Copyrighting music?
Discussion
About three-and-a-half decades ago, when I was a teenager making bad electronic music in the corner of my bedroom, I was told, rightly or wrongly, that you could copyright your music by sticking it on a casette, posting it to yourself by special delivery and leaving it sealed up when it arrived, so there'd be a sealed copy of my music with a post mark that predeated any later date at which someone might steal it and claim it was theirs.
Today, as an adult making bad electronic music in the spare room, I'm wondering if uploading a wav, mp3, etc. to cloud storage is enough to prove that it was mine before anyone else's as it'll have a date against it that noone can tamper with, so is proof of when I uploaded it.
Not that I'm under the illusion of ever making more than enough to buy a coffee from my music, but stranger things have happened at sea. Any proper musicians care to advise?
Today, as an adult making bad electronic music in the spare room, I'm wondering if uploading a wav, mp3, etc. to cloud storage is enough to prove that it was mine before anyone else's as it'll have a date against it that noone can tamper with, so is proof of when I uploaded it.
Not that I'm under the illusion of ever making more than enough to buy a coffee from my music, but stranger things have happened at sea. Any proper musicians care to advise?
Copyright subsists in original musical works without you having to do anything.
The process you’re talking about is one of creating evidence of when you created the work in question, in case someone later rips off your work and you want to be able to show your work predated theirs.
Any date stamped record will suffice though obviously some will be better than others, because they will be less susceptible to claims of later fabrication and backdating.
The process you’re talking about is one of creating evidence of when you created the work in question, in case someone later rips off your work and you want to be able to show your work predated theirs.
Any date stamped record will suffice though obviously some will be better than others, because they will be less susceptible to claims of later fabrication and backdating.
MitchT said:
LunarOne said:
Play the music and record with a camera, holding up a newspaper or publication with the date. Any news website showing current events should do the trick!
I'm not sure that would work. I could find an old newspeper and claim I recorded it when it was current!My understanding is that once you publish your music somewhere it becomes time stamped.
That being said I have the project files and stems of all of our songs released or otherwise from the very first take to final mix and master saved across multiple mediums.
Not that I expect that we will be plagiarised any time soon.
Our music
That being said I have the project files and stems of all of our songs released or otherwise from the very first take to final mix and master saved across multiple mediums.
Not that I expect that we will be plagiarised any time soon.
Our music
Edited by suthol on Sunday 26th October 23:40
if you release your music to all digital platforms via a company like Ditto or Distrokid etc it's job done automatically. having said that, that's worked out well for my current band.... recording and releasing in real time... but i've recently remastered and released all the material my old band recorded back in the 90s, so aside from the one track we had released by a record label in 1995 it's taken 30 years to get a proper copyright ..... however, i suppose someone would have actually been able to listen to the other few ep's somewhere over the last 3 decades to be able to rip them off! ha!!
You need to keep in mind that should you use copyright laws against what you consider to be an infringement, the courts will require evidence that the person you are making the claim against had the opportunity to listen to your original recording. So, creating something and proving you created it and when is pointless if you do nothing with it. A court would simply say the similarity is a coincidence.... which is exactly what it would be.
The best form of protection is, as Tuscaneer says, to publish it. Get the music out there, own it and promote it. You hold the copyright by default.
But also keep in mind that successful copyright claims in music are exceptionally rare. Pursuing them is very expensive and very difficult to prove.
The best form of protection is, as Tuscaneer says, to publish it. Get the music out there, own it and promote it. You hold the copyright by default.
But also keep in mind that successful copyright claims in music are exceptionally rare. Pursuing them is very expensive and very difficult to prove.
Gassing Station | Music | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff