It can take hours, days, or even months to create the right sound. While you may do it for the love of music, you don’t want someone else profiting off your blood, sweat, and tears.
The problem is, once you release your music onto the web, people will try to pretend its theirs, or they may simply sell your music without your permission.
In both scenarios, you’re losing control of your rights. Your music is your intellectual property. You need to protect it.
Copyright It
As an independent artist you don’t need to share your profits with a publishing company. However, you do need to handle protection yourself.
A key starting point is to understand copyrighting your tunes.
Your music is considered copyrighted as soon as you create it. However, to avoid doubt in the future, you can display a copyright notice. It can help show others that you own the music.
Additionally, it’s recommended you register with a performing rights organisation, such as APRA AMCOS. Organisations like this ensure you get any royalties due when your music is played publicly.
Most importantly, you need to track the creation of your music. The simplest way is to email yourself copies as you create it, and a version of the final product. Save these emails in a secure folder. They are dated and prove you created the music.
Use The Right Platform
The real secret to staying in control of your music, and obtaining all the royalties and recognition you’re entitled to, is to use the right music distribution platform.
You need a platform that exposes your music to as many people as possible. They should also offer easy tracking of your royalties, allowing you to assess the success of each track.
The right platform will allow you to distribute your music across the globe, give you royalty advances when needed, and even help you prepare your music for release.
However, it is essential to verify you don’t need to give up any of your distribution rights when signing with a platform.
Track Your Music
Protecting your rights also means tracking your music to locate unauthorized uploads. These allow others to profit from your work. Identifying unauthorized releases early helps you shutdown these releases, ensuring listeners find your music through genuine channels.
Register with Content ID on YouTube. It will automatically update you when someone is uploading your music without authorisation. You can also sign up to services such as Spotontrack, AMRAP, and Music Insights. They’ll help you track your music and royalties. It can also help you plan where to take your music next.
This is especially important in the modern digital age. It’s very easy for someone to steal your work.
Trademark Your Name
To help protect your music and your name, it’s a good idea to trademark your name. The application process can be completed via IP Australia. You can verify your name is unique and register it, ensuring no one else can profit from using the same name.
Read All Contracts Carefully
As an independent artist you need to be extra careful with contracts. Read them all twice before signing and get legal advice if you don’t understand anything.
A contract can define the split of a song if you’ve collaborated with others, it clarifies ownership of master recordings with producers and defines your pay rate and conditions when your music is used commercially.
Summing Up
It takes time to create good music. You don’t want others to profit from that time. Fortunately, you don’t have to. Using the right distribution platform and taking a few simple steps to protect your music, can make the difference between earning money from music or not.
