How to register musical copyrights yourself
If you’ve bought into Amazing Audio at Home and have read the bonus lessons on copyright and royalties within the music industry, you’ll already know that for every musical work you release, it’s wise to register at least two different copyrights with the US Copyright Office. One for the musical work, and another for the sound recording of that work.
If you don’t register your copyrights, it’s basically impossible to enforce the rights to your artwork. So, register those copyrights, at least for any of your music you actually care about and want to protect!
If someone steals your work and you catch them, the first question a lawyer is going to ask you is: “Are you the registered copyright owner of this work?”
How to register copyrights yourself
Traditionally, a label handles rights management for their artists. But, that often comes with a lot of dubious strings attached. You don’t actually need a label to register your copyrights: it’s straightforward to do this yourself at copyright.gov, and the fees are reasonable.
But, it can get a bit complicated if you’re talking about registering multiple songs across a full album of music. Do you have to register each song you release individually, twice?
Fortunately, no. While you do have to submit separate copyright applications for both the musical work and the sound recording of that work (plus a third for the lyrics if you want to copyright those separately), you can register musical works in groups.
It’s called GRAM: Group Registration of works on an Album of Music.
Group registration of works on an album of music (GRAM)
Up to twenty musical works (or their sound recordings) can be registered in a single GRAM application to the US Copyright Office.
So, if you have a 12 track album, you would submit just two applications to register all 12 tracks: one group application for the musical work, one group application for the sound recording of that work.
You can also register a musical work that was previously published as a single before it was released on an album, inside of the group application. It does require a specific note to be made on the group application form.
Here’s an example scenario:
How to register an album and its accompanying singles using GRAM
The full details on the GRAM group copyright application process is available here, at the US Copyright Office FAQ.
Even if you’re on a label and don’t handle rights management yourself, it’s important for all artists to understand how the system works.
