Q&A for How to Copyright a Song

You're good to use it if it's part of their audio base, because the original artist is getting a pay per stream when their content is used. So, the best way to make sure that you aren't breaking any copyright laws is to use the native audio in TikTok (or any platform that allows you to add music to your content).

You can register a full album with multiple songs. The single copyright fee covers the whole album.

If you have registered your songs with the U.S. Copyright Office, you should be able to open an online account and find your records that way. Go to www.copyright.gov to get started.

The fee covers the full album.

If you registered your song with the US Copyright Office back in 1970, then this would be easy for you. But I assume from your question, that that didn't happen. You will need to speak with a copyright attorney. This sounds like a matter that is going to have to go to court, and you will need to prove to a judge or jury that you have the original right to the song, and that your song came before the other person's song. Proving this can be difficult. You will need notes, diaries, witnesses from 1970 who heard your song, etc. Good luck.

A recording alone counts. An MP3 without sheet music is a very common method of filing for the registration of a copyright.

Your copyright protects your lyrics. You can register that with the U.S. Copyright office, and when you register, you will be asked if you are claiming copyright to the entire song, or just a portion of it. You are claiming copyright to the lyrics alone. You cannot copyright the music, because you don't own that. As for playing, performing or selling the song, you will need to find out where it is licensed with a music licensing agency, and request permission to use the music. Check ASCAP, BMI, or HFA for starters.

You can add up to 100 songs to the album.

Yes. Copyright refers to whatever portion of a song you have written. If, for example, you write new lyrics to already established music, you can copyright your lyrics for someone else's music. (Be careful, however. Your copyright, in this example, may not allow you to play or sell your song with someone else's music, unless you have a license or legal right to use their music.)

To use anyone else's music for a website, or any other purpose, you need a license. You need to find out what company that music is licensed with, and then request permission. (There will be a licensing fee.) The major licensing agencies are ASCAP, BMI, or HFA, although there are many others. If you are looking for one specific song, you'll have to check around.

Yes, for copyright purposes, MP3 audio files count.

Yes, there is a way. You will see it as part of the registration process.

Yes, afraid so. Nothing in the copyright registration differentiates based on length. You will be able, if you wish, to include many songs into a single album, and register that album for a single payment.

It's likely a distinction without a difference. You already own the individual copyrights whether you register them or not. Once they are registered in any form, you may enforce those copyrights in US federal courts.

You already own the copyright of the recording. Registration is optional. If you file that copy for registration, you only get legal coverage for the parts that can be heard. You can, of course, make a better recording and file that with your application for registration if you like.

Your copyright was effective the day you wrote the song or recorded a performance of it. You cannot pursue a US federal lawsuit for infringement until you have filed a US registration.

If an employee creates an original work of creative authorship as part of their job, then the employer is automatically the owner and "legal author" of that work, under US law. 17 USC § 201. If the "author" is a joint venture (e.g., a band), they are presumed to own equal rights to the copyright, absent an agreement to the contrary.

We cannot guess what your contract was for such an issue. If you agreed to transfer the entire copyright to someone else, they may have agreed to pay you once or pay you royalties based upon their future use, or not pay you at all.

Your copyright in the UK, like that of the USA, was free and automatic the moment you recorded your song. If someone has filed a false paper in the US Copyright Office, that is a serious federal crime and should be reported. You may also sue them for all the money they have made using your copyrighted song.

You cannot enforce a US copyright unless you have registered it in the Library of Congress.

Assuming you mean you REGISTERED your copyright, you may go to the copyright catalog at cocatalog.loc.gov and enter your name as author or the title of any song, registration numbers, or whatever information you have.

Not at all. Only a federal certificate of registration is proof of copyright ownership in the US courts.

No, you can register up to 100 songs on one application as a collection. However, your damages for infringement may be limited by the registration date of each song.

If you wrote or recorded a performance of your song in any language then you already own the copyright. You may optionally register your ownership in the US Copyright Office if you are a citizen or resident of any country of the Berne Convention (over 160 countries).

There are two different copyrights in a song: the composition and any recording of any performance. They would automatically own the copyright in a recording of any song in which they performed, absent a contract to the contrary. The guy clapping his hands in the hallway would also own the copyright, if you can hear it on the recording.

You own the copyright the moment you write a new song or record a performance. If you file within 3 months of your first publication of your work, your registration filing date may provide you "legal coverage" for claiming damages by infringement from the date you first performed them (17 USC § 412).

Yes, each application for registration requires a separate fee. The Copyright Office may not even listen to any part of your recordings, let alone figure out it's a duplicate.

It's automatically copyrighted when you write a song or record a performance of a song. The requirement for any sort of copyright notice in the USA was repealed in 1989. There are very few US-origin sound recordings that are NOT copyrighted, dating from the first Edison rolls.

You own the copyright of the composition. She would be a co-owner of the copyright on any recording in which she is heard performing, absent a proper contract to the contrary (e.g., as your employee or as a contractor under a "work for hire" contract).

You cannot legally register the copyright of an unauthorized derivative work, without permission, because the original author has the exclusive right to make derivative works.