Law & Society

There you have it! You have just established yourself as a band and eagerly looking forward to releasing your recordings worldwide. Is that all there is to it? Well from my point of view your first major concern should be protecting the songs and its composition from being misused by other musicians or artists. So what do you do? You have to protect your Intellectual Property by copywriting it.

An Intellectual Property is the legal term used to describe any piece of work, type of invention or specific expression that you have created. An example of this is a poem or a song composed by a person which is his or her's intellectual property. Building your music in the industry requires a lot of hard work as you put in all your time and effort to bring out the uniqueness of your compositions and share it with the world. So it's extremely essential to copyright all your songs and recordings to prevent it from being copied or used by some other musician or artist.

Many countries around the world have set up copywriting laws which help bands and artists protect their song titles, ideas and other sorts of intellectual property. Copyright laws for music can be dramatically different from country to country. So the essentiality lies in every musician's understanding of his country's copyright laws to effectively guard his intellectual property. In this article, we will see the copyright laws governing the United States as well as other countries all over the world. This will give bands and artists the necessary guidance to protect their name and music along with the information on how long the copyright laws in each country last.

In the United States of America, copyrights are automatically given to those who have created new works or inventions. This gives bands and artists the right to attain a copyright without having to go to the government for the material they create. However, copyrights maybe attained in the United States without breaking a sweat, but you have to prove to the government that you are the first one to come up with a particular kind of work or composition should you face any legal challenge to your copyright.

In order to do this legitimately, lawyers and legal advisers suggest that every band or artist register their intellectual property. Due to digital technology which is readily available, registering can be done in a matter of minutes online. Once you're done with the registration, you will have legitimate proof of the work you created in case it's taken to court. This will seal the deal, but the duration of a copyright lasts for only a specific period of time in the United States and the renewal process should be done when needed.

Due to the development of copyright laws in individual countries across the world, there is no International copyright law that exists. However, since the 19^th century, a series of international conventions has worked to standardize copyright laws in participating countries. These conventions, dubbed the Berne Conventions, have been held about every 10 to 15 years since 1893.

Due to the work done in these conventions, all participating countries have agreed that copyrights are automatically granted to an author, inventor, musician and the like. Once the work or composition has been completed by a band or artist, all the copyrights are treated with equal honor and respect in each of the participating countries. Not all countries adhere to the requirements of the Berne Convention, so it's essential for all the bands and artists to understand each country's requirement in following the copyright law which applies to them. This will prevent differences in opinion which may arise in copyright laws on an international level.