CompuServe Thread

Bruce, Your friend does not necessarily have to do anything formal to preserve a copyright on his music, but it's always a good idea to put a copyright notice on any score, demo tape label, etc., so that you will be able to prove willful infringement (which allows recovery of enhanced damages under the Copyright Act). Registration is not required to have copyright protection, but it _is_ required if you intend to bring an infringement action. Registration is not a very difficult or time consuming process. As for parodies, the U.S. Supreme Court recently decided a case concerning a parody of Roy Orbison's "Oh Pretty Woman" by (I think) 2 Live Crew entitled "Big Hairy Woman." Parodies are entitled to some protection as "fair use," the same way that reviews and comments on a copyrighted work are protected. The principle criterion seems to be whether the parody will affect the market for the original work, that is, will it tend to reduce sales of the original item. As with all fair use issues, the result turns on the specific facts of each case. It sounds like you have an interesting project. Good luck. Darron

Bruce, The U.S. is a signatory to the Berne Convention on Copyrights, so, in the US and most rest of the world (those countries that also signed on to the Berne agreement), the moment that an intellectual creation makes the transition from mind to matter it is protected by copyright. Whether this is a theme that is played on a piano the first time or scored for 100 musicians, it is protected. Now, the proof of creation is up to you. Some people will mail a copy of the work to themselves via certified mail (and not open it when they get it) to have a dated proof that the work was created no later than that date. Beyond that, you can seek protection via your country's specific copyright laws. Assuming you are in the US, the Copyright Revision Act of 1976 states that you can register your work with the Copyright Office. Offhand I don't remember the fee … something like $25, you can probably pick up the necessary forms at your local library. Registration gives you specific rights if your work is stolen or used without your permission. If registered, you can sue the infringer to cease and desist using your creation, sue for actual and compensory damages. If your copyright is NOT registered you can only sue for actual damages (and cease and desist). As to the parody, as someone else mentioned, the estate of Roy Orbison denied permission to 2 Live Crew to record (and distribute) their version of Pretty Woman (a highly obscene, and to me, unfunny parody). When they did, the Orbison estate sued. The ruling was that 2 Live Crew didn't need permission to parody the song. However, do you want to be target when someone attempts to get that precedent changed? Al Yankovic gets permission for all of his parodies (Michael Jackson even lent him sets and props for his video parodies of MJ). So, to wrap up, a copyright is automatic upon the physical manifestation of the work. Take some action to positively document the date … a date stamp on the disk file isn't good enough. If you're going to do a song parody (that will be widely distributed) you might want to think about getting explicit permission. If it is parody of a TV show or movie, you probably have a lot more latitude, just don't use actual program or character names. -sja