Understanding The Basics Of Copyright Control

The song that you wrote is like a kite. Why? Because just as how a kite soars in various heights, your song may top the charts regardless of whatever media venues made available such as MTV, MYX, NU107’s Midnight Countdown, and all other popularity-contest-media-platforms. As far as the advantage of today’s digital music distribution is concerned, the Casey Casem/Rick Dees generation is old school stuff and Top 40 is obsolete (just an opinion, so don’t take my word for it) and SoundScan may have better credibility assuming the stats are not rigged.

Bands and artists nowadays are more assertive to distributing their music on their own (Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”) or partnered with a dependable company with a huge network (Paul McCartney with Starbucks and Madonna with Live Nation). This is the modern kite flying scheme.

Since I am comparing a song to a kite, here’s the analogy. No matter how far and high a kite flies (implying your song’s success), the kiteline is forever the only link that can lead your song back to you, the rightful owner. No matter what format your song may be converted into (MP3, Apple Lossless, WAV) – the basic law of copyright control remains the same.

Why is there a need to copyright your song? Because a song is NOT TANGIBLE and the only way to make it TANGIBLE is by documenting it for copyright control. Remember that a song is basically defined as melody and lyrics.

Obviously, these two elements cannot be literally touched. That’s why the concept of copyright is initiated by the music industry people in the form of documents they call Music Publishing Contracts to simply legitimize a product created from a person’s brilliant mind.

These documents are supported by the Intellectual Property Rights Law and more specifically, Copyrights Law (by the way, copyright law is territorial). The intention is simply to protect the owner from illegal use of one’s property just as how real estate laws protect your house and lot.

In application, if for example an advertising company wants to revive The Raw Belief’s 1990 hit song “Circles”, the only way to get tangible to this Local Ground masterpiece is to know who owns it, ask permission for it, and perhaps pay the necessary dues.

How do you explain why and what makes the Lennon-McCartney legacy work? It’s because of copyright control. Somebody and perhaps some groups of people in this exclusive earth simply own a portion of copyright on some songs so that every time a Lennon-McCartney masterpiece is recorded and performed, they control the legal rights and music licensing is made and royalties are shared between copyright owners and The Beatle-guys.

Like a kite’s steady and victorious flight, the success of a song is highly attributed on the string (copyright ownership) and the person expertly holding the kiteline (you or your music publisher). A kite can stay up in the air in the same way as a song is heard over and over again, appreciated by many, licensed by business entities, and ultimately earn royalties for you for years even with different artists performing it and in different versions.

To conclude, the word “copyright” implies that the holder is legally entrusted and therefore empowered to replicate, mass produce and distribute an intellectual property. The legal permission had been negotiated with its owner and/or creator.

By legal permission, this means that the holder is granted the “right to copy” the creation of the person who owns the intellectual property. I’m sorry for making all the redundancies but I would just like to make it clear at this point. This is the simplest definition I could make. The bottomline is to keep your "kiteline" strong. Hope this helped.