| Re: Buying Music You Outright Own [message #85719 is a reply to message #85693] |
Tue, 25 July 2017 09:56   |
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Wayne Parham
Messages: 18791
Registered: January 2001
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Illuminati (33rd Degree) |
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If you are looking to own the rights to a song so you can license it to be recorded by musicians, then you'll need to talk to an agent. There's a lot more to it than just "buying the song." On the other hand, if you know a musician that you are impressed with, you can probably work directly with them and pay them to write songs for you. You'll then need to register the copyright for the material.
Please understand that the way copyright works is the author is the owner whether registered or not unless the work is done "for hire." In that case, the person that paid for the work is the owner. And in either case, you really want to register the work if you're serious about it. The law says you don't have to register a work to be the owner of it, but proof is an issue if you don't. And you cannot collect damages if a work isn't registered, so you have little power in policing your intellectual property without registration.
On the other hand, I think you may be just talking about "owning" a copy of a song. That's actually just a license, but it can be bought and sold just like it were tangible property. When you buy a record, tape, CD or even a digital package without media, you have purchased a transferable license to that copy. It has limits, in that you cannot use it for commercial purpose. But you can play it, copy it, archive it and store it in any way you want. You just can't profit from it, or make it available to others in a public venue. If that's what you want, then you'll need to talk to a licensing agency like ASCAP or BMI.
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