okay so here’s the deal straight up. my ex co-worker is a rapper trying to make it in the music biz and his manager just hooked him up with a great opening performance at a small place for a popular rapper in a few weeks.
i’m glad the kids making progress but he’s not so good at writing lyrics..yesterday he asked me to write some lyrics over this beat because he knows i have good lines written down (its kind of my forte lol) and im thinking he’s going to use my lines for this upcoming show.
so in a hypothetical situation: if this actual rapper hears my friends performance with my lyrics and offers him money/contract/deal whatever and he runs off with that money and gives me no credit i’d be PISSED.
so the question is how do i prevent him from stealing my lyrics/geting evidence to prove that i wrote them?
Music is copyrighted as soon as you create it (by writing it down or recording it). You don’t have to do anything to obtain copyright protection. By law, it is automatic.
However, you have the option of registering your copyright with the government. If you do this, it’s a lot easier to sue people who steal your work, and it’s easier to obtain damages. Some lawyers won’t take on an infringement case unless the copyright involved has been registered. To register your copyright, you provide a copy of your music to the government and you pay a fee. In the United States, you can register many types of works online, by visiting here:
http://www.copyright.gov/eco
Even if you don’t register your copyright, you can still go to court and force someone to stop using or copying your work, and you can ask the court to order that all illegal copies be destroyed. But it’s hard to get damages for copyright infringement if you haven’t registered it, because you have to prove that you actually lost money. If you register your copyright, on the other hand, you automatically get damages without having to prove any losses, so it just makes things easier.
Keep in mind that as soon as you put your music online, someone will probably steal it. It’s illegal for them to do that, but that won’t stop them. If you want to stop them, you’ll have to sue, which costs a lot of money, so it’s not always practical. However, if they put the stolen music online, you can file a DMCA takedown request with their Internet provider, who is then required by law to remove the stolen music. The other guy can claim that his posting doesn’t infringe, though, in which case you must either take him to court for real, or the Internet provider can put the stuff back online.
Ultimately, the winner is usually the party with the most money, unfortunately. But you do have copyright protection from the moment you create that music, and you do have the right to enforce your copyright if you choose, be it registered or not.