Who Form 5495 Copyright 2017-2023

My name is Michael Harrington I'm a professor of music and intellectual property I'm a musician I've been a professional musician since I was 12 I fell into the world of copyright later on and I work as an expert witness and consultant in cases involving music copyright is something that's mysterious most of us know little about it you're not born knowing it you're not born with an inclination to do it you fall in love with music usually and then you start doing that and later on you set to learn something about law and business so you have a copyright from the moment you create something it only needs to have two things it needs to be original means it came out of your head and it has to have some tiny bit of creativity the Supreme Court called it a modicum of creativity so if you want to sound heavy and legal you'd set a modicum of creativity so it has to be original and has to be fixed in a tangible medium of expression but that they mean sheet music you recorded it audio or video informed in in an mp3 mp4 something like that so that's what you need to have a copyright there a lot of myths about copyright that for example people think you have to send your music to Washington DC it has to be registered with the Copyright Office that's a nice thing to do there are benefits to registering your copyright but it already is copyrighted from the moment of creation so all you have to do it has to be original you didn't copy it it has to be fixed you have copyright right from the moment of creation if you took 30 days to write something every...