Copyright Talk

If you write and record your own songs, then you are affected by two separate copyrights.

The first is the copyright for the song itself (that’s lyrics and music).
The second is the copyright for the recording of the song. If the song is recorded multiple times, by multiple artists or even by the same artist, then there are as many recording copyrights as there are versions of the song on tape (or in files, as the case may be).

The writer, along with any co-writers, owns the copyright to the song.
The recording, on the other hand, may be owned by all the people who played or sang on it, and the producer and engineer may also own part of it. It just depends on who made a creative contribution to the recording. The only person involved in a recording that NEVER has an automatic ownership share is the person who pays for it. That doesn’t mean the moneybag isn’t entitled to get paid back, but the moneybag never owns the copyright just because they paid for the whole thing.

Common practice is for hired musicians and others to sign written agreements waiving any rights they may have to future royalties in exchange for whatever payment they have agreed to accept for playing on the recording. They also grant one person or company the exclusive right to license the recording. Essentially, these agreements mean the musician gives up any right he or she may have otherwise had to the copyright in the recording, leaving you free to make all decisions and collect all money (subject to any other agreements you have). When you record a song, it is vitally important to make sure that you have written agreements with all the participants so that you can grant clear licenses in the future.

The copyright statutes tell us that a lot of money can be awarded in copyrigt infringement cases, but we rarely see it happen except in big-operation piracy operations that also fall under the criminal codes. Last week, though, ordinary Joe (or Jeffery, actually) from Arizona, who was accused of illegal file sharing on his home computer, apparently for his own personal use, found out just how expensive a few illegal files can really be.

And it happened without a shred of evidence.

Let me explain, because this is important. The RIAA filed a lawsuit against Jeffrey Howell, and the judge issued a standard order to Howell not to mess with his computer hard-drive, because there might be evidence relevant to the case on it.

Howell, who represented himself and apparently never spoke to a lawyer, formatted the hard-drive and took other steps to wipe his computer clean, in clear violation of the judge’s order.

You can’t disobey a judge without running smack into serious consequences. Here, the judge said the extent of the evidence tampering indicated there was a good chance that evidence supporting the RIAA’s claims had been there, so he found in favor of the RIAA and ordered Howell to pay $40,500 in damages, plus court costs, which were tiny in comparison since not much had actually happened in court thanks to Howell’s destruction.

The bottom line is that destruction of evidence is NEVER a good idea.