Wendy Day shows how to copyright songs and beats cheaply by burning multiple tracks onto a CD and registering the whole disc as one work instead of paying per track. Official registration lets you claim statutory damages and attorney fees in court, unlike the poor man's copyright myth.
Chapters
Hey y'all, so we discussed trademarks, um, last week at some point, and now I want to talk about copyrights. A copyright is your proof of ownership that you register with the US government to prove that you own the rights to a song, um, either the music or the master, um, or the words to a song, right? What the hell is my hair doing? Um, so the Copyright Office, which you can find at copyright.gov, they have the forms on their website. You can fill them out online. Um, my problem with filing a copyright is that they're not cheap. I think they're somewhere between like $55 or $75 for every song that you upload to the Copyright Office. And if you've got an album you know, that's almost $1,000 worth of, of paperwork that you're sending in. So I like to do it a little bit old school, and at the time that I'm making this video, this still works. But I suggest that you call the Copyright Office. They're in Washington, D.C. You can get the number by going to copyright.gov. Call them and make sure that you can still do this. But what I like to do is put as many songs that fit on a CD, um, and you're gonna have to find a laptop that still burns CDs, right? But put as many songs as you can, or as many beats as you can, on a CD and name it by your name. Like, um, if it were my music, it would be Wendy Day 1, and then the next one would be Wendy Day 2, and the third one would be Wendy Day 3. So you're following me, right? You're gonna you're gonna copyright the CD as your name one. Don't copyright it as Wendy Day One, right? But I would copyright it as Wendy Day One, and it may have, you know, 80-some-odd minutes of music on it. So it might have, um, 20 songs on it, and it's only going to cost me one fee to register it. I can't upload it to the Copyright Office. I'm going to have to send it in because it's a CD, it's a physical product. But it's, it's a lot more bang for my buck. And then if I— if somebody jacks one of my beats or jacks one of my songs or, or steals— you can't steal an idea, but you can steal a hook, right? Um, or you can steal a melody. If, if, if I notice that one of my songs has been used, I just go back to those CDs and, you know, I'm keeping a list for my records of what's on Wendy Day 1 and what's on Wendy Day 2 and what's on Wendy Day 3 so that I can find it easily. I can go back and find my copyright protection, and then I can turn around and sue the person that has used whatever I own. Now, having said that, I know a lot of you do the poor man's copyright. That does prove that you own it, but it doesn't give you the right to collect damages if you have to sue somebody. So you're not going to get your legal fees back, you're not going to get pain and suffering if it, if it impacted you in a negative way. So I really suggest that you fill out the copyright form. And again, research this because the thing about the internet is that my videos get old really fast. So I want to make sure— this is January 2020 that I'm saying this— so if you're already into, um, a year beyond 2020, make sure that you can still do this. Make sure that the copyright still allows you to copyright a bulk CD of songs or beats or lyrics or whatever you're copywriting, and make sure you're filing the correct form. And again, go to copyright.gov, learn about this, look at the forms, figure out how to fill them out. If you can't do it, have somebody on your team help you. But this is really important shit, so give it a little bit of extra attention. Okay guys, take care.
