Have you ever been thrilled to share your music with the world? In today’s digital age it is possible just in one click of a computer mouse – you upload your work online and it immediately becomes available to everyone around the globe, from Jamaica to Australia. However, if your goal not only to showcase your talent but also to get recognition and benefits for your hard work, you should be warned about violations you can face uploading your music online and how to protect your rights.

Imagine that you are the owner of the music store and selling your own compositions on CDs. You are flattered by spreading your work to the public and also by getting a tangible reward for it. But what if one day there will be a customer who would take a CD without paying for it? You would either try to stop him from doing so or call the police. Same could happen when you share your music on the internet. But what actions can be taken to protect your rights online?

This article is a guidance for music producers, composers, and songwriters that presents a brief overview of copyright law in the music field, copyright issues that every music creator should be aware of, and provides 3 suggestions on how to protect your rights online.

First of all, what copyright is?

In general, the copyright is defined as “A right granted by statute to the author or originator of certain literary or artistic productions, whereby he is invested, for a limited period, with the sole and exclusive privilege of multiplying copied of the same and publishing and selling them”[1]. Talking about musical compositions, in particular, copyright means that “a musician, composer or artist has a ‘limited duration monopoly’ on anything he creates”[2].

All the musical work receives copyright protection automatically: from the moment the music is composed, lyrics are written, the sound is recorded. However, there are tons of copyright violations nowadays due to the fast-paced online environment. Usually, music is used as a supportive background sound for various videos uploaded on the internet daily. Most of all, the owners of this content do not obtain a permission or license from a music creator for such use.  Not to mention some of the illegal websites where music can be downloaded for no cost. All this usage leads to a significant loss for music creators. Thus, it is essential to know the ways of copyright protection.

The first advice would be to register your work. The procedure of registration is carried out by filing an application to a government authority. In India, for example, such registration is provided by the Copyright Office that is under the immediate control of a Registrar of Copyrights appointed by the Central Government[3]. The application fee is Rs. 2,000 (Two thousand rupees only)/per work. In the United States of America, the legal body with copyright registration functions is the United States Copyright Office and the fee is 35$ (Thirty-five dollars only) if there is only one work to be submitted for registration and it has only one author[4].  In the United Kingdom, there is no such procedure as a registration of copyright, but the work could be protected in other countries through international agreements, for example, the Berne Convention[5].

Even though it is not required for proving your rights as a creator, registration has some benefits:

1. It guarantees a recognition of your work, as your artist/band name is mentioned along with the name of the composition.
2. It protects your work from being stolen or duplicated.
3. It generates revenue in the form of royalties that are paid if the composition is used in an advertisement, movie, television show, or performed publicly.
4. It entitles you to recover attorney’s fees and statutory damages in the event of a lawsuit if a copyright is registered before an infringement occurs.

The second advice would be to add a digital watermark to your music. Watermarking is “the practice of hiding a message about an image, audio clip, video clip, or other work of media within that work itself”[6]. For better understanding, grab a brand new Rs.2,000 note and you will see that it contains the Mahatma Gandhi watermark with a light and shade effect and multi-directional lines in the watermark window.

Talking about music, watermarking can be done by embedding some spoken word or phrase into your audio file that is repeated every few seconds (such as your artist/band name, or simply the word “preview” if you are uploading some part of your music for showcase). It can be done manually while exporting a file from a digital audio workstation. But in this case, the watermark will affect your music as it will be audible. However, there are some services available nowadays providing entirely inaudible watermarks – such as Audiolock and Digimarc.

Watermarking is also applicable for protection of distributed music sheets as duplicating them using a traditional copying machine infringes the copyright. The watermark inserted in the printed music sheet has to be invisible for musicians or at least it must not disturb during the music playing[7].

Though some people consider watermarking to be inconvenient it can benefit you by protecting your music more effectively and preventing piracy websites from illegally earning money off you hard work.

And lastly, to keep the track of possible copyright violations of your creative work by monitoring your music online. Of course, doing it manually can be overwhelming as it consumes a lot of your time, instead, you can try some of the searching services listed below:

1. MUSO – the United Kingdom anti-piracy service collecting data from billions of piracy infringements. It provides its clients with information on the total size of copyright violations by using a unique data set.
2. DIGIMARC  – the United States service enabling any business to track, identify and protect digital files.
3. Google Alerts – a free way to monitor for your content. This service provides you with the information that you are interested in. To check your own work, you can choose a keyword (such as your artist/band name or the name of a particular song) and Google will track it on websites, blogs, forums and YouTube.

Keeping an eye out for possible copyright violations allows you to prevent the illegal use of your music before your financial interests are affected.

Seeing your music is being spread on the internet might raise your self-esteem, but it is not beneficial to your business if the usage of your work is unauthorised. The efforts that you have put into your creations should be fairly rewarded. Unfortunately, the modern society is ready to pay for a cup of coffee that will be consumed in 10 minutes but refuses to pay for a favourite music that will be listened many times or even used for commercial purposes. It might take some time to implement the culture of respecting other’s labour into our lives. Meanwhile, music creators can use the suggestions outlined in this article to protect their work and focus more on creativeness on its fullest than on dealing with copyright infringements.

Bibliography

1. — Copyright Office Fees, U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress (Jul 31,2018, 9:32 PM) https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ04.pdf .
2. — How Copyright Protects Your Work, Government Digital Service (July 31,2018 9:52 PM) https://www.gov.uk/copyright .
3. — Introduction, Copyright Office, Government of India (Jul 31,2018, 9:15 PM) http://copyright.gov.in/ .
4. Black H.C., What is copyright? Black’s Law Dictionary (Jul 31,2018, 8:02 PM) https://thelawdictionary.org/copyright/ .
5. Busch C., et.al., Evolution of Music Score Watermarking Algorithm (Jul 31, 2018, 10:23 PM) http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=A9B0D21111E39551E35D99D1C94F9217?doi=10.1.1.9.2151&rep=rep1&type=pdf .
6. Cox I.J., et.al., Digital Watermarking and Steganography (Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2007).
7. Sobel R. & Weissman D., Music Publishing, The Roadmap to Royalties (Routledge, 2008).

[1]Henry Campbell Black, What is copyright? Black’s Law Dictionary (Jul 31,2018, 8:02 PM) https://thelawdictionary.org/copyright/ .

[2] Ron Sobel & Dick Weissman, Music Publishing, The Roadmap to Royalties (Routledge, 2008).

[3] Introduction, Copyright Office, Government of India (Jul 31,2018, 9:15 PM)  http://copyright.gov.in/ .

[4] Copyright Office Fees, U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress (Jul 31,2018, 9:32 PM) https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ04.pdf .

[5] How Copyright Protects Your Work, Government Digital Service (July 31,2018 9:52 PM) https://www.gov.uk/copyright .

[6] Ingemar J.Cox, et.al., Digital Watermarking and Steganography (Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2007).

[7]  C. Busch, et.al., Evolution of Music Score Watermarking Algorithm, Pennsylvania State University, College of Information Sciences and Technology (Jul 31, 2018, 10:23 PM) http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=A9B0D21111E39551E35D99D1C94F9217?doi=10.1.1.9.2151&rep=rep1&type=pdf .

Author: Aleksandra Filippova