My band is gonna record our first song soon (amateur recording) so how do we protect it?

With a gun

from what?

dont give it to anybody

from what?

Landlord probably.

Haha, indeed. I presume he means patent it or something?

Haha, indeed. I presume he means patent it or something?
Wouldnt the song have to be deemed worthy before they even need a patent. Like, whats the point in stealing a shit song?

Ah, well, maybe he's so confident that his song will be amazing that he wants to patent it in advance but if its a Slipknot or Green Day clone, then its fucked anyway

I'm assuming you mean protect it from people taking it and saying that it was theirs? You probably won't have to worry about that, but in the unlikely event that you do, it's easy: however you distribute it, just have a copyright notice and then if somebody steals it and says it's their own, sue them. You really could, believe it or not.

Seriously though, how are you distributing it? Because unless you walk into Piracy International and say "Hey here's a random CD, take it!" I don't think you have much to worry about. When you've got thousands of fans you can start worrying about copyright infringement, but you're not there yet. For now I'd focus on the people who you WANT to be hearing it, not the ones you don't.

Also, come on dude, music forum. =P

first off, you don't patent music. or books, or anything along those lines.

actually, you don't even need a copyright notice. you have some initial protection immediately. it might be hard to enforce should anything go wrong, but there won't be many people out there that're really dumb enough to try it.

the above was assuming you meant protect it from anyone using your work in their own stuff. that's not hard to protect. if you mean protect from people burning CD's/downloading MP3's... good luck !

i have three friends that are in bands. first you should try signing yourself to a record label. then...well you're thinking of handing out demo's right?
you can do that and everything, but you know just give it to people you can trust...like don't give it to anybody who's gonna post it up for free downloads or anything.

Haha yeah just call up a record label and sign yourself to them.

hahah "Happy Bithday" is a copyrighted song.

Metal, me and a couple of my friends have got a little band gig going. Our band's called "State of Being". We sound kind of like a mix between KoRn, Smile Empty Soul, and Lagwagon (if you've heard of any of these). What's your bands name? What type of music do you all sing?

When you record a demo you record it in a studio(no matter how bad the studio is) and it costs money. We thought about recording this one song for now using a mic connected to a line, and then maybe send it to a radio station. As for the music style i guess it's between prog/trash/heavy metal.

I work in the music business so I am kinda up on this stuff. This is the cheapest way to safe gaurd your material. Make a copy of the song(s) on a cd and post it to yourself recorded delivery. Don't open the package but keep it handy. This way you have proof that you were the owner on the date recorded. Of course you could try to get a publishing deal which will get your songs copyrighted anyway or start your own. The latter might sound stupid but it is free to start a publishing company (if you are in the states anyway - not for us poor UK folks!). I have the address you can write to for the information somewhere. If you are really serious drop me a PM and I will fish it out for you.


"You are my sunshine" isn't copyrighted. Anyone can cover and record that song.