How To Find My Registered Song In The Library Of Congress

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When yous accept written a vocal (or volume, or created whatever other slice of artwork), you automatically create something chosen a copyright. This is a legal protection that nobody else may use, publish, sell or record your song without your permission. In club to protect your copyright further, you should register information technology with the U.S. Copyright Office. You may wish to rent an attorney or agent to aid you with this procedure, merely it is pretty unproblematic. Most people can do information technology themselves. There is a small filing fee.

1

Realize that you accept a copyright automatically. By international law, you really ain the copyright to your song (or book, artwork, or other creative creation) equally soon as you create it. Your copyright is free and is automatic. The song must be "fixed" in some way, in a written down copy or a recording. Y'all cannot take a copyright to a tune in your head, or that y'all perform in public, unless you write information technology down or record it in some fashion. You do not have to take any activeness to accept this copyright. The actions that people refer to when they talk about "copyrighting a song" are steps to register and protect your copyright, which make it easier to prove that it is yours if some dispute arises.^[1] ^[2]
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Understand your "bundle of rights." A copyright is non a single thing. The discussion "copyright" is actually a unmarried term that applies to several different rights that adhere to a piece of music. If you are the original author, singer, recording creative person and record producer, you may ain all the copyrights to the song. Merely if you wrote a vocal and Taylor Swift recorded her own performance of it, you would accept the copyright to the written song, and she would have the copyright to her recorded version of information technology.^[3]
- There are many other technicalities involved in who owns the copyright of "works made for hire", and things created as joint works. Your exclusive rights are also subject field to various statutory limitations, such as "fair utilise" and certain "educational uses", that are non infringements of your rights.
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Know the different rights involved with your copyright. Included in your "bundle of rights" are several separate rights or licenses. Y'all tin go along part of the copyright to yourself, and license away another part, for example. Some of the dissimilar rights, cleaved into their split up parts, and some of the related licenses, are:^[4]
- Public performing correct. If you are the owner of a song, y'all have the right to control its performance or transmission in public.
- Public performing license. A license is a permission that tin can be granted to someone for a specific purpose. A public performing license is a permission that can be granted to someone else to perform your vocal. If you lot register your music through a publishing company similar BMI, the company volition manage public performing licenses for y'all.
- Reproduction right. Equally the owner of the copyright of a song, y'all command who may reproduce your song in a tape, cassette, CD, online or any other format.
- Mechanical license. A mechanical license is a permission to someone to reproduce and distribute a specific limerick at an agreed price. Signing a recording contract will involve a mechanical license.
- Synchronization license. A synchronization license is permission granted for the use of a vocal or recording to back-trail a visual performance, such as background music for a film, television receiver prove or video.
- Derivative works. You have the sectional right to have your work modified in any mode to create a new work, to to put it into a different course, including translations of lyrics or change of tempo. Y'all may license such rights to others, whether for a fee or as a courtesy.
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Annals with a licensing agency. If y'all have written a vocal (lyrics, music, or both), you may register that song, completely for free, with any of several commercial licensing agencies. Registering with these agencies is designed to help yous sell licensed employ of your song, merely it does not provide legal protection for your copyright.
