Which Form 5495 Copyright 2017-2024

What's up y'all? I'm Rob Level, and today we're talking about how to copyright music for free and how to copyright your own music. This is Smart Rapper, and let's get into it. The very first thing I want to tell you is that making a work automatically makes it copyright protected. This law was passed on January 1st, 1978, and it means that as soon as you create something, it's copyrighted. Even if you just make a sample of a song, it's still considered copyrighted. However, this only falls under the common copyright law. In order to have a higher chance of winning a court case if someone steals your music, you need to get it registered under federal copyright law. So, let's move into part two of this. If your song or album is truly exceptional and you want to protect it, you should submit your songs to copyright.gov. You can do this as a group of songs and it costs less than $40, specifically around $37. It's a small investment to ensure that your music is protected and that no one can steal it from you. Registering your work makes you eligible to take advantage of the statutory damages rule, which allows courts to find people who violate your copyright. If you're not registered, you have to prove your actual damages in court. Once you file for copyright, your work is protected under federal law. Now, let's talk about the myth of the "poor man's copyright." This is when people believe that sending themselves CDs with their music without opening them would serve as proof of copyright. Unfortunately, this method has no legal grounds because it can be easily falsified. So, instead of wasting your time and money on this method, go to copyright.gov and copyright your music properly...