Copyrighting in Canada - Info?

[Two hands31]

I'm wondering about obtaining copyrights for my music: Where do I go? What do I do? What do I need? Anything I should know?

[darren wilson]

Copyright in most places in the world (including Canada) is automatic upon creating anything. If you publish anything, just mark it with © [year] [your name, band or publishing company]

If you want to more aggressively protect your artistic creation, you can go about registering your copyright with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, which handles things like copyrights, trade marks and patents. But that can get a little expensive, and it only serves as official documentation of the date you created something.

There's always the "poor man's copyright registration" which involves mailing a recording of what you created to yourself via registered mail and leaving it unopened, but i don't think that's generally regarded as a viable means of protection these days.

[Two hands31]

Originally Posted by darren wilson

Copyright in most places in the world (including Canada) is automatic upon creating anything. If you publish anything, just mark it with © [year] [your name, band or publishing company]

If you want to more aggressively protect your artistic creation, you can go about registering your copyright with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, which handles things like copyrights, trade marks and patents. But that can get a little expensive, and it only serves as official documentation of the date you created something.

There's always the "poor man's copyright registration" which involves mailing a recording of what you created to yourself via registered mail and leaving it unopened, but i don't think that's generally regarded as a viable means of protection these days.

Ah, ok, cool. Didn't realize it was that simple Last time I asked someone about it, the answer got so confusing I just gave up for the time being

[darren wilson]

Originally Posted by Two hands31

Ah, ok, cool. Didn't realize it was that simple Last time I asked someone about it, the answer got so confusing I just gave up for the time being

That's because most people don't know jack sh!t about intellectual property, even if they think they do.

Copyright, trade mark and patent are three terms that often get thrown around interchangeably by people who don't know the difference. And even with all the ballyhoo in the media over the last two or three years with file swapping and the music sharing sites, the mainstream media still hasn't done a very good job of educating the public about intellectual property and why copyright exists and how it works.

[Two hands31]

So basically, all I gotta do is write it, and it's copyrighted to me? Man, the media makes such a huge deal over this.

btw, what's with the "ASCAP" and other "copyright" company names you see on CDs?

[darren wilson]

Yep. That's essentially it. However, copyrighting something is easy... enforcing that copyright and collecting royalties every time your song is played or performed in public is where it gets tricky. That's where the rights-management organizations come in.

ASCAP and BMI are agencies that collect royalties on behalf of copyright holders for music. Their Canadian equivalent is SOCAN.

Here's a link i found with links and summaries of what they all do:

http://www.dogandponysound.com/whoswhoincopyright.htm