- Some of the most popular licensing agencies are ASCAP (American Social club of Composers, Authors and Publishers), BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.), or HFA (The Harry Fox Agency, Inc.).^[5] ^[vi] They deal with licensing unlike aspects of your rights.
- The Usa Copyright Office also handles issuance of a "compulsory license" for non-dramatic music, later y'all have published your own recordings. People tin apply for that when they want to publish copies of their own recordings of their "cover" performance your work, nether 17 USC § 115. You, as the copyright possessor, may so receive royalties from the US Copyright Office, or may choose to negotiate a unlike license with the producers of those recordings.
- Fifty-fifty if y'all never annals your piece of work with an agency, or in the U.s. Copyright Office, you still have the correct to negotiate private licenses that allow others to utilize your works based upon mutually agreed terms.
5
Don't fall for the "Poor Man'due south Copyright" play a trick on. Some people have described a "poor homo'due south copyright" every bit a free substitute for registration with the U.S. Copyright Role. This gimmick involves mailing yourself a copy of your song, keeping the sealed envelope, and and then supposedly using the postmark equally proof of copyright of the contents. You are complimentary to do this, if you lot wish, but realize that this is no legal protection of your copyright.^[7] ^[8]
- Some of this confusion may ascend from the use of this and similar methods in other countries where registration is not required, or (in most countries) non even possible. Only having proof of the appointment of your earlier work is often deemed sufficient proof of your ownership of the copyright.
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Be willing to pay a flake to protect your copyright. If y'all've written a vocal, you own the copyright. Done -- it'due south automatic, by police force. Withal, to reserve the right to protect that copyright in court means yous may need to incur a minor fee. Y'all can register your song(southward) with the U.S. Copyright Office for $35. This registration is stronger protection of your copyright, because any other writer or performer who comes along later cannot claim a song that is already registered. Too, anyone who wants a license can find your vocal championship and your ownership listed in the US Copyright Office database, once it'south registered. Formal registration will be well worth the coin if there is ever a dispute afterwards.
- Knowing that registration is a condition for enforcement of US copyrights, yous might want to check the online copyright database from time to time, in case someone else has decided to annals your works every bit their own, possibly by mistake. You lot can search the database by title and author, among other things, free of accuse, or hire someone to do information technology for you.
- When it comes to unauthorized distribution of your works past online downloads or streams, fifty-fifty your non-registered copyright may be "enforced". Nether the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), you may (every bit the copyright owner) file a formal complaint with any web hosting service that allows your works to be distributed without your permission. Under DMCA laws (in the Usa, similar in other places), they are and then required to "promptly remove" the violating publication of your works. Of course, if they refuse, and you want to pursue it, you may demand to register your copyright and sue them and their fellow member who uploaded it to their servers.
- The process to enforce your copyright in a United states court tin be very expensive and is by and large reserved for serious violations that cannot exist resolved in any other way. Yous will nearly ever demand to have consulted with an attorney before you consider that sort of enforcement. Notwithstanding, in some circumstances, y'all can also claim restitution of your attorneys' fees, in addition to amercement and injunction, when you lot win your instance. ^[9]

