Hi All,

Johnny.c, any time there is a discussion about copyrights (especially concerning music)it will go around in circles because the music industry wants us to believe any and all forms of sharing music without paying for it is wrong.

Fran, according to the music people not only would using a copyrighted style in a song and sharing it be wrong, just sharing the song is wrong unless you wrote it.

There are so many licenses involved it's like your auto. You need a title to have it, a license to drive it, a license to put it on the road and in some places a license to say it does not pollute the air.

Music is the same, there are copyrights, performance rights, recording rights, distrubution rights and who knows want else.

Here is a funny one, If I write a song and I do not distribute any copies of the song to any person "All Copyrights Rights" remain exclusively mine, I could perform the song every day to an audience and yet that is not considered distribution. Which means that if you start to sing the song on the way out of the hall after hearing it I could sue you for performing an undistrubuted song.

Because I have a couple of registered copyrighted songs I wanted to know what my rights were. Even after belonging to the US copyright offce subscription service for 4 years I could never completely understand it and they were sending me stuff that was suppose to make it simple.

What I did learn was that if "I" write something (anything a song, a poem, an article) and I attach the copyright symbol or the word "Copyright" to it with my name and the year. It is considered to be copyrighted. If I give copies to someone I loose a few rights and registering it only makes it easier to prove in court but is not a requirement for copyright protection. All the other stuff is settled in court.

If all the laws were clear the recording industry would not be sueing so many people only to have the courts say they cann't.

And while some pleople do not like these types of discussions on this forum I find them a bit refreshing so thanks Gunnar for the thread.


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Heather- Leesburg, FL PR54

[This message has been edited by shcox (edited 03-04-2005).]