Song Copyright question

[Burgess]

I apologize if this is the wrong forum for this or if I've not properly introduce myself.

I post a bit in the Electric Guitar Forum and I dabble bit in recording but mostly just playing to backing tracks and covers so not much concern as for copyright protectection and such. Lately though I've not been in any band so I've spent some time writing and at some point the songs are basically finished and I probably want folks to hear them. I'm not not really all that concerned with hearing one of my songs on the radio and not getting paid for it but OTOH I don't really feel comfortable with putting something that I've put a lot of effort into (good or bad) unprotected out onto the interweb unretrievable.

So I guess my question is this:

What is the best copyright protection for musicians sharing their music on the internet these days?

The last time I had a song copyrighted people were still selling 45's out the trunks of their cars.

Thanks for any answers any of you can provide. And I'll share some of the tunes here if you all promise to be gentle. As you can probably tell from the 45's comment, the tunes will probably sound dated by today's standards.

[shortchord]

Where are you located?

In the United States, copyright protection exists whenever a creative work is put into a fixed form. So, with respect to a song, copyright exists as soon as the song is written down or recorded. Registration is not necessary to obtain copyright protection, but it does offer some benefits:

Originally Posted by U.S. Copyright Office "Copyright Basics" Publication

[Burgess]

I'm in the US. So looks like that is still my best bet. Thanks!

[blue2blue]

If you were simply looking for protection for a body of work, registering a number of works as a collected work can save you some money. There are however some considerations with regard to publishing or releasing in recorded form.