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Authors own the exclusive rights to their compositions. This is called a copyright and the composition is protected for many years--even if the copyright is never registered with the copyright office. A composition is considered to be intellectual property The copyright may be sold, transferred, or inherited--but the copyright still endures.

If music or lyrics are under copyright protection:

• you CANNOT reproduce the music or lyrics
• you CANNOT distribute the music or lyrics either for free, for no profit, or for profit
• you CANNOT perform the music or lyrics in public
• you CANNOT play a recording of the music or lyrics in public--even if you own the CD
• you CANNOT make a derivative work or arrangement for public use in any form

Fortunately, copyrights eventually expire and the owner no longer has no exclusive rights. All compositions not protected under copyright law are said to be in the public domain. A work is in the public domain when no one on this entire planet can find any law which gives them legal claim to that property. Public domain is the complete absence of any law allowing ownership of a property. If you can prove that a composition is in the public domain, you can use the work any way you can imagine. You can arrange, reproduce, perform, record, publish it, and use or sell it commercially any way you like.

A Musical Work and a Sound Recording of a Musical Work have separate and extremely different copyright protection.