But only those people in the states. Trademark juristiction is national only. Copyright exists instantly upon creation of an original work that is fixed in a tangible medium and if in a Berne Convention or U.C.C. Convention country (most of the countries of the world) that copyright applies internationally, no marking or registration required (of course, that makes it a lot easier to prove you own the copyright should a legal issue occur). And, of course, music is funny because the copyright of THE SONG and the copyright of the RECORDING OF THE SONG are different and sperate. And, the only parts of THE SONG that are copyright are lyrics and melody - chord changes and rhythm are not. So you can steal any drum beat from anybody you want to... but you have to record it yourself. So - if we look at Opeth, for example, guess who makes by far the most money? But that is, to a certain extent, fair. Of course, copyright lasts life + 50 years in most countries, then fall into the big free-for-all acid pit known as the public domain, so any compositions by composers several hundred years dead? Public Domain. Of ocurse, since record labels are often corporations and corporations are legal entities... some songs may never go public domain, I guess. Hmmm... ANYWAYS!
I actually had to learn all that shit as part of a media comminucations and marketing class I had to take when I was at CDIS learning Multimedia. I guess it's probably really good stuff to know if you're any sort of artist, but man, was it dry at times (reading legal jargon). Other times (good stories and learning of practical applications) more interesting.
Incidentally, yeah, the turning over of the copyright of the music to the record label is important, but kinda necessary to the artist/label relations for copyright literally means "the right to copy" a work, and I don't think a band would want to sign papers allowing the printing of every CD and printing of lyrics, and encoding of audio files... that's why labels exist - to do that shit. (Yes, many labels, especially in the past have been crooked. Some of the stories about the Beatles...)