1

Access the US Copyright Part website. To preregister a vocal or to register a song online, you must create an account online with the U.S. Copyright Office. Begin past visiting the website at www.Copyright.gov.^[10] Select the link to "Annals a Copyright" and so select the button to "Log in to eCO."^[11]
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Choose "New User" to create an business relationship. If this is your first fourth dimension conducting business on this site, y'all will need to create an business relationship. Choose the button for "New User." You will then see a screen to create your business relationship. Y'all will need to enter the following data:^[12]
- Name
- Electronic mail address
- Userid (you will create one)
- Password (you lot volition create one)
- Challenge question, as a security tool in example you forget your countersign
- Cull "Next" when you are ready to motion on.
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Provide your address and phone number. On the next screen, yous will be prompted to provide your accost and telephone number. After you enter all this information, click on "Next" at the bottom of the screen.^[13]
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Read the warning observe about credit cards. After you enter all your information to create your online account, you will be shown a notice that the copyright.gov website does not capture any credit card numbers for any payment. When you lot read this notice, choose "Finish" at the bottom of the screen, and your account will be set up for use.^[14]

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Make up one's mind if you qualify for preregistration. Preregistration of a copyright is a step that notifies the U.S. Copyright Office that you have a song or other creative piece of work in process and that is likely to be mass produced in some form. It is not the same as registration and does not have the same legal meaning. For a song to be eligible for pre-registration, the following must apply:^[xv]
- For a sound recording, at least some of the sound must already exist in a recorded form, although the final production does not need to be completed yet, and you must verify that you take a "reasonable expectation" that the work will be commercially distributed.
- For a song composition, at least some of it must exist written or recorded in some format, the vocal is intended for utilize on a mass produced tape or movie soundtrack, and y'all must have a "reasonable expectation" that the piece of work will exist commercially distributed.
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Log in to eCO to preregister online. Preregistration is a step that is only available online through the eCO system. To access the organization, begin at the copyright.gov habitation page, select "Register a Copyright," and so "Log in to eCO."^[16]
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Enter your userid and password. In the box in the top left of the next screen, you volition run into a identify to enter the userid and password that you defined when you created your account. Enter those here and select "Login."
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Select "Preregister a Claim." On the left side of the side by side screen, you lot will run across a listing of options. In the middle of the list, under the heading of "Copyright Registration," select "Preregister a Claim." The screen will change automatically to the side by side pace.^[17]
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Read the Preregistration Overview. The next screen contains data about the preregistration process. Read through this data to exist sure that you wish to preregister, then continue. Select "Kickoff Preregistration."^[18]
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Place the type of work that you are preregistering. Y'all will have six different choices, and y'all may select one or more of them. Choose whichever apply to the piece of work that you are preregistering. Make sure that whatsoever you lot choose represents the rights that yous hold. For example, practice not merits the copyright in the audio recording of a vocal, if you were the writer just not the performer. The choices are:^[xix]
- Musical composition
- Audio recording
- Literary work in book form
- Computer programme
- Motion picture
- Advertising or marketing photo
- Move on to the side by side stride by selecting "Continue" at the top of the screen.
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Provide the title of the work. This may be a working title, which could change when the final copy is produced, simply you do need to enter a title for the work. If the work that you are preregistering is an album or other collection of songs, you need to give only the anthology championship at this time.^[twenty]
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Provide the names of individual songs, if any. The side by side screen is to list the titles of individual songs. Provide as many as you know, with the current titles. This all may modify for the final product.
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Provide the proper noun of the author. On the next screen, listing the proper name of the writer or authors of the work. If you wish to be known by a pseudonym, then enter that name.
10
Identify the "claimant" of the copyright. The claimant, in near cases, volition be the same as the author. Nonetheless, sometimes the copyright claimant may be different than the writer. For example, if the writer is writing a song as a work for hire for a film, then the movie publisher may be the claimant of the copyright.^[21]
- It is also possible that you accept already transferred your copyright buying to others prior to registration, making the new owners the "claimants". They should take a written, signed and dated copy of the certificate in which you agreed to transfer your rights.
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List three important dates related to the composition. The next screen will ask you to identify 3 important dates to identify your claim in the vocal:
- the date you began creating the vocal
- the date you anticipate creating the work
- the appointment you anticipate commercial distribution
12

Write a brief description of the song you are preregistering. This description does not need to be very thorough, just plenty to be able to identify it in case of a after claim of infringement. Your clarification is express to 2000 characters, or about 300 words.
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Certify your claim. Later on you take completed all prior steps for preregistration, y'all volition be asked to certify that yous are in fact the copyright holder for the song or album that you described and that you have a reasonable expectation that the work will be commercially distributed in the near time to come.^[22]
- In that location is no fee for preregistration.
- When you certify your claim, you lot are warned that you are making a statement under oath and that falsifying a merits may exist a federal offense.
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Register your song afterward completion. Preregistration is not sufficient to protect your copyright completely. To practise that, you lot must register your copyright within three months after the starting time publication of the finished piece of work, or inside one month if y'all become enlightened that someone else has infringed on your copyright.^[23]

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Decide if you wish to register online or past mail. Your registration will exist processed more rapidly and has a cheaper filing fee if you submit it online. But if you practise non have access to the Cyberspace, or if you just prefer to ship it by postal service, you lot may do then. The registration is equally valid either way. The instructions in the side by side few steps (except the login pace) volition apply every bit to online registration or paper registration. ^[24]
- To request newspaper copies of the registration forms, you can call the Copyright Office at (202) 707–3000 or 1 (877) 476–0778 (price costless). You will need to ask for grade SR if you are registering a sound recording of a song, or class PA if you are recording the written lyrics or music, without a recording.
- If you accept access to a figurer, you can notice and impress these forms at http://www.copyright.gov/eco/.
2

