Protecting your music

of coarse, you made the track its yours, but the record companies would probably rob most of your royalties if you release your track and dont ask for permission of the accapella..or at least mention them or something

yeah that would be the best way,

perfect example would be

Bitter sweet symphony by the verve, the main strings were sampled and they are the most distinguishing thing about the track, got to number one, sold loads, didnt get copyright for the sample, and actually made little/ no money from the track!

get your tracks copyrighted, ask for permission on the vocals/ samples you use, unless you mangle them so much you could ever tell who what or where it was from!!!

couldnt have said it better myself , infact, i said it miles less better!

A point nobody has mentioned…. each and every country has it’s own laws regarding copyright. If the content used is registered to a US artist you will likely have to follow US Law. If it is UK you have to follow UK Law. In simple terms, you must follow the law of the land where it was registered.

As for copyrighting beats… it’s likely to be limited to the production (the sounds in the beat) and the instruments at the points of the time signature.

Copyright regarding Instrumentals of an already copyrighted piece will not be allowed for obvious reasons. Furthermore, I believe that for something to have copyright in the US it has to be released to the public before it is classed as copyrighted (that’s why there are a lot of US orientated acapellas on releases (correct me if I’m wrong) unlike the UK where as soon as it is written or becomes a tangible product (i.e. Media format with a date stamp… eg. Hard Drive) it is subject to copyright.

Now, I’ll skip out of law mode, and speak from an artists perspective. Just like Bobby said, breach the law (they won’t come after you for a couple of CD’s) and send them off to the labels, and publishers. Believe it or not, publishers have a lot more weight behind them than labels. Labels just, in basic terms, make it a tangible object. They won’t likely hunt you down and take your bank balance from you, unless you’re making hundreds of copies.

To note (back into Law mode) people must also remember the world we now distribute in…. Mechanical (something tangible) and Digital (downloads) and both of these have different levels of royalty payments, and anybody who uploads a piece of work that is copyrighted should really pay a Digital royalty payment for their remix or cover, but how many do? A very small minority.

Send it off and see what happens. If in doubt, you could pay for a Mechanical Licence to cover the copies you will make, and for less than you may think. Don’t think Dollars…. think Cents.

I totally agree with the Acapellas=Remixing=Playing at clubs that might not play the original=Exposure for the artist theory. I don’t think artists wouldn’t get pissed about remixes floating around for free unless they were one of the commissioned remixes, since the label commissioned it for profit. Free downloading=no profit. Also, if the acapellas we were using were illegal, this site would be gone.

Or I’m totally wrong.

Yeah you won’t get into any trouble for creating a remix. Even if you end up selling that remix, and making huge profits on it, you still prolly wont get into too much trouble. You’ll just have to go to court, and the persons/labels music you stole and profited from will get most or all of the money you made using this copyrighted material.

And there are ways around certain things in the law. For example here we get free downloads of pellas that are copyrighted so that this site is legal. However because the site has free pellas – lots of people come here. The more people that click on this site and see these things called ads on the web page… the more money the site makes. So its not neccessarilly a non profit organization.. its just that its not profiting DIRECTLY from the acapellas.

So being free is the key.

Lets say you are putting out a CD, all original; But you want to use a copyrighted instrumental and rap or sing over it, remix it yourself, whatever, and have it on the cd as well. Maybe put that track on another cd… a "Bonus" cd. Then you have your cd which is the main selling item with a free or bonus cd that comes along with it.

Loophole? perhaps.. but maybe not.. atleast if the cd did go gold or platinum youd have something to work with in court. After all you are innocent until proven guilty!

Quote by aaj2006:

…just as long as you dont get any money for it.

That’s the key.

You might get the "Cease & desist letter".

Let’s hope it stays that way!

One of the moderators here, jef peace can help you out with that. There’s somthing out there called the Indie bible or something. It has updated names and numbers of label people. PM him.

