The time has come to copyright my bands music & lyrics.

Which of these options offers the most protection of the compositions?

1. Copyright all the material as a " Sound Recording "

2. Copyright each song seperately.

Thanks.

I don't really know that much about copyrights and all that. But I'm guessing that you would want to copyright each song. My logic in this is that if someone likes the song you may sell it to them and what not. Its better to have as many options as possible.

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[B]right
[L]ight
[I]s
[S]eldom
[S]een

Thanks for the input. Hopefully somone with some extensive knowledge on the subject will enlighten us. What are the fundamental differences of SR & PA copyrights. "This Business of Music" states that an album is copyrightable. Does that copyright protect each composition? or is it merely protecting the sound recording?

Thanks.

(like the BLISS acronym.)

By all means, copyright each song seperately. Down the road, they may have a life of their own outside the current album.

"In fact, if you’re planning on filing both a copyright in a sound recording as well as the underlying musical work, you can file just Form SR. However, in order to save yourself the $30 bucks by filing both copyrights with the same form, the performers on the sound recording and the copyright claimants for the underlying musical work must be the same person or people. Otherwise, you should file a Form PA for the written song, and a Form SR for the recorded song."

from an article on copyright and publishing
http://www.starpolish.com/advice/article.asp?id=21

Thanks for all the useful information.