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I create music online and was in the process of copyrighting it, but someone already stole it. How do I protect my legal interes
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I’m a musician who put a video of myself playing an original musical composition on my personal webpage. On my webpage, I put at © symbol next to the title of the song, I wrote “copyrighted by” and my name under the video. The day after I put the song on-line I completed an on-line application to the Copyright Office but I have not heard anything from them yet. I just found out that someone has made a video using my music but their performance and put it on their personal webpage. What do I need to do to make them take their video down? Is this a case of copyright infringement on internet ?
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Answers (1)
Your work is protected by federal copyright laws on internet issues even if you had not taken the steps to mark and register your music. Internet copyright protection safeguards all published and unpublished creative works. Protection begins the moment an original work is fixed in tangible form – i.e., when you made the video. You benefit from modern technology – undoubtably your video is time/date stamped in some manner, and it will be easy to document the date and time you first posted your video on-line. The fact that you formally registered your copyright will help you vindicate your intellectual property rights and help your case against the given internet copyright violation.
You should consult with an attorney, but it is probably not necessary for you to retain a highly specialized intellectual property attorney at this point. This situation can probably be resolved with a carefully worded letter from any attorney. If this does not work, you may want to have an experienced intellectual property specialist seek an injunction against any future reproduction, distribution or performance of your copyrighted work, and/or file a lawsuit for any provable compensation damages.
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Posted by Jamilla Moore on 21 Jan 2010
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