hi all..i've heard that if you want to copyright something you can send it to yourself and not open it..is this enough or is this a temporary thing, or do you need to send it to someone official.cheers if you can advise

That's if you're sending it to a label or something, send a copy to yourself a few days before you send to whoever - it's just a safety precaution *and* if you find out they rip you off, you have proof (unopened & dated envelope) that it's you're material.

It's not a method of official copywriting though.

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It will work as long as the document is sent registered mail so it has to be signed for when it comes back to you. If it should ever need to be authenticated, it has to be opened in the presence of a legal person such as a lawyer.
If you go to a search engine you can ask for copyright info for whatever country you're from. If it's the USA you can go directly to their website or via the Library of Congress. It has instructions for different types of copyrights if you want to register it there in a more permanently recorded sense. There's various fees depending on what you want.
I think that if you search here, you may find a thread about this at the lyric forum from awhile back. If you have any questions feel free to pm me. I'll try to help you out the best I can.

EDIT: Here you go. http://metaltabs.com/forum/showthre...ight=copyrights

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ive done like the previous two said. so in my mail i have an unopened copy of whatever ive sent off. and im not sure if this is as effective, but i also have stuff on a site where people can here it, and at the bottom the page it states this:

"©1997-2006 SoundClick Inc. All rights reserved.

All material on this site is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make a reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s)."

so i think thats pretty good right there. thats two peices of proof ive got. I think that would back me up pretty well in a court.

Go to the patents office and get whatever it is copyrighted for a small fee. THE. BEST. WAY.

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Metaltabs also has a copyright notice at the bottom of the page, too. Speaking from experience at my other hangout, I don't trust just a website for authenticity or preservation. They can shutdown in a heartbeat and unless you have contact with the admin to see if there's any back up records it's not a 100% sure thing.
I'm not sure about soundclick's security, but I know on a forum it's possible for names to be rearranged due to gliches or imposters and that makes a mess. That's why when I post I have my initials and date. This is a very good site to me, but some others aren't run the same.

If you can afford to do it research the copyright office and do it yourself. A few years ago a local band recorded a cd at a local studio and the guy was supposed to register it. The guys all chipped in to pay for that expense as well as the recording. I checked the number that was on the cd with the copyright office records and it was nonexistent. I think they got ripped off personally.

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thanks guys for all your replies...i think i'll check out how much the patent office costs..cheers all

Can you copyright whats played in a recording if you are unable to transcribe it properly? Because there's tons of us without the ability to get the durations of notes and such correct.

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It only costs about $30(U.S.) to copyright a song. I got a link at home that I will post up when I get there tonight.

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