Music & Recordings - One Application

The good news is that if you are both songwriter and recording artist of a musical work you can claim complete ownership of theses two separate copyrights on a single application - for one fee! This provides you with total ownership of your work.

For a band, or musical group, if all band members have contributed to the musical composition and the sound recording, a single copyright registration may be made for both the musical composition and the sound recording.

Although they are separate works, a musical composition and a sound recording may be registered together on a single application if ownership of the copyrights in both is exactly the same.

If you've written and recorded the entire work, you will own all the legal rights to both the song and that recording. (This is the typical situation for most independent artists, songwriters and bands.)

If you have original artwork for the cover of your CD or a logo for your band, you may also consider copyrighting that on the same application to protect all of your creative work.

A single application can protect:

• The sound recording.
• The musical composition.
• Lyrics, if any.
• The individual performances on each song.
• The arrangement within that particular recording.
• The design or artwork of the CD packaging.

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