Copyrights.... yeah, if you record a cover song you are required by law to pay licensing and royalties. You can do this ALL at one website
www.harryfox.com click on mechanical license and follow the directions. It costs 9.1 cent per copy planned for sale. It's all there. And that's for cover tunes that are NOT public domain.
Public domain is free to record as long as you don't directly copy someone else's version exactly.
Copyright on your stuff. Legally, it is copyrighted the moment you record it. However, it is to your advantage to register that copyright legally.
A US copyright IS the way to go but at $45 a pop it is expensive and from what I hear takes a year now to get the paperwork back. You can also include a bunch of songs in that one copyright as a collection for the same fee.
DO NOT rely on a "poorman's" copyright. Certified mail to yourself...... it will not hold up in court.
My argument: As hard as it is to get a song recorded by someone big, there is such a small chance that someone will steal your song.... you can be relatively sure that no one will steal it. So, if your recoring for fun, posting it for friends, burning a few CD's for friends..... I would not worry about a copyright....unless you really want to spend the money.
I write quite a bit of music AND I am sending it out to artists and production libraries so I do need to protect it....kind of. So I use a 3rd party service called SONGUARD. It is bundled with Masterwriter songwriting software and allows me to send , basically unlimited songs & lyrics, to a secure server that date stamps it and sends me a receipt. I send the songs out with a copyright notice.
The companies I am dealing with are all by screened referral only. In other words, reputable publishers and production libraries. Actually, they prefer the songs to be NON-Copyrighted and NON-PRO registered music. They will register the song with the copyright office and the PRO in their name paying all the costs for you. That is the way it works for songwriters. The contract I sign with them allows them to (own) control the song while I retain a financial interest and writing credits in the song forever.
The whole point is...write your songs, find a cheap 3rd party way to prove you wrote the song and when..... and don't worry too much about someone stealing it.