[quote quote="Skitch":2a0korgx][quote quote="DJ Bobby V":2a0korgx]Quote by Luminance:
Most studio acapellas (some are leaked) are released through promotional 12" LPs, and CD’s. I currently belong to a digital "record" pool. We are always getting the main mix, instrumental and sometimes the acapella available for download. You have to ask yourself, why would a label release the acapella and the instrumental? They want to give the DJ every available option to play the song. They know we are mixin’ it up to fit our style/club. You might not like their remix package so you make your own. We use to do it live with vinyl, now we can make digital mixes. Until you release it without permission and start making money on it you have nothing to worry about. If you make an instrumental from scratch and it is your own original work, and you want to protect it, then you should publish/copyright it. You can’t do that with someone else’s body of work even if you change all the music. You could submit your remix to the label and if they use it you might get something for it. But you wouldn’t own it.
What are your goals? A remixer, a producer…both? Keep sending your stuff to the labels, that’s the only way your going to make any money. There are books out there and probably web sites that list the contacts and numbers of A&R people at the labels.[/quote:2a0korgx]

I couldnt agree more [/quote:2a0korgx]

Thanks.

Every time copyright is mentioned it spawns several posts from folks with opinions regarding copyright … here’s mine:

Once you take a thought and put it in tangible form, it is copyrighted. Don’t confuse copyright with registration. Registering a copyright is an unneccessary expense and does not give you any more or less right to something you’ve created.

Add to that the fact that copyright litigation is more expensive than almost every other courtroom battle and you’ll begin to understand why I chuckle to myself whenever anyone expresses a concern regarding copyright.

Can you end up paying through the nose if you’re found guilty of copyright invasion? Yes. Will you ever find yourself in court because of a copyright violation. Not unless you make millions of dollars off a work that is blatantly not yours.

Case in point … NWA was sued for copyright violations for using various samples and lost … but did that stop anyone else from doing it? Add to that list Vanilla Ice and Salt ‘n Peppa and a few others I can’t recall at this moment.

The long and the short of it … what I’m trying to say … is don’t worry about it. If you infringe on someone who cares about the infringement, you’ll get a C&D (cease-and-desist) notice from them and that’s the end of it unless you want to push it further.

btw … you can’t file a copyright suit unless you can first prove you provided a C&D and that the person you provided it to received it and chose to ignore it.

saikera wrote:

[quote quote="fizzles":2c1f5v7x]Within the US, the second you finish an original piece it is automatically copyrighted. However, due to schizophrenic nature of courts i would recommend paying to get it officially copyrighted with the government. That way there would be no disputes.

*crosses out ‘paying’ writes in* http://myfreecopyright.com/

i try and copyright everything i do, but i rarle manage to actually do it,i just try XD[/quote:2c1f5v7x]

Again, let me stress my point. Once a thing is created, it is ALREADY copyrighted. Registering a copyright DOES NOT give the copyright holder any more or less right the the thing, nor does registering a copyright mean the thing can never be disputed.

Unlike trademarks and patents, copyright can NOT be proven in a court of law, what copyright cases involve is two parties arguing they have original copyright and the right to exercize that copyright. Even if a thing holds a registered copyright … let’s say this "thing" is a song I wrote, "Hindsight." Let’s say Miley Cyrus releases the exact same song and calls it "Look Back." The words are the same with a few sublte differences, the music is the same notes but played a little faster, it’s obviously the same song. Now let’s say Miley had registered her copyright and shows up in court with the document in hand along with a team of lawyers huffing and puffing at the audacity of this unknown upstart (that would be me) to try and say Miley had stolen his song. Now let’s say I show up with nothing more than the cd Jazza Diction cut ten years ago from a studio recording session and that cd contains the song "Hindsight."

If there is no jury, I win. The audio file predates the registration by several years and the song is similar to the point of being nearly identical.

However, Miley’s attorneys know she stole the song (though they would never admit it unless they were bribed enough) and they wisely requested a jury trial.

Now the winner is in doubt, the prize will go to the most convincing argument, which will most likely come from the team of attorneys that have had a lot of practice with public speaking … especially when that "public" is a jury.