My music showing up on odd sites

you've been searching for yourself on google, haven't you? vanity, vanity...

any publicity is good publicity

That's how I thought of it, till I thought, well, what motivation would someone have, to record my streams (all my music has always been stream only, never downloadable), then say they are me, and upload it to other sites under my name ? It makes me wonder if others are stealing my music, and uploading it to sites, under their name, and different song names. I mean, if that is the case, I would prob never even find it, unless someone got radio play, or some notoriety from it. I'm not all savy on copyrights, and the only thing I've ever done is CC licence on soundclick, I always check, that people cannot use my songs for anything, but I've never really understood the whole Creative Commons thing. I guess my best bet would just be to look into copyrights, and how these things work. Maybe copyright an albums worth of music at a time, and only release those songs to the net once they are all done, rather than posting them one by one. Another odd thing is that the songs forum here is the only place I've ever posted my music, which is on soundclick. I also have a myspace page, but only a few remix songs on there. I just dont want someone getting something off my music, and then I am left siting here with no course of action. I never though any of my music was worth stealing, so didn't worry about it, but if people are willing to go though the trouble of ripping a stream, and uploading it to other hosts, then people would be willing to steal it and call it their own.

(please excuse my writing, an inpacted wisdom tooth is causing me severe lack of sleep)

I'm not a lawyer but:
If you didn't file the paperwork for the songs that were stolen before you posted them, then they will most likely be considered as falling into the public domain.
You could argue that at a given time you uploaded the songs from your location (IP address) at such and such a date, and that at a later date (without your ok) they were taken from someone and uploaded to other sites.
Since you said it doesn't look like anyone's getting paid it may not be worth the headache. Lawyer fees ad up.....

No, that is not correct. Regards,
Dave Clark

I stand corrected

From copyright.gov site:
Copyright Registration
In general, copyright registration is a legal formality intended to make a public record of the basic facts of a particular copyright. However, registration is not a condition of copyright protection. Even though registration is not a requirement for protection, the copyright law provides several inducements or advantages to encourage copyright owners to make registration. Among these advantages are the following:

Registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim.
Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin.
If made before or within 5 years of publication, registration will establish prima facie evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate.
If registration is made within 3 months after publication of the work or prior to an infringement of the work, statutory damages and attorney's fees will be available to the copyright owner in court actions. Otherwise, only an award of actual damages and profits is available to the copyright owner.
Registration allows the owner of the copyright to record the registration with the U. S. Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies. For additional information, go to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website at www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import. Click on “Intellectual Property Rights.”
Registration may be made at any time within the life of the copyright. Unlike the law before 1978, when a work has been registered in unpublished form, it is not necessary to make another registration when the work becomes published, although the copyright owner may register the published edition, if desired.

Two on that Nine Inch Nails site, four on some Russian site (that I can't find now), and my Myspace player is on a site called, Tasty Mp3.


Thanks conklin for the copyright info.


edit, BTW, "'cos you posted that at Songs" - I know, it's because when I first saw that, I thought it was some kind of contest. Then I realized, I must be an idiot, I never entered any contest

ORIGINAL:

Anyone had exp with your music showing up in places you did not put it, or give permission for ?

Hey Ognis ,
that sounds like a bummer......
I cant say I've caught anybody....( yet)
but I have had some persistant people e mail me
asking all kinds of weird requests
A forum member once used an exerpt of Robo Funk for a jingle for his place of biznezz..
he asked .. I heard it ..it was OK by me....
he at least kept me in the loop ......and showed a level of respect and consideration....
by letting me hear the jingle....
i did have a lady bug me for 2 weeks asking about a jazz tune I wrote She Was Once A F.......
this lady tried every trick in the book to get me to give her the OK ....
she even tried to guilt me to death over the fact that she was disabled ....and a single mother....
I simply was not interested in where she was looking to take my song....
especialy after requesting a demo of her music.....and hearing it...

also had a few inde film companys from the UK ask me for music .....
to see if I was interested...in composing for thier films...
the min...I asked for clarifacation of terms ...and what form of compensation they were offering ...
that was the last I've heard. from them...

Cant say how I would react if I found myself in the situation you have described....

after reading your thread I decided to say f..it and put my soundclick page as stream only
for now

Kenny

ORIGINAL: yep
Particularrly if nobody's making money off it, I would tend to say any publicity is good publicity

That's what I say. If nobody's making any money, then what exactly is the offense? If anything, these people think highly enough of your music to post it on their site and eat up their bandwidth. That should be taken as a compliment

It happened to me once. I admit my instinct was to get pissed off at them for using it without my permission. But then a few months later they took it down for some reason, and I suddenly felt all sad & empty inside I say enjoy the free publicity dude!