Re: Copyrighting Improvised Music

[mark francombe <mark@markfrancombe.com>]

On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 1:09 PM, Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com> wrote:
<per>
...you need to register improvisations as compositions.
</per>

Interestingly this might not be the case from one country to another, however Per. The US does use a quite different system from us I believe. There is no doubt that COPYRIGHT, exists for you the moment you record or write a piece, but thats not what we´re talking about is it?

In so far as Performing rights is concerned, I just recently registered a bunch of recordings with my Perfoming Rights society here in Norway. Thats TONO (Same for you Per?) they have a little checkbox for IMPROVISED . Now I DIDNT click it, and funnily enough, yesterday got a mail from them inquiering if a couple were really compositions OR were they in fact improvisations, they had noticed the running time, 45 minutes. Now Im STILL not sure what that means in terms of what money I may or may not recieve if anyone used that piece for something, the same I think, but why categorize it differently...? 

So I have to say that I gave a waffelly reply, that although the pieces could be said to contain parts of an improvisational nature, they pieces were carefully researched and often heavily edited afterwards. This is true, many pieces start as an improv, but I often overdub new material... cut out the crap... snip bits... reverse bits... overlap bits...

All I know is that there is an unknown sneaky video editor at NRK (Norwegian TV channel) who is using some of my music on an ident... obviously one of my friends, but who..? and they need to pay me!!!


MArk

On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 1:09 PM, Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 5:46 AM, Gmail <k3zz21@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've always, for one, wondered how the process of copyrighting your music goes. But I also wonder is it worth copyrighting something totally improvised?

About receiving compensation as the creator when your improvised works
are being used:

I talked to both my PRO and independent publishing partners about this
and the rule in all territories (countries) is that you need to
register improvisations as compositions. This may seem weird at first,
but If thinking about it there isn't something like a defined border
between composition and improvisation. A composition can very well
contain  directions for an improvisation to be carried out, like for
example the extreme "play anything". A registered composition needs to
have a name and a duration time. Some genre tagging may also be asked
for.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.perboysen.com
http://www.youtube.com/perboysen

-- 
Mark Francombe

www.markfrancombe.com
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