make money.
Basic Copyright Guide: How to protect your music as an artist, author or producer.
As a freelance musician, you own your songs and recordings.
This may seem obvious, but it’s worth repeating: YOU control the rights to the songs you write and the recordings you create. That copyright property gives you support, protection and strength to make money from your catalogue of works.
In this article we will take a look at what copyright is, how to register your works and how to use your copyright as an author or artist to make money.
What is copyright?
It is the intellectual property of a work by a person or a group.
Copyright guarantees certain exclusive rights to the owner, or owners, one of the most important being the right to earn money from that intellectual property. It is the so-called “exploitation” of your rights. We’ll talk about that later.
Music copyright designates the ownership of a particular song or recording.
If you create a recording yourself, or if you pay for studio time and session fees, you own that phonographic recording. If you work with a label, there is a chance that the label will control the rights to the recording, at least for a set period of time.
If you compose a song, you own that composition. If you write a song together with one or more people, each person owns a part of the song. It’s in your and your co-workers’ best interest to make a document that determines the distribution (the percentages of the song that correspond to each), and record the rights accordingly.
The two types of copyright
- Composition – consisting of music and lyrics
- The sound recording – which is a concrete recorded version of that music and that lyrics
The compositions usually belong to the authors and/or editors. Recordings are usually by artists or record labels.
When do you own your rights?
In strictly technical terms, you own your musical rights the moment you capture the composition or recording and fix it on a specific medium. This can be as simple as writing the lyrics and melody on a piece of paper or humming it on a tape recorder.
Is so-called “poor people’s copyright” considered proof of authorship?
The “copyright of the poor” is a common but unadvisable method of proving authorship. It consists of a musician sending himself a copy of the composition or recording by certified mail, leaving the envelope sealed with the date clearly marked on the outside.
The idea is that the state does the work of dating the work with the postmark. However this does not allow you to get the same protection as an official copyright registration.
With that system, you own the rights, but you haven’t really registered the work.
Why am I interested in registering my rights?
At this point you’re wondering “if I already own my rights, why should I register my work?”
The main reason is that in case someone infringes your copyright either by recording a song you wrote or by using a recording of yours without permission, you will be much stronger if your work is officially registered. In the USA you are interested in registering your work in the US Copyright Office, part of the Library of Congress.
If you live outside of the United States, you should look for the official registration office in your country.
A registered work has much more weight in a lawsuit than a sealed envelope, a Soundcloud link or a napkin dipped in beer. And if you decide to sue for copyright infringement, an official registry qualifies you for financial compensation from the infringing party and attorneys’ fees. It’s simply the best way to prove that you own the rights.
How to register your copyright
If you want to legally register your rights in the United States you will have to do it directly at the Copyright Office, or use Cosynd, a service that handles the paperwork for you.
The advantage of Cosynd is that it is much simpler than the multiple steps necessary when you register directly with the Copyright Office. CD Baby partnered with Cosynd and not with other companies that offer similar services for the ease of navigation of its interface, its fast process and efficiency and professionalism in all steps.
Copyright of a composition (Form PA):
- Declaration of distribution of percentage of rights
- Lyrics and music
Copyright of a recording (Form SR):
- Digital archive of your music (you can use physical format if you register directly with the government agency)
If you register your copyright directly, you are interested in having:
- PA form for a composition
- SR form for a recording
What if you want to record both recording and composition?
How do I make money with a recording?
When you own the rights to a recording you control the “master rights” and you can license that master. Royalties from the assignment of a master license include streaming revenue and downloads associated with the recording from platforms such as Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music, Deezer, etc.
You can also give permissions for synchronization licenses and sampling of your recording. (These topics are expanded below).
Nationally and internationally you get royalties when your song plays on the radio. Internationally you get royalties when your song plays on digital radio or satellite. (This is also expanded below).
How do I earn money with the rights to my composition?
Once you’ve registered your copyright, it’s time to exploit it. The word exploitation may have negative connotations in other parts of society, but in music business it’s the way to make money from the hard work you put into composing your song.
Execution royalties
As an author, you have the right to collect editorial royalties for the use of your song. One of the sources of income of this type is the performance royalties, which correspond to the composer and the editor when a song:
- sounds on the radio
- is performed in public
- sounds in a restaurant, bar, etc.
As an author, you are interested in registering with an entity that collects execution royalties. These entities are called performing rights organizations (PROs).
There are three main (and some smaller) entities in the United States:
- BMI
- ASCAP
- SESAC
The job of these societies is to keep track of the use of your song on radio stations and concert halls. Each time your song plays in public, it generates a performance royalty for the composition, and as an author you are entitled to that performance royalty.
You can also earn performance royalties by playing your songs live. The halls should pay fees to the management companies to cover those royalties and each entity gives you a way to register your repertoires live.
When you’re on tour, keep track of the venues you play in and your set-lists so you can declare those concerts when you get home! A peculiarity of performance royalties is that they are only for authors and their publishers, royalty entities do not pay anything to the musicians playing on the recording.
Mechanical royalties
When your composition is reproduced in any medium you get a different type of royalty called mechanical royalty.
These are royalties that entities such as ASCAP and BMI and others in general do not collect.
You may have heard of mechanical royalties related to the manufacture of physical formats such as CDs, vinyl and cassettes. But digital formats also generate mechanical royalties. When someone plays your music on a service like Spotify or Apple Music, or when they buy a download at a store like iTunes, your composition is technically being played. Yes, even though, in the case of streaming, it’s a temporary playback.
These mechanical royalties are reported by the streaming platforms and downloaded to the royalty collecting societies in the country or territory where the playback or download takes place.
