Members zuul777 Posted June 30, 2003 Members Share Posted June 30, 2003 so 3 months ago my band started up. we had like 5 songs and 2 or 3 of them were written together, with all of us contributing. a month later the bassist has to move, but after he moved, he become a complete jackass, and it seems all he does is try to screw us up, get his nose back into the band, etc... The thing is, he QUIT the band the night before he left.now he claims he is copyrighting the songs that he wrote. the thing is, he only wrote the chords to the songs, everybody else did the rest. with the new bassist, things are much smoother, and we have a good fan base and actually get paying gigs... i plan on copyrighting our stuff asap, but what should i do about the 2 songs that the old bassist come up with the chords for? everybody hates him, so it would be a sin for us to give him any rights at all... he also quit the band, so thats his fault. what should i do?what rights does my band have vs the old bassist? i'll try provide more info if you have any questions!! any comments are appreciated! thanks!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guilded Posted June 30, 2003 Members Share Posted June 30, 2003 Easy. If your band agrees, just say you wrote the chords. If he tries to take action, he has no proof he wrote them. And the thing about chord progressions are that they've probably been used in a few songs written by other people already. So if he's really the jerk that you say he is, {censored} him over. By the way, I'm not a laywer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cavedog Posted June 30, 2003 Members Share Posted June 30, 2003 Yeah, he quit the band, so really it's his problem. What you need to do is burn your recorded songs onto a CD or something and send it to yourself via registered post. Don't open it, but keep it somewhere safe or give it to your bank manager or a solicitor or lawyer to look after. That way, if someone copies your song, you have a copy with the date on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members zuul777 Posted June 30, 2003 Author Members Share Posted June 30, 2003 i wouldnt have a problem with screwing him over at all, since he attempted to take us down everyway he could at one point. thanks for the tips! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members buzzcut Posted June 30, 2003 Members Share Posted June 30, 2003 Chords cannot be copyrighted. If you are sure that's all the bassist did, you can pretty much be sure that he does not have a claim to copyright on that basis alone. However, it's usually pretty much understood that when a band writes songs together, they all contribute to the creation of the songs, though I wouldn't know the strict legalities involved here and that would be your main concern. Perhaps the chords he came up with led the guitarist to create a riff that is unique to the song or the vocalist to sing the melody a certain way. To be safe, I would copyright the songs giving credit to all who were involved in the process of writing them (including your ex-bassist). After all, in spite of the differences between him and the rest of the band, you guys wrote those songs together. Just because he turned into an ass doesn't mean he doesn't deserve his share of the credit. As for mailing yourself a copy of the recorded songs with a postmark, you might as well do this. However, in most cases (in the US), you cannot recover damages for infringement unless the copyright is actually registered. So you'd better send that in as well - especially before the jackass beats you to it. The mailing to yourself thing may help if you and the other guy both register the copyrights on or around the same time. At least then, you'll have some evidence that the true ownership of the song is in dispute. In the meantime, you may want to check with an attorney who is familiar with copyright law, depending on how much you really want to pursue this. Get those registrations out ASAP.... Best of luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Glynard Posted July 2, 2003 Members Share Posted July 2, 2003 He's probably talking smack. Go to the library og congress website. Get a compilation recording copyrighted real quick. Chances are you'll beat him to it. Later on down the road when you guys are still playing & he's still being a jackass, nothing will ever come of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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