What happens if you don’t copyright your music?
As a musician you probably tend to focus most of your energy on creating music rather than getting too involved in all the business aspects. Regardless, one of the most important things you should remember to do is copyright your music so that it’s not possible for others to use it for profit without first getting your permission. It’s very much that same as a piece of writing or a work of art; once you’ve created something it’s yours, but you also have to be able to prove this. It is for this reason that you should ensure that you do everything possible to protect your intellectual property.
By taking the steps to copyright your music you identify it as your own creation. This gives you legal grounds to pursue someone who may be using your music and making a profit from it without your permission. You also need to prove that you hold the copyright to your music when you register your music with BMI or ASCAP otherwise they will not allow you to make money from it. It’s not as hard to copyright your music as you may think, but you do have to pay a fee and fill out some paperwork.
It is possible to copyright your music one song at a time or as many songs as your like all at once. You can save a lot of time and money by having a recording of more than one song. Some artists will submit a full album at once. This is a great idea and it doesn’t need to be fancy, just get a recording of your songs down on tape. Obviously if you only have one song then this is not an option. If you only have one song and are unsure about when you’re likely to create the next one, just go ahead and copyright your music one song at a time.
Even though there are plenty of ways to prove that something is yours, it is far easier to take the time to copyright your music instead of leaving it to chance. If someone else managed to copyright your music before you did and you aren’t able to prove you wrote or performed the music before they got the copyright, you may end up losing out on your own song! The moment you create just about anything, copyright is implied, but without proof it’s possible for someone to come and take that from your without warning, so make sure you have protected your music by copyrighting it.