Copyright Question

[henryj]

Greetings,

I'm getting ready to copyright some original music and lyrics for a new CD. I had a co-lyricist on 6 of the 13 songs. Would I file two sets of form PA with the Library of Congress? One with the whole project and another with just the songs I did with a co-writer. Not quite sure what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards,

Henry

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Collaborative works should be registered separately from your solo work whenever possible, so yes, two registrations would be in order.

[henryj]

Thanks for your help.

[mikehalloran]

If you are releasing a CD, you are publishing the works. To be protected, you should register each song separately. Use the Form SR and check the box for PA.

Use Form PA if someone else is releasing the CD. Again, each published work gets its own form.

Failure to register published works separately means that only the first one is properly protected. Although you have established date of creation, you have not protected any of your other rights, especially the right to be paid if someone should cover one of your songs. This can be a very expensive lesson to learn if someone rips you off.

You may elect to file a separate Form SR for the whole CD but, if there are no cover tunes, I wouldn't.

The only time to list all your works on one form is when they are unpublished - again, you can use a PA or SR. The Library of Congress allows this to establish date of creation and your rights to make the first recording. When any of those works are released, they should then be re-registered properly to protect your other rights.