If you are one of those blessed individuals who writes your own music, you will save time, money on royalties, hassles with licensing agreements from various writers and publishers, and you will be pocketing any royalty fees. Additionally you will have the added ability to add your songs to the catalogues of Music Supervisors in Film and Television.
If you have written the music yourself, please make sure to copyright your music prior to releasing your CD. This will help you protect your intellectual property. To request a copyright application form call or write:
Library of Congress
Copyright Office
101 Independence Avenue, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20559-6000
You can also download the forms at: http://www.copyright.gov/forms/
Do not rely on a “Poor Man’s Copyright” to protect your music. (A “Poor Man’s Copyright” is when you send your lyrics and music to yourself via registered or regular mail and don’t open it. Supposedly the postal date stamp on the outside of your envelope will provide legal evidence as to when you wrote the contents if the question ever arises.)
“In the United States, under the Federal Copyright act, copyright attaches to any work once it is in fixed media of tangible expression. As long as it’s merely an idea in its creator’s mind, there is no copyright protection for it. In the context of a book or writing, for example, the moment the author types out his or her manuscript on their computer, at that moment copyright protection attaches to the work because is has been reduced to a tangible medium of expression that others and read and understand.
The author now has copyright protection for that work, regardless of whether he or she registers it. Most people have at one time or another purchased a home and copyright registration is analogous to that process. When you buy real estate, you go to a closing, typically at an attorney’s office. The person who is selling the house to you is at the closing and the Seller signs and delivers a deed transferring the house to you.
The attorney takes the deed, which is your proof of ownership of the house, and records the deed in the county land records. The recorded deed is notice to the world that you now own a particular parcel of real estate. The copyright registration system is similar in its function. The author who owns a manuscript wants the rest of the world to know he or she owns that intellectual work and desires to protect it from unauthorized use.
The author can complete a simple form; send it to the United States Copyright Office with a small fee together with copies of the manuscript. The copyright office accepts the manuscript into the Library of Congress and officially register’s it in the name of the Author. Like the deed in the land records the copyright registration gives notice to the world of the Author’s claim of copyright to that manuscript. The registration did not create a copyright, the author already owned it.
By registering, the author has simply given the world notice that he or she has written the manuscript and that he or she is putting the world on notice that if another person wants to use this manuscript, that person must seek permission from the Author. By registering the copyright under the Federal Copyright Act, the Author is granted some additional benefits.
For example, once the Author registers his or her copyright, if someone infringes that copyright by using the manuscript without the Author’s permission, then the Author is afforded some additional remedies under the copyright act, such as statutory damages. This allows the author to recover damages for the infringement even though he or she might not be able to prove any real damages or if the real damages are minor. For example, let’s suppose someone wrongfully uses the Author’s manuscript by printing and selling 500 copies of his or her book without permission. Let’s also assume that the sale of authorized versions of the book would have resulted in profits of $1,000 to the Author.
The infringing party has caused the Author damages; however, the damages are small enough that the expense of litigation may not justify the Author taking any action. If, however, the Author registered his or her copyright then he or she can seek statutory damages, which provide for a greater recovery for that infringement than the Author might otherwise seek to recover for because of the small amount of damages. Registration may also allow the Author to recover expenses such as attorneys’ fees and litigation costs.
The so called “poor mans copyright” does not give the Author the protections and benefits that registration provides. The “poor mans copyright” is merely evidence that on a certain day the Author placed his manuscript in an envelope and mailed it on to himself on that date. Unlike registration, the “poor man’s copyright” does not put the world on notice that you claim ownership in a particular work.
This would be like accepting a deed to real estate and instead of recording the deed in the land records; you mail it to yourself as evidence of your ownership of the land. No one else knows about your claim. In my opinion the “poor man’s copyright” does not give very much protection to the owner. Registration is far more effective, inexpensive and beneficial means of giving notice of your claim to a particular work.”
THIS INFORMATION IS PROVIDED AS A GENERAL STATEMENT AND IS NOT INTENDED, AND CANNOT BE RELIED UPON AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL COUNSEL. EACH SITUATION IS FACT DEPENDENT AND YOU SHOULD SEEK INDEPENDENT LEGAL COUNSEL WITH REGARD TO YOUR PARTICULAR
CIRCUMSTANCES.”
Guy Miller Hogan II, Entertainment Attorney Lassiter, Tidwell, Keller, Hogan and Hildebrand, Nashville, TN Tel: (615) 259-9344 Email: mhogan@lassiterlaw.com
A publisher is to a songwriter what an agent is to an actor. These people will both produce and hold the mechanical licenses themselves, or they will go through an agency. The most common agency is Harry Fox Licensing Agency. It can take two to 10 months or longer to get mechanical licenses.
