This short guide can help any beginner music publisher or songwriter in copyrighting their musical work which are as follows:

1st tip: You can copyright your entire catalog as one submission (of course as a single fee).

Important note:

1. If you are the creator of the lyrics and melodies then file Form PA with the US Copyright office, you can now copyright online at http://www.copyright.gov/eco/.

2. If you are both the creator of lyrics/melodies as well as the recording (which most indie musicians will do), then you can submit form SR.

2nd tip: If your specific song or musical work finally made into a big budgeted project, it is worth copyrighting it again as a single work. This will further add protection.

3rd tip: It is not a strict rule that you need to have a commercially produced work in order to submit a copyright. Even if if you have write a song and recorded it in a cassette, it is enough for it to be registered to a US Copyright to have it protected.

4th tip: Do not rely on poor man’s copyright (like having your cassette put in a mail envelope and mail back to you, the date on the stamped serves as the date of copyright evidence) .You should register your work to the government copyright office.

5th tip: Submit only directly to the US Copyright office: http://www.copyright.gov/eco/, this will let you save cash and lets your work directly submitted to the copyright office as early as possible. Using third party services can be both costly and slow.

6th tip: By directly submitting to the US Copyright office (example using their online services), you can get your copyright certificate much faster and lets your work be searchable online using their copyright search services.http://cocatalog.loc.gov/ as early as 3 months. I have registered a song using third party services and it has never been listed on the copyright search catalog or have received a copyright certificate for it until now. Although, I have follow up the copyright office and said they have confirmed to have received the work.

7th tip: If you are the creator of sound recording, bear in mind that different recorded versions means a different copyrighted work. So it means that if you have previously copyright a certain version of your work, and now you have credited a different version (acoustic version perhaps), you still need to register it to the copyright office because it is now a different work.