Can music copyright protect a song internationally?

Question

Hi, I've got a potentially stupid question - I've got a song I'd like to protect with copyright but I don't really understand the extent to which my song would be protected. I live in Ireland, so if I copyrighted the song over here, would that ONLY protect the song in Ireland, or is the song also legally protected abroad, say in the UK/US?

Answer 1

Actually, just about all answers are correct.

Most "civilized" nations are members of the Berne Convention, a treaty recognizing international copyright rights. The Berne Convention did away with most "formalities" for copyright protection internationally and recognizes that copyright protection attaches to a work without having to be registered. In that sense, your copyright is protected internationally once you've created the work.

However, ENFORCING that right is a different story. Many countries require registration of the copyright prior to filing a lawsuit for infringement, and if the infringement happened prior to registration, some remedies (like statutory damages) are foreclosed. That said, there should be a method with your government to (1) register the work domestically, and (2) pay an extra fee and have it registered internationally pursuant to the Berne Convention.
Check out Ireland or the UK's intellectual property office; copyright registration is usually something that's fairly easy to do (you just send them a copy of the thing you want registered, fill out a form or two, pay some money, and it's done), and then you can also look about registering it in other countries through the Convension.

Answer 2

It is copyrighted only in Ireland. You would need to copyright it with the US Federal government for protection in any US state or territory. Also you would need to copyright it in the UK and all other places you want for protection. However, given the fact the internet is being used to illegally downloaded music from any part in the world, my friend, you are in for a HUGE task, and unfortunately there is no guarantee that some copyright infringement may go unnoticed. Hence the switch from many records deals where the music is being sold through ITunes or some other sort of device with an Ipod because people are hardly buying CD's anymore...

Answer 3

All songs that you create are automatically protected under international copyright laws - all you need to do is have some way of proving that you are the one that wrote the song. So all you really need to do is write the song - it's automatically protected.

Edit:
To the idiots that gave me a thumbs down rating... What is your problem with right answers?

Answer 4

i believe it will be copyrighted in the US and UK and others but it does depend on the country. Some less developed places don't have any such laws and some (china) have little laws but they don't enforce them at all, there are whole factories producing bootleg DVD's, technically illegal but the chinese govt doesn't do anything about it. The US definitily enforces that stuff.