i have sent it to my house in the mail. is that enough to hold the rights to all songs and music?

No, you already have the copyright when you created it.
 
Proving it is another matter.  There have been many threads about this, but the safest way (providing you are in the US) is to send the whole thing at once to the copyright office.  There is a $35 fee or so to register it, proving the recordings on it are yours when you fill it out.
 
If you want, you can register each song.  If you are trying to sell the songs, this is the correct way to copyright them.  If you just want to protect your work, registering a mechanical copy will do it.
 
@

I've only heard of one case where the method of sending yourself your music held up in  a court of law.
 
As for U.S. copyright if you've both written & recorded all the material yourself you can register a single SR claim using their Electronic online service for a $35.00 fee.
 
Remember you are only registering a claim. If you plan on selling or publishing any individual material from that catalog (i.e. selling a song) you'll need to re-register those again dependent on the contract & terms of the label or publisher to determine ownership rights / usage. You'll need separate PA's/ SR's for that.
 
 

First tip. Copyright (not patent) is the correct protection mechanism.
 
Although it is true that you do not need to register copyright in the US to have a legally valid copyright (and you cannot register copyright in some countries at all), under US copyright law, you must register in order to bring suit for infringement, collect statuary damages, or claim reimbursement for your legal costs if you succeed in a suit against an infringer. To get those benefits you must not only register your copyright but the registration must be "timely" i.e. before infringement occurs or within 3 months of publication.  Note that posting your songs to an internet site for sale or other distribution will constitute publication.
 
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ50.pdf

You can sue for infringement if it isn't registered, but you won't get as much out of the suit and it might be harder to prove. Heck, you can sue for anything, really. Anyhow...
 
When you register an album with the US Library of Congress copyright office, you can register all of the songs and the artwork at one time. You have to send them copies of the finished product.

ELsMystERy
You can sue for infringement if it isn't registered, but you won't get as much out of the suit and it might be harder to prove. Heck, you can sue for anything, really.

No, you cannot sue for infringement of an unregistered work. You can register the work after infringement has occurred but you lose the rights mentioned in my previous post. You must then prove actual loss of income from the infringement (not statutory damages) and pay your own legal costs.
 
Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code
"411 . Registration and civil infringement actions
(a) Except for an action brought for a violation of the rights of the author under section 106A(a), and subject to the provisions of subsection (b), no civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title."

slartabartfast
No, you cannot sue for infringement of an unregistered work. You can register the work after infringement has occurred but you lose the rights mentioned in my previous post. You must then prove actual loss of income from the infringement (not statutory damages) and pay your own legal costs.

 
It is way more complicated than that, as any good copyright attorney can tell you. You certainly can sue. It doesn't mean that you will win, or the case won't get dismissed, but you can definitely sue and the court CAN settle the case in your favor based on "subject matter jurisdiction".
 
On March 2, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick, ___ U.S. ___, No. 08-103, interpreting the Copyright Act to allow judicial approval of settlements of copyright infringement claims involving unregistered works.  Reversing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the Court held that the Copyright Act's statutory requirement that plaintiffs register their works before instituting a claim for copyright infringement, 17 U.S.C. § 411(a), does not limit the subject matter jurisdiction of the federal courts. -  Gibson Dunn dot com.
 
If you can't sue for infringement of unregistered works, then your material isn't REALLY protected by copyright upon creation, is it? Like I said, you can sue for anything. I never said you would win.

If you have an album of original songs you have 2 things to protect by copyright.
 
1. Copyright on the songs themselves. Since they are on one album, you could do a compilation of them all for one low fee..... but if they are to be released commercially, you really should do individual copyright on each song. Individual copyright costs more but it affords the protection to one song apart from the others so each has it's own umbrella of protection under law. Look at your old albums and CD's where a band or even one person in the band is the writer of the songs. You will see that they are all individual copyrights. I can not think of one instance where a band album is protected by a compilation copyright. It's that way for a specific legal reason.  Writers often use compilation copyright to protect a batch of songs but when one gets cut by an artist, it is registered with a new individual copyright.
 
2. copyright the physical CD so it has protection from illegal duplication.
 
These are protections for the "law abiding" people...... the criminals will still bootleg the CD if it's worth their time to do it. But at least you have the legal standing to sue them in court.
 
Copyright law is it's own unique practice of law.... a very specialized area.....  Certainly if you go to the effort and expense to release a CD you should spend the money for copyrights.

According to US Copyright code you do not need to register the music collection (album) and album artwork separately:
 
The deposit requirement for sound recordings includes "two
complete phonorecords of the best edition" and any other visually-
perceptible material published with the phonorecords. The
reference here is to the text or pictorial matter appearing on
record sleeves and album covers or embodied in separate leaflets or
booklets included in a sleeve, album, or other container. The
required deposit in the case of a sound recording would extend to
the entire "package" and not just to the disk, tape, or other
phonorecord included as part of it.
 
What exactly does this conversation (if you want to call it that) have to do with SONAR?

ELsMystERy

slartabartfast
No, you cannot sue for infringement of an unregistered work. You can register the work after infringement has occurred but you lose the rights mentioned in my previous post. You must then prove actual loss of income from the infringement (not statutory damages) and pay your own legal costs.

 
It is way more complicated than that, as any good copyright attorney can tell you. You certainly can sue. It doesn't mean that you will win, or the case won't get dismissed, but you can definitely sue and the court CAN settle the case in your favor based on "subject matter jurisdiction".
 
On March 2, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick, ___ U.S. ___, No. 08-103, interpreting the Copyright Act to allow judicial approval of settlements of copyright infringement claims involving unregistered works.  Reversing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the Court held that the Copyright Act's statutory requirement that plaintiffs register their works before instituting a claim for copyright infringement, 17 U.S.C. § 411(a), does not limit the subject matter jurisdiction of the federal courts. -  Gibson Dunn dot com.
 
If you can't sue for infringement of unregistered works, then your material isn't REALLY protected by copyright upon creation, is it? Like I said, you can sue for anything. I never said you would win.

I stand corrected: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-103.pdf
The courts can not be barred from trying copyright suits involving unregistered works based on lack of jurisdiction. But note that the court made no ruling here regarding whether 411(a) is a mandatory precondition to suit that...
district courts may or should enforce sua sponte by dismissing copyright infringement claims involving unregistered works.
 
Can we agree that, given the expense of the legal proceedings that might be required to settle that issue, anyone anticipating using the copyright law as a remedy to infringement would be well advised to spend $35.00 to register their work prior to filing suit.
 
http://www.nycbar.org/images/stories/committee/north%20jersey%20media%20group%20v%20sasson%20-%20opinion%202013-01-04.pdf