If you are creating your own recordings or even writing your own songs; it is very important that you submit your works for copyright registration. Copyright registration protects your original works against any possible infringements. The issuing office, for example the US Copyright office will send you a copyright certificate after successful registration, indicating a legal proof of ownership of your submitted works.
However for a beginner, it might sound a bit complex to properly submit a copyright application online using eco.
It is because most beginner or even novice songwriters and recording producers does not have a lot of knowledge relating to copyright. This guide is meant to provide some tips on submitting your sound recording work for online copyright registrations.
There are actually two ways you can submit your own:
1.) Submit your work for copyright application individually.
2.) Registering a group or collection of sound recordings as a single sound recording copyright application.
The first one is very simple. If you are the creator of sound recording work entitled “X recording”, then you simply submit that single work for copyright registration using online methods and then its done. Even if you have co-authors or creators in that work, there won’t be any issue.
The second one is slightly complex. You are submitting a “collection” of sound recording works as one application. This is the most popular method because it saves a lot of copyright registration cost. Supposing you own 5 sound recording copyright work. The cost of sound recording copyright is $35 per application and then to copyright those 5 works individually, it will cost you around $35 x 5= $175.
If you will be submitting all those five works as application then you only need to pay $35 dollars in the copyright registration process. However; copyright application for a collection of works has some strict limitations that introduce a lot of issues during the copyright registration process. Below are some tips that can help you in the copyright registration process:
1.) If a single sound recording copyright application comprising a collection of works has more than one author, the copyright office will not directly accept your registration.