A common question asked by new artists is how they would protect their songs or music from being taken or used without their permission. Creators of original works or compositions have rights to their material that are basic, automatic and INSTANT once the work has been fixed in a tangible medium. "Tangible" means something that can be grasped or held such as a piece of paper, manuscript, computer hard drive, audio tape, DVD, CD-ROM, video tape, etc. These rights exist whether or not any public use of the work is being done. For instance, a creator of a song, book, or poem can write the work and put it in a file cabinet for decades, yet the work is protected under US law by the copyright standards.

"Copyright" literally means a right to copy. The creator of an original work has the exclusive right to copy his or her work and use it in whatever fashion they deem fit. In all, their are 5 exclusive rights copyright holders possess:

• The right to distribute the work to the public

• The right to make copies of the work (CDs, records, tapes, etc)

• The right to make derivatives based on the work

• The right to display the work publicly

• The right to perform the work publicly.

Some people reading this may wonder that if such protection is automatic and instant, why then is registration with the US Copyright office necessary? Registration is necessary to alert the world of your legal claim to the piece. Even if you take your unregistered piece and put a "c" in a circle or write "copyright" and the date on it, that is not enough to satisfy a legal dispute should one arise. Registering the piece gives the owner of the work a signed and notarized affidavit from the government that on a certain day, date and year, the work was registered to that owner. If a creator of a tune had to later take someone to court for using the work without prior permission--or compensation--the notarized form from the Copyright Office will answer questions of who rightfully owns the piece.

This fact of having a proven piece of legal ownership in hand is why the practice of the "poor man's copyright" is NOT recommended. The "poor man's copyright" is when an artist, unable or unwilling to pay the registration fee to the Copyright Office, simply mails a copy of the song to himself, relying on the postmark on the envelope to establish a date when the work was created. This method has been proven in court to be totally ineffective simply because a good lawyer can prove than anyone can fake a postmark, or have access to a machine that prints one. The piece of mind that comes from knowing that one's work is officially protected vastly outweighs the cost of registering the work.

When an artist, producer, songwriter, or musician signs with a record, publishing, or production company, they must assign some or all of their exclusive rights to their respective company before any work can commence

The US Copyright Office has specific forms that are used when registering the various types of original work. The forms for registering music and/or songs are:

• Form SR for sound recordings (the actual CD or tape with the song on it is being covered) and,

• Form PA for performing arts (the music and lyrics)

Currently, the registration fee is $30 per work, but to save money, a composer can put together a compilation of many pieces and register the collected works as one piece. In the future, if they decide to take one of those pieces and separately record it, they can apply for a new registration of that piece alone. More information about this complete process can be obatined from the Copyright Office's website at www.loc.gov or calling (202) 707 3000.