Copyrights?

Question

Hey, I was wondering:
Who is it that copyrights music. The FBI? Or are there certain companies, like publishing houses? Or does the music get copyrighted by the studios? Also, for videos + movies, why is there always an FBI warning?

Answer 1

Gray W has the best answer so far.

For your own protection, all original music and lyrics should be registered at the Library of Congress, Registrar of Copyrights.

They have forms you can print out for this purpose, but it's not exactly cheap...$45 a submission.

But, there's a way around this. If you have 12 songs, you can register all 12 songs for $45 simply by calling it one title...for instance, just the album title, rather then individual titles for each of the 12 songs....for example...."Songs for a Cold Winter Day," or "Songs of the MidWest," or 'Songs of Lost Love," etc...you get the idea.

Each of your 12 songs will be protected this way.

Mailing a registered letter to yourself, with the music and lyrics, and never opening the letter, relying on the postmark for proof of origin date, will not always protect your music. This is an old fallacy that has been around for years, but may not hold up in court.

To fully protect your original work, you must register at the copyright office.

Good luck to you.

Answer 2

Copyrights vary between national governments and between forms of media. One better understands this better when copyright is understood to be a method of protecting intellectual property.

By protecting the rights of the intellectual property entitles the artist to charge for its use commercially. Or if used in another media format (such as advertising) for commercial purposes the rights holder may demand appropriate compensation.

The artist may assign those rights to his/her intellectual property by a legal contract in exchange for the properties promotion, product development, manufacture, distribution and retail. The other obligation of the contractor is to employ legal means to protect those rights. Also a mighty studio can hire better and more lawyers than a single artist. So the artist partners symbiotically with a studio.

The reason for the FBI warning is simple they are the law enforcing body which brings about a charge before a court in the United States. Also its psychological, its meant to scare the be-jabbers out of the ordinary citizen.

Also the FBI warning should also be there in fine print on the back jacket of the album cover.

Answer 3

Federal and internatinal copyright law establishes that any creative work is automatically protected by copyright as soon as it is created and published by the author.

The author then has the option of registering the copyright, which provides additional protections.

The FBI investigates copyright violations (in the US) because copyright is federal law.

Answer 4

The person who owns the rights to the music, in order to protect those rights, can file for copyright protection with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Answer 5

idk