Access the eCO website to begin your registration. To access the registration system online, begin at the copyright.gov home folio, select "Register a Copyright," and and then "Log in to eCO."^[25]
3

Enter your userid and password. In the box in the top left of the next screen, you volition see a place to enter the userid and password that you defined when y'all created your account. Enter those here and select "Login."
4

Cull "Register a New Claim." On the left side of the screen, you will meet a list of options. Under the heading of "Copyright Registration," select the choice "Annals a New Claim." You will be directed automatically to the next screen.^[26]
five
Reply 3 questions to ascertain your registration. The next screen will prompt you lot with three questions. Your answers to those questions volition determine the appropriate application for registering your work.^[27] The three questions are:
- Are you registering i piece of work? If you lot accept a single song to copyright, you will respond "yes." If you have a collection or a full album, you will respond "no."
- Are yous the only author an owner of the work? If you wrote the vocal by yourself, reply "yeah." If you collaborated with one or more other people, say "no."
- Does the work contain material by but this ane writer? If you sampled other music in your vocal, for case, y'all will reply "no." Otherwise, choose "yep."
half dozen
Select the type of work you are registering. There are several choices, to begin the identification of your copyrighted work. Review the list on the dropdown bill of fare, and make your selection. Exist careful in making your selection. Once you accept called the type, you cannot change it. You lot would have to cancel this unabridged registration session and starting time over again. The choices for literary type are:^[28]
- Literary work
- Work of visual arts
- Sound recording - this volition exist your selection if yous are copyrighting a particular recorded version of a song
- Piece of work of the performing arts - this will be your selection if y'all are copyrighting a written song, but not the bodily recording of the vocal
- Motility flick/AV work
- Single serial issue
- Select "Continue" after y'all have fabricated your choice.
7
Provide the title of the work. If you but accept a working championship, provide that. If the work is untitled, then type in "untitled."^[29]
- On the aforementioned screen, you are asked to say whether this slice appears every bit part of a larger work. This would include a song that is part of an album, or a short story that is function of a drove.
- Click on "Keep" when you are gear up to get on.
viii
Tell whether the song has been published. For this purpose, publication ways offering copies of the song for sale or other public distribution. A public performance of the work does not institute publication.^[30]
- Respond aye or no to the drop down question. Then you will be prompted to give your preregistration number, if you preregistered this work.
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Identify the author and claimant of the copyright. The "legal author" is generally the person who wrote the song, or their employer. The claimant may be the same person every bit the writer, or it may be someone else. For example, if yous wrote a song for rent, to be used in a motion picture, y'all might (or might not) be the "legal author", and the pic producer may be the claimant.^[31]
- Under US laws, if you're employed for the purpose of creating such works, your employer is considered the author. Similarly, if you are an independent contractor creating a "piece of work for hire", under a properly written contract, the client is considered to exist the "legal author" and the owner of the copyright in your work, unless they accept signed a different understanding proving otherwise. ^[32]
- Unfortunately, resolving the question of "properly written contract" would require the review and advice of an attorney. However, as a bonus, if there is no written contract or the contract for "work for hire" fails for some reason, then you (the author) are the default "legal author" and thus owner of all the rights. Many WFH contracts include a separate "assignment of rights", as a backup plan to own your rights (by written transfer), fifty-fifty if you are deemed the "legal author".
- Consider the fact that anyone performing on a recording of your performance who is not under a "piece of work for hire" also becomes, by default, a "joint owner" of your copyright in the resulting joint piece of work.
10
Limit your claim, if appropriate. If your work contains parts of other previously copyrighted works, you volition demand to identify the original works hither. For instance, if your song takes samples from other songs, y'all demand to place those original works.^[33]
- This is a step that may require the assistance of an attorney, if you demand help deciding how much use is acceptable as "off-white use" or public domain.
11

