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So you ve just written or composed a great song or beat, and you want to know how to copyright music. Well look no further, as below I ll be telling you everything you need to know about copyrighting music.

There are three levels of copyright you can apply to your music:

1. Low level music copyright,
2. Medium level music copyright, and
3. High level music copyright.

Although your music is automatically copyrighted if you put any of these three levels into effect, the higher up you go, the better protected your music is. So read the full article below for all the details on how to copyright your music, and what options are available to you.

Please Note: This article is not in any way meant to act as legal advice; it s simply showing you some practical ways to copyright your music. Music laws vary from country to country, so if you re unsure of how anything effects you specifically in your country, please consult a legal adviser. That said, I hope you find this info useful when copyrighting your music.

Ok, so why do you need to copyright your songs? Simple, to prove your are the writer or composer of the music in question. If you didn t have a copyright, anyone could come along and say that they were the original owner of your songs. If they were falsely proven to be right, they could take control of your music and any royalties made from them. Furthermore, they may even be cheeky enough to sue you for damages.

It s because of this that s it s important you protect yourself. While as a independent musician starting out you won t often find yourself in this kind of situation, it can happen.

Legal battles over song rights becomes more common as you start earning more money from your music. That said, regardless of where you are in your music career, I suggest you read all the below information and make sure your music is as protected as possible. The sooner you get used to this side of things, the better you ll be able to handle any issues that may arise in future. There are a few different things you can copyright. but the information in this guide will help protect all of your songs. If you want to protect your name, you ll need to apply to trademark your music name .

Now that you know why music copyrighting is important, let s get into the good stuff: How to copyright your music.

As I previously mentioned, there are three levels of copyrighting you can do. The first one, while not perfect (We ll look at why in a minute) actually doesn t require you to do anything. By law, as soon as you publish your music in any tangible way, you officially own the copyright for that song. So if you write down a song on paper or record some vocals in a vocal booth etc, you at that moment already own the full rights. It s as simple as that.

As I mentioned though, this isn t the most reliable type of copyright there is. Yes you legally own the rights, but what if someone else sees your paper and also writes it down? How can you prove that you owned the copyright before them? You can t, is the answer. And if they go as far as to doing any of the two other music copyrighting methods I m going to mention as this article goes on, they in the eyes of the law are in a better position then you to prove they own the copyright. Not cool.

As a potential deterrent to stop people stealing your work, you will want to put a copyright sign (©) on any artwork or paper you produce. While it won t definitely stop people from copying your music, it is a reminder that it s protected music, and will stop some people trying to claim it as their own.

A more secure way (Although not the top way) of copyrighting your songs, is to get them independently dated via one of a few ways. For example, if you make a copy of your lyrics and post them to yourself via recorded and dated delivery, you have proof of when your music was made. You have the date on the package, and you can show this to a court if you ever have to prove the copyright belongs to you.

Be sure not to open the package once you ve sent it to yourself however, as if it s opened, a opposing party might claim that you have tampered with it and since added your music at a later date.

Another way to independently date your music is to digitally record it, and put in on a data disk. When recorded, the date should automatically be added to the recording, showing people when the material was first composed. You should also send this data disk to yourself via a recorded and dated delivery as mentioned above, just to make your case even more solid.

While this method is a lot more secure then the low level copyright, a problem still comes up if someone else also does this for your music. For example, they may get hold of a copy of your songs on CD, and their date is earlier or matches yours. That, or they may simply write a date on a page of lyrics, and claim they wrote it before you.

While this method of music copyrighting does go a long way to proving you own the rights, there is one more secure method you can use if you re serious about protecting your music:

Ok, so this is the single biggest copyrighting action you can take to protect your music against those who would try to steal it. It s also the only method of the three that will allow you to sue and claim damages if someone tries to steal your music: