[Harp-L] Info for "original" song for festival

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Hal Iwan" wrote:
I guess my basic question is what is needed to safely lay claim to an
original song. For some time I have been 
under the opinion that grooves are safe or people cannot claim royalties for
lets say a given melody or groove. Example: Big Boss Man groove or Mojo
Workin' groove. These grooves now have different lyrics put to them. I have
a completely different title to my lyrics.

I don't know if a "groove" can be copyrighted per se, but original lyrics can be. Copyright protects lyrics, so you should copyright the song.

Copyright doesn't protect an idea; it protects a particular expression of the idea.  So for example, you can't copyright the idea of a spaceship, but you can copyright a particular representation of a spaceship in a movie.  You can't copyright a melody that's taken from someone else's song (as George Harrison learned in the case of "My Sweet Lord," whose melody was taken directly from "He's So Fine").

If you sang your lyrics on top of a recorded groove from someone else, that's a copyright violation.  If you record a groove from scratch yourself (even if it's an imitation), you're probably not in violation of copyright unless some aspect of the groove is thoroughly recognizable as being lifted from a different source entirely.  Certainly plenty of quitar grooves are imitations of other guitar grooves.


So assuming you didn't lift a rhythm track directly from another recording, you can probably copyright your piece.

Regards, Richard Hunter




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