Identify contacts for rights and permissions, if you wish. This is an optional step. If you accept registered your works with a music clearinghouse, you may wish to identify that organisation here for copyright direction or permission to employ your work.^[34]
12

Name a contributor for further contact. The correspondent is the person who should exist contacted by the U.S. Copyright Office if there are any questions about this copyright registration. You may proper name yourself, or you lot may choose to appoint a manager or attorney.^[35]
13

Give your address for mailing the copyright certificate. When your registration has been processed completely, the U.S. Copyright Office will mail yous a copyright certificate. You lot need to requite the complete name and address for mailing that certificate.^[36]
14
Request special handling, if applicative. If you fall into one of iii special categories, yous may exist able to request special treatment of your registration. This will speed the process for your merits to become through the U.South. Copyright Role and to render your copyright certificate. To request special handling, 1 of the following three conditions must apply:^[37]
- you are involved in awaiting or prospective litigation
- at that place is some customs event related to the song
- a contract borderline requires an expedited document
xv
Certify that the claim is yours. The final step is to certify that the copyright of this work is legally yours and that yous are legally entitled to claim the copyright. Marker the box and type in the proper name of the authorized claimant.^[38]
- If you practice not complete the certification pace, y'all cannot proceed.
- You are warned that making a false certification or claim of copyright is a violation of federal law. This is the same law that deters others from falsely registering a claim to your works, giving your registration the weight of testify you will need in court.
16
Review your entire submission. If yous are submitting your registration online, all the information that you lot entered in response to the previous screens will announced in one table. Read information technology carefully and check for accurateness and abyss. If you need to make any changes, you tin go back to make corrections. If you are registering on paper, proofread everything carefully.^[39]
- When y'all take reviewed everything and made whatever necessary corrections, select "Add to Cart."
17
Pay for your registration. After your submission is complete, you lot need to pay the registration fee. The fee for registering a single new song online by a unmarried writer is $35. A standard application for all other filings is $55. You will need a credit menu to pay for your registration, or you tin open an account through pay.gov.^[twoscore]
- If yous are submitting your registration by mail, you lot need to include a cheque fabricated payable to "Annals of Copyrights" in the amount of $85.^[41]
xviii
Submit your song. Afterwards your payment is complete online, you should meet a note that says "Payment Successful." You now need to follow these steps to upload a copy of your song to accompany the registration:^[42]
- Click the "Continue" button on the upper right of the Payment Successful screen.
- Click the greenish "Select files to upload" push button in the "Deposit Submission" table. A window with fields for browsing and selecting files to be uploaded should announced.
- Select the file(s) to be uploaded for the work being registered. As they are selected, the file names volition be displayed under the dark-green "Select Files to upload" button.
- Afterwards selecting all files for the piece of work, click the blue "Start Upload" button.
- When all files accept been uploaded for the work, click the dark-green "Complete Your Submission" button.
- If you submitted multiple applications together, repeat these steps for each application to upload and electronic re-create of the work(south).
- If you are registering by mail service, yous need to send in a copy of your written music, lyrics, or the recording. You lot may submit an audio cassette, videocassette, CD or DVD recording. You need to package the recording in a box, not an envelope, in social club to ensure proper handling by the U.Southward. Copyright Office.^[43]
  - Floppy disks, zilch drives, or other estimator recordings are not acceptable.
  - Once yous submit the piece of work, your copy volition not exist returned to you.
  - Many people submit their work by certified postal service, simply that is not a requirement.
19
Look to receive your copyright certificate. After you have completed the registration procedure, whether online or by mail, your work is over. Your claim will be processed in line with other claims every bit they are received. Processing time for online filed claims is nigh eight months. Registrations by mail may be longer. If that much time has passed and you accept not received annihilation however, you may cheque the status of your merits by submitting a status request.^[44]
- If the Copyright Function finds problems with your application or the copies you submitted, they will contact you with the problem and give yous time to gear up it, in most cases.

