Hello All,
I want to buy a copyright from online available portals but is this fine to buy already registered IP from websites.. Kindly help me in this..
Want to buy a copyright.
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EmiliSmith
- New Member
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2014 8:31 am
- Location: UK
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EmiliSmith
- New Member
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2014 8:31 am
- Location: UK
Hi Emili,
When you say 'my song' do you mean one that you have written yourself? If that's the case, then you own the copyright in the song automatically and you don't need to do anything more. There are sites where you can register the fact that it's your work, but that is not necessary to gain legal protection, and in fact registering with a site does not provide absolute proof that the copyright is yours. For example, a person could register a song that had actually been written by a friend, and so long as the friend could prove by some other method that they had written the song, a court would disregard the registration.
The safest method is to write out the lyrics (and music if that was also your own work) on a sheet of paper, then date and sign it in the presence of a witness. Then put the paper somewhere safe. It is possible to post the piece of paper to yourself, and when it arrives back, leave the envelope sealed, so that the date of the postmark acts as a time stamp. However as most ordinary mail is no longer date stamped these days, you would need send it 'signed for' or even registered, for that to work. Then if there was ever a dispute the envelope would be opened by the court, and this would establish a precedence date, although as with registration services, it would not prove absolutely that you were the author.
But since your mention an 'already registered copyright' I suspect that you are asking about something different. The earlier mention of 'auctions like sales' seems to confirm this. If the song was written by someone else, and they are now offering to sell the copyright in it, then such a transfer must be done by a deed known as an assignment. This sounds formal but in reality there are pre-written forms available on the internet for this purpose. The process is explained here on the Intellectual Property Office website. If you buy some else's copyright then you must get an assignment signed by that person, for you to legally take over ownership. However, if this is being done online, I would be very wary about the whole process, and whether the person offering to sell the copyright was actually the owner in the first place. The normal way in which songwriters deal in their songs is to either retain the copyright and just to license others to perform the song, or to sell the rights in the song to a music publisher or record company, which would be done through a contract.
You can find out a lot more about songs and their intellectual property rights here: Bemuso
I hope this helps.
When you say 'my song' do you mean one that you have written yourself? If that's the case, then you own the copyright in the song automatically and you don't need to do anything more. There are sites where you can register the fact that it's your work, but that is not necessary to gain legal protection, and in fact registering with a site does not provide absolute proof that the copyright is yours. For example, a person could register a song that had actually been written by a friend, and so long as the friend could prove by some other method that they had written the song, a court would disregard the registration.
The safest method is to write out the lyrics (and music if that was also your own work) on a sheet of paper, then date and sign it in the presence of a witness. Then put the paper somewhere safe. It is possible to post the piece of paper to yourself, and when it arrives back, leave the envelope sealed, so that the date of the postmark acts as a time stamp. However as most ordinary mail is no longer date stamped these days, you would need send it 'signed for' or even registered, for that to work. Then if there was ever a dispute the envelope would be opened by the court, and this would establish a precedence date, although as with registration services, it would not prove absolutely that you were the author.
But since your mention an 'already registered copyright' I suspect that you are asking about something different. The earlier mention of 'auctions like sales' seems to confirm this. If the song was written by someone else, and they are now offering to sell the copyright in it, then such a transfer must be done by a deed known as an assignment. This sounds formal but in reality there are pre-written forms available on the internet for this purpose. The process is explained here on the Intellectual Property Office website. If you buy some else's copyright then you must get an assignment signed by that person, for you to legally take over ownership. However, if this is being done online, I would be very wary about the whole process, and whether the person offering to sell the copyright was actually the owner in the first place. The normal way in which songwriters deal in their songs is to either retain the copyright and just to license others to perform the song, or to sell the rights in the song to a music publisher or record company, which would be done through a contract.
You can find out a lot more about songs and their intellectual property rights here: Bemuso
I hope this helps.
Advice or comment provided here is not and does not purport to be legal advice as defined by s.12 of Legal Services Act 2007
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EmiliSmith
- New Member
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2014 8:31 am
- Location: UK