CMU:DIY

Tips: Who owns a copyright?

By | Published on Tuesday 27 March 2012

Copyright

CMU Business Editor Chris Cooke provides an overview of the rules on default ownership under UK copyright law.

If you are a singer songwriter, and you write a song with lyrics and then record it, you have created three separate copyrights…

• A copyright exists in the lyrics
• A copyright exists in the musical score
• A copyright exists in the sound recording

Under the UK copyright system (and most copyright systems, though the US is different) you do NOT need to register your work in order to get copyright protection – the copyrights in the lyrics and musical score exist as soon as they are created (technically they do need to be written down or recorded), and the copyright in the sound recording exists as soon as the recording is made.

But if you don’t have to register the copyright, how do we know who owns it? Well, the law tells us who, by default, owns any one copyright.

In the case of the lyrics and musical score it is the creator – so the lyricist or composer, who may be different people or the same person. If you collaborate with other people on writing a song, then everyone involved will be a co-owner.

In the case of the sound recording, under English law the copyright belongs to what the Copyright Act calls the ‘producer’ – though the Act doesn’t mean the record producer, but whoever paid for the studio time, which for a signed artist would usually be their record company.

So, that’s simple.

However, English law also allows the ‘assignment’ of existing and future copyrights to a third party, which can be a company or an individual. This basically means you hand over ownership of the copyrights in any works you have created or will create to a record company or music publisher or similar, normally in return for upfront money or long-term investment, or more often a combination of the two.

Once you have assigned the rights in something you created, the person or company you assigned them to becomes the copyright owner, and can do whatever they like with and profit from your work. Though usually there will be a written agreement when assignment takes place, in which the new copyright owner will commit to pay a share of any money generated by the song or recording back to the original creator. That agreement may also give the creator veto rights over certain uses of their work – though what share of the money and what veto rights a creator gets is all up for negotiation. Obviously any creator negotiating such an agreement needs legal advice.

Oblivious of that assignment agreement, the UK copyright system provides a couple of extra bits of protection to some artists:

– Any musician involved in a sound recording that is then broadcast or played out in public may be due an extra royalty, oblivious of any contracts linked to that recording (this is sometimes referred to as ‘equitable remuneration’). Collecting society PPL collects and distributes this royalty when it applies (on recordings registered with it) – so make sure you are a member!

– Any creator also has ‘moral rights’ over their work even though they no longer own it. Moral rights include the right to a credit where appropriate, and the right to stop ‘derogative treatment’ of songs or recordings. Though in the UK moral rights aren’t actually much use, not least because they can be waived by the creator in their record or publishing contract.

Even if you are not planning on assigning your rights to a record label or music publisher any time soon, you should give some serious thought to copyright ownership, especially if you are in a band, or regularly collaborate with other artists on songwriting or recordings.

Anyone involved in the creation of a song, or who helps pay for studio time, will have a claim to co-ownership of any relevant copyrights in works that are created, but the law doesn’t prescribe what percentages everyone is due of any money subsequently generated (though a judge will do that if your song becomes a global hit and you all fall out over who is due what cut of the loot).

To avoid future aggro, it’s worth drafting up a simple one page agreement between band members or collaborators in which copyright ownership is defined, and making sure everyone understands and signs that agreement. Obviously this in itself can cause some short term aggro, which is why you might want to involve a manager or lawyer in this process, not really because you need any special skills in writing such an agreement, but so they can be the ‘bad guy’ if being forced to discuss things like copyright ownership causes tensions.

Chris offers more insights on music rights through the CMU Insights training courses. Click here for more information. 



READ MORE ABOUT: