copyright fees? please help

Pesticle · #1 12-25-2007, 01:56 AM

do i have to pay the fee to copyright each of my songs individually or can i pay the fee once and copyright all of my songs at once in 1 fee? i recorded 2 13 song cds now... but im afraid to sell them without copyrighting them... and i cant afford to pay 45 dollars 26 times for my 2 cds worth of work. I have like 50+ people who want my cd right now but I refuse to sell them until I know i cant be ripped off. Can i copyright multiple songs with one 45 dollar copyright fee, or do i have to do them all separately? Please help. I have read the copyright.gov page and still dont understand if i can send all of my songs in at once or if i have to send in the official copyright fee of 45 dollars for each individual song.

Pesticle · #2 12-25-2007, 02:05 AM

I'm desperate, please help.

John Wentzien · #3 12-25-2007, 02:32 AM

You can copyright the entire CD as a performance.

Dave Martin · #4 12-25-2007, 07:59 AM

To begin with, a copyright for those songs exists already - as soon as they're in a tangible form. But to answer your question, you can copyright them as a collection and only pay one fee. Call it "Pesticle's 2007 songs", and you're good to go - as long as all of the songs are written by the same writer/writers. In other words, if you wrote 10 of them alone, one with one other guy and 2 with two other guys, then only the 10 songs can be in one collection (though the two with two other guys can be in a separate collection. Make sense?

TL5 · #5 12-26-2007, 12:53 PM

Dave is correct on all counts.

However, before you can file a claim in the USA, you must have a registration on file.
So, delaying registration until you have to file a claim is a bad idea IMHO. Of course YMMV.