copywriting mp3's?

Just wondering whne you mix down and a convert a song to a mp3 sometimes you can add in artist , title etc (in audacity) and it will show up under windows media player etc ....is this a way of copywriting your music? I mean if you sent out a few mp3's to friends and just say something ever happened ...could you use this as a way of protection?

no

Yes.

Copyright subsists in any original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Hence as soon an your song is either written out or recorded, whether is exists as a Wav file, mp3, etc., you have copyright in your work. You don't need to register your work to get copyright protection, it's automatic. As far as publication is concerned, i.e placing "copyright, [your name] year" on your work, it's a good idea but not necessary. This merely places everyone on notice that this is your work. Since the 1976 Copyright Act, however, publication is not necessary and it does not affect the vesting of rights.

Now, the sticky part of all this is, you cannot maintain a suit for infringement unless your work is registered with the federal government. This is fairly easy to do however, and any attorney worth his salt can do this for a menial fee. Or, you can do it yourself. The forms (PA and SA), depending on whether you are submitting the notation or a sound recording of your work, can be downloaded from the .gov website.

Hope this helps. Also I should have my website up soon (mkmusiclaw.com) which will provide reference materials on a lot of these general questions.

Matt Kelly, Attorney at Law

thanks for that

to mckelly,

I had previously submitted songs of mine to the copyright office on a cd in regular cd format. It did not have notation with it, so it was just the music. They sent it back saying that I did not send one of the three elements which was the phonorecord. Doesn't a cd with the songs on it qualify as a phonorecord? I'm confused about what a phonorecord is.