Today’s guest blog is from Don Rath, Jr., a composer and Copyright Alliance one voi©e member.

Without going into what one must do to secure a registered Copyright or to discuss Copyright Law, as a Composer of music, I wanted to write about what it means to me to have the rights and privileges afforded me through Copyright ownership.

I made the decision to formally register my musical works at the US Copyright Office just in case of any illegal activity or copyright infringement towards any of my original creations. Officially, there is no real need to file for a Copyright Registration unless a person wants ownership to be a matter of public record, wants a Copyright Certificate or wants to file a lawsuit against someone who illegally infringes upon a copyrighted work that they own. Since I had a plan to publish my creations, I felt compelled to file for the formal registrations as an insurance policy to protect my ownership interests as granted by the Constitution of the United States. Also, I knew that by registering my music that I would be standing on solid legal ground if or when I needed to defend my property rights. That is the protection I was seeking and that is why I continue to register all of my creations.

Since I made the decision to attempt to earn money from my music and knowing I have the formalized Copyright, it has freed me up to promote it as best I can with the ultimate goal of earning a fair and decent living writing original music. It’s not easy to write, produce and manufacture it into a marketable product. It’s a lot of work, hard work, for which I hope to be properly paid for my efforts in creating something that brings others pleasure. Registering a Copyright helps to ensure that.

Copyright Law includes guidelines for the use of copyrighted material. I know that I have, at least initially, complete control over the use of it as well as choosing who has the right to use it. Ideally, everyone should honor Copyright Law. However, in the real world, preventing them from unlawful use is difficult and Lawmakers are trying to write enforceable revisions to prevent unlawful uses of copyrighted material.

Further, and of most importance to me, is the fact that through my work as a living Composer and as an incredible benefit of Copyright Ownership, the legacy of my music can be left to my Children and Grandchildren, hopefully, enriching their lives. To me, it is not really a selfish act, composing music, but rather an act of giving even more of my self to my loved ones as well as giving to my fans and friends, in this lifetime, something they value and something real. Truly, music is a gift from my soul to theirs.

Don Rath Jr
StringTunes – Music To Soothe Your Soul!
http://www.stringtunes.com

Share this:

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 5:34 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under blogging, copyright law, creators, property rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.