Copyright is an incredibly important and vital part of a functioning and successful music industry. People often wonder who owns lyrics or who owns a melody; this post aims to cover and answer some of the key questions when it comes to artists protecting their creative work and how it works on a day-to-day basic and essential level.
What does copyright give you the right to do?
If you are the copyright owner of a song, this entitles you to:
- Reproduce the work
- Distribute copies of the work
- Perform works publicly
- Make derivative works
- Perform copyrighted sound recordings by means of a digital audio transmission
- Display of the work
There are some exceptions in which you can use copyrighted music without the need of a licence, which are:
- Parody
- Research
- Teaching
- Private study
- Criticism or review
- News reporting
What is a copyright?
A copyright is quite literally ‘a right to copy’ and, in the UK, comes into existence upon the creation of the work. For music, a copyright only exists on a ‘fixed’ song, this means a song that has been written down or recorded, so a melody in your head doesn’t obtain copyright, and if you were to sing it out loud and somebody overheard and took it as their own, you wouldn’t be able to argue that they have infringed upon your copyright.
How do I copyright my music?
Unlike in the US, in the UK, there is no need to register copyright, it just needs to be an original work in tangible form. So for music, there are a few things you can do:
- Write down the lyrics
- Write down the song chords and melody
- Record a demo
- Record a music video
- Register with a collection society
- Upload a copy of your recording privately to SoundCloud, YouTube etc.
What is a sync licence?
A sync licence is a legal agreement between the music rights owner and a party looking to ‘sync’ the music to another medium, i.e. for an advert, TV show or film; it can also be for video games.
What is PRS?
PRS, the performing right’s society, essentially enable musicians to receive royalties from their music. They are a collection society and collect the royalties from copyrighted songs and pay the receiving artists. If you have kept your publishing rights, you will be paid by PRS- if you signed your rights to a publisher, then you will get a cut based on your agreement.
Can I use 10 seconds of a copyrighted song?
Whether it is 10 seconds, 1 minute or 1 second, any use of a copyrighted song without a licence or permission counts as an infringement of copyright. You are not only infringing on the artist, but the owner of the recording, who had to obtain the licence from the publisher. This used to happen on YouTube all the time as people could get away with it more easily, however this has changed due to new copyright legislation and YouTube essentially being hotter on its toes with copyrighted material being used in videos on its website.
To summarise, the importance of copyright within the music industry is not to be underestimated, it keeps artists receiving the money they should and deserve, and protects their original work from being stolen by others. Copyright may not seem at the heart of the music industry as creativity, artistry and talent is, but it is very much part of it.