Artists, Musicians & Writers

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YIP helps artists, musicians, and writers with copyright or trademark notices or registrations. It is important for creative professionals to become familiar with intellectual property licensing and agreement types associated with professional negotiations. Most importantly, it's helpful to connect with like-minded organizations.  There are many national organizations specially designated to support authors and musicians to learn more about protecting, getting credit and compensation for their intellectual works. Examples of organizations to support musicians include ASCAP and BMI. For those needing to ask for permission to perform or play the music of others, the SONGVIEW database provides music users a listing of public performance copyright ownership and administration shares for music licenses in the United States.  
 

Obviously, musicians want to protect their works and also receive compensation when other artists perform their musical works.  Before they may do this, they must register copyright of their works with the copyright registration agency for their country.  Once their works have been registered for copyright, they should turn to performance rights agencies for royalties, such as ASCAP or BMI.

There are various entities for different types of royalties including:

• Mechanical Rights Royalties for commercial recordings.
• Performing Rights Royalties for public performances.
• Digital Rights Royalties for online digital recordings.
• Synchronization Rights Royalties for television and movie music use.
• Print Rights Royalties for scores and sheet music.

Examples of organizations to support artists, authors, journalists, and scholars, include:

• American Society of Journalist and Author (website temporarily unavailable)
• Artists Rights Society  https://arsny.com/
• Authors Registry  http://www.authorsregistry.org/
• Copyright Alliance https://copyrightalliance.org/
• Copyright Clearance Center  http://www.copyright.com/
• Submitting your dissertation or thesis to ProQuest
  https://about.proquest.com/products-services/dissertations/Authors.html

The Encyclopedia of Associations is another useful resource for artists, authors, and musicians to locate supportive organizations to help with their specific needs. Informative books such as This Business of Music by M. William Krasilovsky and Moser on Music Copyright by David Moser provide helpful details on related legal and contractual background of music.
 

Musicians starting up their own band or recording label need to determine whether or not their name of their band or recording label is original and then register for a trademark with their state or with the federal US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). Need to compare copyrights, trademarks, and patents? See Types of IP Rights section for a detailed chart which provides an overview of IPs by type and legal highlights. Email YIP for additional information.