What constitutes the

What constitutes the

If the melody is based off the guitar part, your guitarist may have a point. If the riff the guitarist made up for the song is recognizable, he may also have a point.

As far as him sending a copyright for his stuff, I think he's screwed once you guy apply. Not sure if the copyright office cross checks, but I'd guess when this whole thing ends up in court the law will side with you.

I'm sure, too, that walking through the courtroom doors will cost 100x what the song with worth.

Oh, I realize that there

Yeah, Chicken Monkey is right... whatever the ins and outs of the legal claims may be, the chances of your song making any money -- especially in today's music economy -- are pretty minimal.

That said, the sung melody is generally considered the melody. As Stack notes, if another part is seen to be crucial to the identity of the song, it may be considered as part of the composition -- but that is not usually the case. And in the case of complementary guitar parts, vocal harmonies, horn lines, guitar leads and filigrees, their role in the song's identity is generally considered negligible to nonexistent. If the song is still the same song without a given part, that part is highly unlikely to be considered as a part of the copyrightable composition. That said, it is possible to copyright a printed arrangement (as it is possible to copyright virtually anything written or printed) but it does not enjoy the same privileges as the song itself with regard to statutory royalties, etc.

In essence, we have an intellectual property system which was dictated to our lawmakers by vested interests in publishing and they made damn sure that their interests were served to the disadvantage of all others involved.

I don't know man.... The melody is the melody, you know? It's what the singer sings. The guitar lead's the guitar lead. The riffs the riff.

I'll tell you what constitutes needless bickering? Whatever you got goin on with your bandmates. Jeez. Ya'll sound like a disfunctional bunch. Hug it out.

I say it depends on how the song was written. If you and the lyricist/singer came up with the song on your own, and then took it to the guitarist afterward to add his parts, then you and the singer are the sole writers. The guitarist might have helped arrange the song, but that's different from helping to write it. For instance, Sting wrote "Every Breath You Take", but that signature riff didn't come from him--it was the guitarist's idea. But Sting is still credited as the sole writer of that song.

However, if the song came about in a sort of jam session, where the guitarist was in the room, and you were all bouncing ideas off each other, then a case could be made that the guitarist influenced the direction the song took. Therefore, he could be considered a co-writer.

Legally, only the creator of the lyrics and melody is entitled to a credit, but it isn't always done this way in the real world. Especially nowadays, where it's common for a producer to create an entire track in the studio for the artist/singer/rapper to write to. The artist may have technically come up with the melody/lyrics, but clearly the structure of the song would have already been established before he/she had anything to do with it. So in this case, the producer usually gets a songwriting credit as well.

As with anything, this type of of issue really isn't cut and dried, and it really depends on what your specific situation is.

Unless there is a producer, and we were musicians/lyricists/whatever

I call dibbs on that one. My next hit.

Doesn

It

Kurdy, a decent person would share credit if he wrote the song while other people were creating music with him, with the assumption that he had ears and was receiving input in some way. But he doesn't have to. Post-"Whiter Shade" lawsuit, that may change, but there are many cases of bands coming up with something together, and the "writer" taking all the credit.