Copyright and Legal

Whenever a creative works is made it automatically becomes the copyright of whoever created it.  UK copyright legislation can be found in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 ("the Act").  If you have written an original song or piece of music, lyrics or any kind of original sound recording then you own the copyright to that production, it's your intellectual property as long as the production is in fixed form.  In other words, as long as it has been made into a physical format such as being recorded or written down then the copyright belongs to you.

Although copyright comes into effect as soon as you have produced a physical product, the copyright itself is not enough evidence to stand up in court therefore it's a good idea to get your copyright protected.  You can do this by using a copyright protection society or by posting your creative works to yourself by registered and signed for post and keeping it sealed.  This way it's there should you ever happen to need it in court.

It's possible that a sound recording has more than one copyright owner.  If you wrote the music and lyrics to a song completely by yourself then you are the owner of the musical copyright and the literary copyright.  If your song is recorded and then mastered another copyright is created and is owned by whoever made the arrangements to make the recording.  However, if a band or musician is signed to a record label or company the label will almost definitely own the copyright to the sound recording.

As an owner of copyright you are entitled to exclusive rights, these are called the restricted acts.  You are allowed to stop other people from copying, performing, broadcasting or changing your music in any way without your expressive written consent.  In other words, if you have written a song then your written permission is needed before anyone can use it in any way.

There are no solid rules about what constitutes copyright infringement.  Generally, copyright infringement is when a substantial and recognizable part of your creative works has been copied.  Several remedies are offered by law should this happen including taking out an injunction to stop the infringer from continuing to use your work or ordering a delivery-up for possession of physical copies of your work.

In order to use samples of someone else's material then clearance must be attained from MCPS (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society) or directly from the artist themselves in writing if they are not registered.