Some writers or publishers want their royalty fees up front. They will ask you how many CDs you are pressing, and request the packing slip from the disc manufacturer before they issue you a license. The royalty rate, as of the printing of this book, is $.085 per song under five minutes, and a higher rate for every minute thereafter. The following is a schedule so you will know to keep the length of your songs within certain time limits, which will also help you keep them “radio-friendly songs” (explained in a later chapter):
Time Rate
0:00 – 5:00 minutes .0850 cents
5:01 – 6:00 minutes .0990 cents
6:01 – 7:00 minutes .1155 cents
7:01 – 8:00 minutes .1320 cents
The royalty fee schedule is as follows:
(Royalties are due 45 days after the close of each calendar quarter)
1st quarter ends March 31st Royalties are due on May 15th
2nd quarter ends June 30th Royalties are due on August 15th
3rd quarter ends September 30th Royalties are due on November 15th
4th quarter ends December 31st Royalties are due on February 15th
All of the above is subject to change. These were the rates and dates at the time of printing, and are only here for your reference. You will need to verify them when you get mechanical licensing agreements. Some publishers and writers may give you reduced royalty rates. You need to ask. Save money! The following is the website for the Harry Fox Agency:
Harry Fox Agency
http://www.nmpa.org/hfa/mechanical.html
Contact the Harry Fox Agency if you would like them to represent your song. They will only represent you if you are a publisher. A publisher is defined as someone who has music on anyone else’s CD except their own. If you only have music cut on your own CD, the Harry Fox Agency won’t represent you. If they represent you, they will send out the mechanical license and collect the royalties for you. If you decide to do it yourself, find the mechanical license standard form and make sure to stay on top of it. A side note to artists: Make sure you obtain mechanical licenses BEFORE you record a song. If you do not do this, there are some very stiff fines and penalties, and the publisher has the right to have your product pulled off the market. So make sure you do the business side first before the music side. Again, the point made is to educate yourself about the business side, too.
Here is a quote from Sherrill Blackman, President of The SDB Music Group and NPN (Nashville Publishers Network) for songwriters. He has represented songs on hit records recorded by LeAnn Rimes, John Michael Montgomery, Trace Adkins, Don Williams, Steve Holy, and many others, including me.
“There is only one rule in songwriting. It is quite simply: Do what’s best for the song. This includes rewriting it, re-demoing it, or even changing just one chord or one word of the lyric. If this is what it takes to make that song a better song, then so be it. But this also includes putting the song aside and moving on to another. Sometimes a song is what it is and all it will ever be.”
In order to save yourself a lot of stress, plan realistically on at least one year from the beginning to the end of your musical project (the digital world is a bit different and I will go into that later). Most likely you will finish before, but if you plan ahead, you won’t be disappointed if it does take you a year to finish the CD.
If you are going the conventional route of getting radio airplay and obtaining a distributor, and you write your own material, plan from the time you set up your own business, copyright your material, get into the studio, get the CD pressed, contact radio stations, find a distributor (if you take that route), set up digital distribution, send it out to radio, etc. This should take six to eight months. If you don’t write your own material, add an additional six months, so you can find material that suits your style.
Let me give you a time reference. The first step is the business setup I wrote about in the previous chapter. Then you will move into finding or writing material. Then it’s on to recording, which should take about a month for all musicians and vocals. (If you have optimum conditions, e.g. the studio is always available to you when you need it and it is never booked up, all musicians and singers have no scheduling conflicts, and no problems occur such as equipment failures, broken instruments, someone getting sick, a car breaking down, etc., you may finish your recording sooner than one month.
My last CD took two days to record 11 songs, with all musicians, backing and lead vocals and mix-down, but I was working with the best in the business and because of the push, we worked 24 hours a day solid. You may not be able to afford that right now or have the time to devout to a 48 hour stretch.) Next you will need to have your pictures taken for the CD and/or hire a graphic designer.
I try to have this step scheduled during the mixing process. Why? If it’s done before the CD is made, the music might not match the cover and you don’t’ want to confuse an audience with a hard rock looking cover when you ended up sounding more like Nelly. Second if you wait until after mixing, you will have down time as you wait for the film to be finished and the set up of the CD cover to be done before you can send the master for the music and the pictures to your manufacturer.
During the set up for the CD cover, you can begin mixing and mastering, which together should take about three to four weeks, if you are on the books right away with the companies you are going to use. Once you have finished these processes, you will need to press the CD. Pressing the CD takes about six to eight weeks in a long stretch. Last but not least, there is the actual mailing. Depending on how many CDs you are sending out, and how much pre-assembling of the press kits you have already done (more later), this can take anywhere from two days to three weeks. If you add it all up, it comes out to about six to 12 months.
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