Re: registering a composition

[Francesco Petrogalli]

OK, thank you all for the kind reply.

Here is my understanding, just double cheking with you guys is my
reasoning is right.

Step 1: secure the copyright of the PDF of the composition.
I am tempted to say that this is already done by the fact that I have
stored all commits of the development of the PDF via lilypond in a
private repo on bitbucket.org. If the originality of the piece will
ever be challenged, all I need to do it either make the private repo a
public repo, or, if bitbucket dies by the time someone challenges the
originality, I just need to show the git repository I have stored in a
second secure place.

To make it even more safer than that, I can register the copyright either with:

1. the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress (online)
2. copyright.co.uk
3. https://www.costozero.org/
4. patamu.com

I have a slight preference for patamu.com, it seems quite easy and
fully online, it also has international validity, the other options
seems to be country-specific.

Step 2: register to a PRO to secure the royalties (even if no
royalties will ever come to me).

I can register to ASCAP or BMI, as an individual who is both the
composer and the publisher. It doesn't matter whether I upload the PDF
or not, the royalties will be collected on the name of the song and
the author/publisher, if someone will ever play it. If ASCAP / BMI
will ask for a copy/link of the work, I can always upload the PDF or
link an upload in, say, soundcloud, of the wave file generated from
the midi.

Then, say that the band I am giving this piece will decide to produce
a recording, they will register their recording on their favorite PRO,
simply saying that they are the publisher and that I am the writer.

Step 3: publish the PDF on the internet

When the prior steps are done, I can safely upload the PDF on my
personal website, for anyone to download. I just have to make sure
that I mark it saying "Copyright (C) 2020 by Francesco Petrogalli
(ASCAP). All rights reserved."

Thank so much for all the useful help! I just want to add a bit of
background in case there are some details that might change the way I
should do this.

1. I am a software engineer working on open source code. In the spirit
of open source, I initially wanted to use a CC-BY license on the work,
then I read this and completely changed my mind.
https://www.ascap.com/playback/2007/FALL/FEATURES/creative_commons_licensing,
which somehow seems to contradict
https://creativecommons.org/2010/06/30/response-to-ascaps-deceptive-claims/.
I would have loved to use a CC license that would have guaranteed my
royalties via ASCAP, but ASCAP doesn't seem to be happy about this
license so I will not use it.
2. The song has been written with my 7yo son. He is mentioned in the
PDF as a co-author, but I don't think I can mention it as one of the
authors in ASCAP because ASCAP requires to certify "you are 18yo or
older" when registering. I will anyway publish a video on youtube of
the "improvisation session" in which he came up with the melody. This
plus the authorship claim in the PDF will hopefully secure his part of
the copyright.

Again, thank you for the help, this is being painful and interesting
at the same time :)

Kind regards,

Francesco

PS: lilypond rocks! :)

On Thu, May 21, 2020 at 8:32 AM Tim McNamara <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On May 21, 2020, at 3:34 AM, Valentin Villenave <address@hidden> wrote:
> >
> > On 5/21/20, Francesco Petrogalli <address@hidden> wrote:
> >> I have written it with lilypond, but it hasn't been performed yet. I
> >> wanted to secure the copyright before performing it. Given that there
> >> is no performing artist yet, there is no recording, so I cannot
> >> register it with ASCAP. Have I got this right?
> >
> > No registration anywhere is needed to "secure the copyright". All you
> > need to have is a way of proving your anteriority if anyone were to
> > come and claim they’ve written it instead of you. There are several
> > commercial services that can do that for you (though many are scams),
> > but there are cheaper and simpler ways; a simple web search brought me
> > to the following page:
> > https://copyright.co.uk/legal-copyright-law.html
>
> Copyright law is nationally controlled, not internationally controlled for 
> the most part.  There is a degree of reciprocity.  In the US, copyright is 
> automatically granted to creators but copyright is also divided- the creator 
> has rights but so does the publisher, which matters in terms of royalty 
> payments if the work is recorded or performed.  As the saying goes, keep the 
> publishing.  Thousands of artists and composers lost out on billions of 
> dollars because they signed the publishing away in the early days of their 
> careers in the fine print of a recording contract.  This has been standard 
> practice in the recording industry since its inception and has beggared many 
> a musician/composer.  I do not feel bad at all about the slow death of the 
> major labels since the the internet made their business model basically 
> non-viable; most of them have been right bastards to artists.  Create your 
> own publishing company wholly owned by you.
>
> I don't know about ASCAP; I use BMI and songs can be registered with them 
> prior to recording or performance.  ASCAP and BMI seem to work about the same 
> as do all the performance rights organizations (PROs) in the US; these only 
> cover live performance.  I register my songs when I judge them completed, 
> even though no one else will likely ever perform them since I am completely 
> unknown and they are usually weird.  I write to amuse myself, mainly.  
> Recording royalties through mechanical licenses in the US are managed almost 
> universally through the Harry Fox Agency.
>
> As for proving that you are the originator of a composition, thankfully your 
> computer records the creation date of your files.  That will almost certainly 
> never be challenged unless you write a hit record and someone decides they 
> want a piece of those royalties.  That has led to some truly bizarre examples 
> of jurisprudence (suing an artist for plagiarizing themselves, for example; 
> suing an artist for writing music that doesn't sound like stuff they've 
> written before, etc.).