How do I copyright a song with my lyrics but a public domain melody? I used a melody from an old Eastern European folk song and my own lyrics to record myself singing and playing the guitar. Do I copyright just the lyrics and just the performance or copyright the whole thing?
Copyright is automatic - it starts to exist when you create a work of a type protected by law. Lyrics are such a work, and thus your lyrics are protected. Even the fact that the lyrics go with an existing (public domain) melody is protected. In addition, your recording is protected. However, the melody is probably not copyrighted, and does not become copyrighted merely because you re-used it. (Probably, because you didn't indicate how old, so I assumed old enough that nobody remembers the origin)
You also retain the right to license the work to others. Therefore you can sell similar rights to MusicBook and anyone else, as long as you do not grant an exclusive license (you have already licensed another party to distribute). They do not gain the right to sub-license your work. If you had executed a copyright transfer, you would have no rights to the work whatsoever (leaving out moral rights for jurisdictions that have them and where they are absolute).
No, it's still copyright infringement. When you modify a copyrighted work in any way, you generate a derivative work which you are not allowed to distribute without the permission of the original copyright holder.
The comment is incorrect; creating a derivative work without permission is still disallowed, even for private use. In US copyright law 17USC 106 defines the exclusive rights that the copyright holder has, the right &quot;to do and to authorize&quot;. The second of these is: (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; Note that the right is the right to &quot;prepare&quot; a derivative work, not the right to &quot;distribute&quot; or &quot;sell&quot; the work. US copyright law defines a derivative work in 17 USC 101 which reads: A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications, which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”. The laws of other countries are similar to US law on this point. Article 2, paragraph 3 of the Berne Copyright Convention provides that: (3) Translations, adaptations, arrangements of music and other alterations of a literary or artistic work shall be protected as original works without prejudice to the copyright in the original work. However, it should be noted that if a person creates a derivative work in private, and never shows it to anyone else, the copyright owner would never learn of it, and so could never sue for infringement. But if it were shown or described to anyone, and the owner did learn, then he owner could in theory sue. Whether the owner would choose to sue over a derivative work never circulated is a different matter. The real effect of this law is that when an infringing derivative work is distributed and the owner wants to sue, the owner need not prove distribution. Proving creation of the derivative work is enough. The quoted comment asks about whether such a rule is &quot;unconstitutional or something&quot; and says that &quot;You should be allowed to do whatever you want with your own stuff in your own home.&quot; The US constitution does not grant any such broad right. There are lots of things one might do in own's own home that are illegal: building a bomb for example. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution, sometimes called the Copyright Clause or the IP clause, grants Congress the power: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. See the LII page &quot;Intellectual Property Clause&quot; and the page Nature and Scope of the Right Secured for Copyright where it is written that: Congress was within its powers in giving to authors the exclusive right to dramatize any of their works. Even as applied to pantomime dramatization by means of silent motion pictures, the act was sustained against the objection that it extended the copyright to ideas rather than to the words in which they were clothed. {Kalem Co. v. Harper Bros., 222 U.S. 55 (1911). For other problems arising because of technological and electronic advancement, see, e.g., Fortnightly Corp. v. United Artists Television, Inc., 392 U.S. 390 (1968); Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984).} See also the Wikipedia article &quot;Copyright Clause&quot;.
You are in breach of Copyright. Plain and simple. Certain websites allow you to use the website content as long as a link is made, but the website must clearly state that. You may also use a tiny portion of the content if it falls under Fair Use, where "Fair Use" does not mean "I want to". The best thing to do is not to do it. You can't copy anybody's work without consent. If you're thinking about Google specifically then they offer multiple APIs so that you can use their content in a wide variety of ways.
Yes Playing recorded music in public is unlawful without permission (licence) from the copyright holder. Many jurisdictions allow automatic licensing by signing up with and paying for it through the authorised music organisation.
You are creating a derivative work. You are only allowed to do this if the library comes with a license that allows this. If you want to give your derivative work to anyone else, copying it is copyright infringement unless the license allows it. Copying the derivative work and attaching a different license is most likely to be copyright infringement. And if people receive a copy with an open source license that is not justified and rely on it, that’s creating one unholy legal mess for everyone involved and can be massively more expensive than plain copyright infringement. No license means you don’t have permission to do anything with it, not creating derivative work, not distributing it, and certainly not publish it with an open source license.
No. These companies seem to be saying that they are entitled to sell music under some sort of mandatory licensing agreement authorized by the law of the Ukraine, or by a licensing agreement specific to the Ukraine. Even if this were true, it would only give them the right to distribute the files in the Ukraine. If an American, sitting in the U.S., makes a digital copy of a file on a Ukrainian server by copying it to his or her U.S. hard drive, they have to have a license to do so issued either by the U.S. copyright holder or authorized by U.S. law. A license to distribute in the Ukraine doesn't give the U.S. end user that license. A Ukrainian statute doesn't give the U.S. end user that license. If the end user doesn't have that license, he or she is violating the copyright holder's rights and may be civilly or criminally liable. There is no scienter requirement for copyright infringement. In fact, it's not at all clear that any Ukrainian site is operating even under this dubious legal cover. This report on Ukrainian licensing agencies by an industry group claims that many Ukrainian licensing authorities are actually scams that have no rights to distribute music under any license--one of the "rogue licensing agencies" discussed is Avtor, referenced in your first example. There is some legal confusion over what group does have permission to license music and collect royalties in the Ukraine, but it's clear that Avtor doesn't, and it certainly doesn't have permission to distribute them in the U.S. If a guy came up to you on the street and told you he had written permission from Disney to videotape their latest movies with a camcorder and sell them to you for a dollar, are you violating the law if you buy it? The answer is yes, and it's the same for these Ukrainian sites.