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1

Empathise your automatic copyright protection. Equally presently as y'all create a work, you own the copyright to it. This is generally recognized around the world. The procedure of registration with the U.South. Copyright Part protects that copyright inside the U.S. The United States has reciprocal agreements with many other countries, whereby each country agrees to recognize and protect copyrights under each other's laws. Therefore, if you created your piece of work in the U.South., or in other "convention countries", you are protected past copyright laws in those countries.^[45]
2
Mark your work with the recognized symbol for copyright. Nether the Universal Copyright Convention, an international treaty that the U.S. has been party to since 1955, you can protect your copyright with the internationally recognized copyright symbol:^[46]
- The symbol begins with the letter C with a circle around information technology
- Include the date the work was created
- Include the name of the person claiming the copyright.
- These marks should appear on the work itself, at the bottom of the folio or somewhere on the packaging for a recording.
3
Review international copyright treaties. The U.S. is a party to several different international treaties regarding the protection of artistic works. If you are interested in learning more, you can inquiry these treaties. Some of the treaties that the U.Southward. recognizes are:^[47]
- the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
- the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works
- the WIPO Copyright Treaty
- the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty
- the Geneva Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms
- the Brussels Convention Relating to the Distribution of Program-Conveying Signals Transmitted past Satellite.
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Review the police force of a specific country. If yous are concerned about protecting your copyright in a detail country, yous should research that country'due south copyright laws. For this, you may demand to enlist the services of an experienced international copyright attorney.^[48]
- Every bit described to a higher place, the DMCA simply applies in U.S. jurisdictions. Even so, a number of other countries have established similar guidelines for online service providers (OSP) to avoid copyright liability for acts by its members. Among such countries are Australia, United Kingdom, China, Japan and Southward Africa. They each have their own limitations. However, absent-minded specific limitations on liability in their country, an OSP could exist sued for unauthorized distribution of your copyrighted works.
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Recognize the fact that information technology may not be necessary to strictly enforce all copyright laws against all infringements. Yous, as the possessor, have the choice of whether to take authoritative, ceremonious, or fifty-fifty criminal action confronting infringers, or to simply ignore them. You lot may grant waivers or fifty-fifty a courtesy (complimentary) license after-the-fact for infringements of which y'all actually approve. There is an old saying, "Fake is the sincerest grade of flattery." -- Charles Caleb Colton.
- Do not forget that enforceability of your exclusive rights may too exist express by statute, so practise non be quick to attempt legal actions without get-go understanding the relevant laws.

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There is a "gimmick" of mailing a re-create of your written or recorded song to yourself, and then storing information technology safely with the postmark as proof of your creation appointment, without opening the envelope. This trick might serve equally some prove, merely it is not valid registration of a copyright. You need to register your copyright with the U.Southward. Copyright Office, if you lot plan to sue in a US federal court.
It should also be noted that the post office can, in fact, deliver an unsealed envelope, making your postmark meaningless for purpose of proving what might take been inside on that date.

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Commodity Summary X

Copyright law can seem disruptive, but y'all can easily copyright your song for free. Under international law, you automatically own the copyright to your song as soon as you lot create it. However, make sure you lot tape the song in audio or notation so you can prove that you lot wrote the vocal earlier anyone copies it. If you desire to sell licenses to your song so you can brand profit when other people perform, sample, or record your song, you'll need to register with a licensing agency like Circulate Music, Inc. or The Harry Fox Agency, Inc. If y'all want the right to protect your music in court, you'll need to pay a fee of 35 dollars to the U.S. Copyright Office, which will give you lot stronger protection over your music. For more tips from our Legal co-author, including how to create an business relationship with the U.S. copyright function, read on!

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