“If I go to a seminar and play a pro writer my best song…what if he steals the song or the idea….or my guitar strap? Look at these “pro writers”… they’ll steal anything that’s not tied down.”
Here’s a bit of a deep dive on this subject.
You can’t copyright a title…or an idea. Your idea or title is probably not that original anyway. (Sorry but it’s true) People have been coming up with titles for a thousand ideas. When one of the disciples whispered in Jesus’s ear at the Last Supper he was probably saying “Judas just said something that would make a GREAT song. Let’s write it tomorrow and not tell him!
I get it. When I want to play a new song at the Bluebird I ask everyone to turn their phone cameras off because it’s a new song and maybe not quite finished. I certainly don’t want it out there in the cloud where anyone can steal it. Look at them . They’ll steal anything that isn’t tied down!
Whatever song you are convinced is precious and THE SONG that is gonna make you a legend in your own blue jeans…..in six months you probably won’t even remember it. When I was starting to play the Bluebird, I hit them with all my precious, classic stuff.
I don’t remember any of those songs today. Why? Because I got better and left those songs in the dust. In the dust, I say! Relax. If you are a real writer you have lots of great songs in you.
The odds of something good happening from playing your song at a writer’s night or at a seminar far outweighs the odds of something bad happening.
And last…. here’s a wacky idea.
Register your song. Register it with ASCAP or SESAC or BMI. Send it to yourself in a registered letter and then don’t open it. Copyright it with the Library of Congress. If you wait until you have half a dozen or so, you can call it a portfolio and register the whole thing as one work. It’s lots cheaper that way. Protect your song the way you would anything of value.
Think about this… publishers and pluggers like to be asked to go to exotic locales where they only have to listen to songs and get a tan. They want to be asked back again and again. If there was a whiff that they were ripping songwriters off they would never be asked to go to Bali again.
If I see another writer in the club when I am getting ready to sing a new song… I keep my eye on them. If I see them reach for a pen I leap off the stage and bludgeon them with my guitar.
Woody Guthrie’s guitar said, “This machine kills fascists.”
Mine says, “This machine kills plagiarists.”