Hi everybody!
I am attorney Aiden Kramer with the law office of Aiden Kramer in Colorado and you are watching
"All Up in Yo' Business.
In this episode I am going to talk about how to protect your music.
In the world of You Tube there are tons of musical artists and people who create their
own music, their own instrumentals, their own beats.
So many people creating so much music.
How in the world do you protect what you have created?
Hands down with out question the best way to protect any music that you create is with
a copyright.
Registering your music or your art whatever it is with the copyright office in the United
States is absolutely the best way to protect it.
Having a copyright in your music gives you the ability to enforce it against other people
who might steal your music or use it in a way that they are not supposed to.
That's why on You Tube you just can't go around putting random music in videos because of
copyright laws.
You need a license to use certain kinds of music there is of course music out there that
is open for people to use but because of this copyright protection it protects other peoples
works of art and prevents people other than the artist using music or the art or whatever
it is.
There are registries out there independent third party registries; BMI is a popular one.
These registries will give you some protection over your music they are definitely not as
good as having a copyright.
These other registries are essentially just a formal time stamp on your music so you have
proof of when you created the music so if anyone ever tries to use it in the future
and says they created it first you have this registration showing that at least as of the
time that you registered it with this company you were using it.
It is not the same as a copyright and it is not as enforceable as copyright is.
Now with copyrights and this is the same with trademarks the second you create something
original, the second you create an original piece of music or piece of art you already
have a copyright in it.
Under common law you have a copyright in whatever that work of art is.
However if you have a registered copyright it is so much easier to enforce your copyright
rights and your ownership over that music if it is actually registered.
And there is really no reason not to register your copyright in your music it is $35.00
to do the application online, it is extremely affordable.
So if you have music you want to protect register your copyright so you can own and protect
your music.
You also get different damages if you enforce a copyright infringement and you win.
The money that you can win in a copyright case like that is different if you don't have
it registered.
There are Federal laws that state certain amounts of money and certain damages you are
entitled to if someone infringes on your copyright.
And if you are going to get a registered copyright you want to do it as soon as possible.
Do it before you start putting your music out there.
If you are going to put it on iTunes, You Tube or wherever you are going to put it having
the copyright before you put it out into public is really going to help if anybody ever steals
it or uses it without your permission.
While the copyright application and fee is inexpensive and on the face of it looks really
simple it is not always that simple.
So as with everything I strongly encourage you to work with an attorney if you are going
to be getting a copyright in your music or anything else, any other work of art that
you have created.
At least seek the advice of an attorney before trying to do it yourself.
Thank you so much to everybody who comments or emails me with suggestions for videos!I
did this video because somebody sent me a message on Twitter asking me to do a video
on this topic.
So if you ask me about a topic, if it is a good topic and if people are going to be interested
in it I will put it out there.
So if you have any topics that you want me to address in a video please feel free to
comment them and I will try to get to them as soon as I can.
Thank you all so much for watching I am Aiden Kramer and I will see you next time!
Now see right there I would put some really fun piece of music except for these darn copyright
laws I can't.
Id really love to put like a kick ass Britney song right at the end of that so I can dance
out in the videos but I can't.
So be like Britney and copyright your music so the rest of us cant use it for fun.