Protecting Original Songs

[iloveglee]

my grandson has written some songs, two of which are very good and i think if promoted to the right people, could do well. i am concerned about intellectual property theft and wonder what he would need to do to protect these songs. registering with the copyright office is quite expensive. he has uploaded these songs to an online music sharing website as original tracks. would this be adequate to ensure that these are his and cannot be used by anyone else.

[boxtops]

I'm no expert, but I wouldn't want to share anything on a public sharing website unless it was copyrighted. If he was selling sheet music he could put the copyright sign on it. We need someone to answer who understands this field, Performing Rights, etc.

[Buenchico]

>>>registering with the copyright office is quite expensive

. . . and also impossible!

Quote:
"There is no official registration system for copyright in the United Kingdom (UK) and most other parts of the world. There are no forms to fill in and no fees to pay to get copyright protection".

Source:
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-about/c-auto.htm

Your grandson automatically holds copyright to any original works that he has created. As long as he can prove that he's the person that created those works (which he seems to be able to do) he should have no problems.

Start here for further information:
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy.htm

[saxy_jag]

Buenochico is correct. As soon as a person has written something, the copyright is theirs. Back in the days before digital time-stamping, musicians and songwriters I knew would post written, and sometimes recorded, copies of their work to themselves in sealed envelopes. The postmark would act as a time stamp, but the envelopes would then have to remain sealed unless and until they were required as proof of copyright ownership.

As your grandson has uploaded some of his work to an online site, there will now be digital records in an archive to date his work.

[iloveglee]

thanks for that. i sort of thought that might be the case but wasn't sure. my grandson was considering sending a copy of one of his songs to an artist who he things may like to record it. i didn't want him to do anything with it until we were sure that this artist, or those who represent him, couldn't legally just record the song and leave my grandson out of the loop. he is quite young and isn't sure of where he stands with these things. the song has been professional recorded (by him) in a studio but this was put online at the time so presumably this is the date at which the song became 'known' as his composition. the studio recorded this at their own expense because they were hoping to get him to sign with them. he wasn't impressed with their professionalism so decided not to in the end.