MasterWriter\SONGUARD User Questions

Joe.... 

I have MW and use Songuard (SG) all the time. I bought it with a one time payment and license. That was more then 3 years ago and SG continues to work AND I get free updates from them all the time. At the time, MW was $300 and I was able to get it through a BMI discount. I understand that it's now $200 straight up. Copyright 5 songs and it's paid for.  I copyright everything I do and work on with co-writers since it's all there and included. 

When I first started with them, I also was thinking that SG was an annual subscription and one day it might be. I would pay it if it was, since it is so much cheaper than copyrighting every song I write. It would still be cheaper than the USLOC. 

I had some trouble with MW back in the beginning and I was working with several guys in tech support on getting it resolved for the better part of several weeks.....maybe they felt sorry for me and set me up with SG & updates for life but I'm guessing probably not..... I think it's just the way they are currently doing business. 


It's a good writing tool. 

To get definitive answers, why not send an email to them and ask. Then you will know for sure..... not just my assumptions.

Guitarhacker


Joe.... 

I have MW and use Songuard (SG) all the time. I bought it with a one time payment and license. That was more then 3 years ago and SG continues to work AND I get free updates from them all the time. At the time, MW was $300 and I was able to get it through a BMI discount. I understand that it's now $200 straight up. Copyright 5 songs and it's paid for.  I copyright everything I do and work on with co-writers since it's all there and included. 

When I first started with them, I also was thinking that SG was an annual subscription and one day it might be. I would pay it if it was, since it is so much cheaper than copyrighting every song I write. It would still be cheaper than the USLOC. 

I had some trouble with MW back in the beginning and I was working with several guys in tech support on getting it resolved for the better part of several weeks.....maybe they felt sorry for me and set me up with SG & updates for life but I'm guessing probably not..... I think it's just the way they are currently doing business. 


It's a good writing tool. 

To get definitive answers, why not send an email to them and ask. Then you will know for sure..... not just my assumptions.

So where are my royalty checks?

Considering that if something that you wrote became a viable entity (ie: made lots of money), those involved would probably have some pretty deep pockets. Deep pockets pay for good lawyers. Good lawyers find or create loopholes and have huge influence with judges. Which would you think would be a better situation against these sharks? Having a copyright with the library of congress or a time stamp from some guy in his garage calling himself "Songaurd"? 
Might as well just mail yourself a copy.

BTW, Songuard.com is no longer there.

Timidi, 

I look at Songuard as a temporary solution.... no the be all to end all with regards to copyright.  
It simply proves that I wrote a piece of music and register that fact on a specific date and saves a lot of money for a songwriter who writes a bunch of music. 


NOW.... if I place that song with a publisher or a library as I have done with quite a few of the songs.... THEY, not me, will then register the song in their company name, and pay all the associated costs to do so. therefore the song IS registered before any commercial use with the LOC. 

I even had one publisher ask me not to register my songs with LOC because it caused him excessive paper work when his company then had to register the song in their name. 

LOC copyright is a requirement before  filing a lawsuit for copyright infringement.

First response. Waiting for follow-up to additional questions:

Joe,
 
1)  Yes, it does include songuard.
2)  No, Songuard can never be used seperately from MasterWriter

3)  Yes, any thing submitted to Songuard will be kept on record by us permanently.

4)  Yes, bug fixes and updates are always free, upgrades are very rare, we have none planned currently and if we did release one there would definitely be an upgrade path.
 
Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns or if you need any additional assistance.

Thanks,

Charles Webb
MasterWriter, Inc.
805-892-2656
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I am very much interested in purchasing but do have some questions.
·        Do both the Annual License or Buy It licensing deals include the first year of SONGUARD?
·        If in the second year you don’t renew the annual license can you use SONGUARD separately if you pay the $30 registration\license fee?
·        If you buy it outright or annual license and after the first year do not renew the SONGUARD license although you can’t add new songs to it are your prior songs submitted under license still maintained under the SONGUARD environment and is a submitter able to access that info that was previously submitted if needed?
·        If you buy it outright are bug fixes and incremental updates available? Is there an upgrade path should a new version be released with a reasonable payment structure?
 

Excellent. 

I have heard that as well so that re-affirms what I was already knowing. 

BTW.... as I said, I had some pretty serious problems with MW and their customer service is excellent. The issue was not with MW.... it turned out that I had a corrupted OS and eventually had to format the drive and reinstall everything. 

MW comes with 2 licenses that are both machine specific. Since both had been used with the crashes and issues I was having, when I re-installed it, I got a NO LICENSE REMAINING warning. An email to support and in a short time I got an email back to try again as they had "cleared" both of my licenses again. 

There was another issue which I do not remember the specifics on......I was well past the "money back" time, but they were offering me a full refund if we were not able to get it working...... as it turned out, we resolved the issue. I told them I wanted it to work, I did not want a refund and we got it working. 

Since then, there have been no problems. They do not do updates to the software often but from time to time I get what appear to be database updates.... new rhyming words and phrases and such things. All of the recent updates go smoothly. 

Matt was the guy working with me and we spent more than a few minutes on the phone working through the problems I was having. 

Once I got the OS straightened out, it worked well since. 


Timidi: LOC = Library of Congress 

As they said, it serves as a time stamped date of creation. Since lawsuits and copyright infringement suits are not very common..... Songuard provides me enough peace of mind when I send songs out to publishers and libraries and posting on line for people to listen. 

It is not intended to replace LOC registration. That needs to be done for any song that is officially and commercially released or used. 99.9% of the time, a publisher or library will be involved in that release and they will get the copyright in their name when you sign the song to them. 

It's peace of mind for you and cheaper and faster then the copyright process, and better then mailing it to yourself.