How paranoid are you about your own music?

[lilhermiejobo]

As dumb as it may seem to most, I can sympathize with the original poster. I am a no name musician and even still the only songs I have online are streaming only mp3s purely because of my own delusional paranoia towards people stealing my riffs/structure/song(s). And yes, I'm aware of the flaw in that reasoning since it would be easy enough for anyone who actually WANTED to steal anything from me to just refresh the streaming mp3 online and play along to it... and yet, I still cant help feeling the way I do simply because of some seemingly unexplainable paranoia.
While I dont fully understand it, I can identify with the OP.

 

[preampdude]

Who's Bulb? And why do I have to be worse than him?! Do you even know who I am??

Honestly who's Bulb? ...

Yeah but, you're not Bulb, no offense or anything man.

Make your music, enjoy making it, or else there's zero point in making it in the first place, put your music out and if other people enjoy it then that's an added bonus.

Basically dude, worry less.

 

[Fox Mulder]

Some cartoon character like Spongebob?

 

[egan.]

Who's Bulb? And why do I have to be worse than him?! Do you even know who I am??

Honestly who's Bulb? ...

Sorry, he is a very active poster here and elsewhere who is constantly posting his writing idea and gained a big fan base doing so.
http://www.myspace.com/iambulb
http://www.myspace.com/periphery

I don't know who you are and I certainly wouldn't assume you are better or worse than anyone.

 

[NotAlone]

Just register the scores at the intellectual property office (or equivalent in your country). Costs is almost nothing, but it may take a couple of months to verify you´re not copying anyone else.

It won´t stop anyone from copying your riffing, but if they make money out of it you can sue

 

[SuperD]

Would you care to elaborate?

It just seems to me the risk of this is negligible at best. In 10 years of dealing with labels and pro bands I've never known anyone who had a song stolen. And if I did you can bet they would just call their lawyer.

Sure.
My recording career (as an artist) started in 1991. And I was young and naive. My band had tracked demos and needed a full time drummer. Our 'mentor', who co-owned the studio with his band-mates, 'shopped' the demo for us, as well as being involved with other local bands.
And the local band he had sunk the most money into got a song 'makeover', compliments of and unbeknownst to US.
I will say that whole songs were not plagiarized verbatem, rather the 'hooks' were.
Of course we took legal action. Of course the 'mentor' settled quickly out of court (which I would never do now), and of course the upstart band that he gave the demo to, from which they 'borrowed' so many ideas, never amounted to a hill of beans.

 

[egan.]

Sure.
My recording career (as an artist) started in 1991. And I was young and naive. My band had tracked demos and needed a full time drummer. Our 'mentor', who co-owned the studio with his band-mates, 'shopped' the demo for us, as well as being involved with other local bands.
And the local band he had sunk the most money into got a song 'makeover', compliments of and unbeknownst to US.
I will say that whole songs were not plagiarized verbatem, rather the 'hooks' were.
Of course we took legal action. Of course the 'mentor' settled quickly out of court (which I would never do now), and of course the upstart band that he gave the demo to, from which they 'borrowed' so many ideas, never amounted to a hill of beans.

Interesting. Glad you came out on top and I'm sorry it happened.
I will say this sort of "inside job" situation is pretty much unpreventable if you are trying to do things with your songs. Obviously that doesn't excuse your manager being a scumbag.

 

[BLOODROOT]

no offense, but get over yourself.

seriously, are you a pop song writer? then I doubt you have anything to worry about with someone stealing your songs. Rarely are songs stolen anymore, and if they are its mega money songs not metal. and if youre famous worthy, usually a band would have some sort of underground fame first and wouldnt be worried about someone hearing their music no matter what form it is in, metal musicians are a dime a dozen. unless you are in your early 20s and are the flavor of the month trendy hair cus, clothes and sound, you wont get the fame worthy of worrying about your music being out there ahead of schedule. not insulting you at all just an opinon on how I see it.

 

[SuperD]

Interesting. Glad you came out on top and I'm sorry it happened.
I will say this sort of "inside job" situation is pretty much unpreventable if you are trying to do things with your songs. Obviously that doesn't excuse your manager being a scumbag.

I can see now how easy it was for a wily veteran to do what he did. This kind of occurance would seem to be considerably less likely now, but it was rampant then, and even worse before.
We were stupid.
I should clarify that he was not officially our manager, he was (and I would venture to say still is) a "Rock Star", from a band you would have heard of, that was big in the late '70's and early to mid 80's. We were only too happy to let him throw his weight around for us. Ooops.
The incident was really an epiphany...it was absolutely instrumental (pun not intended) in putting me on the right path.
BTW, it took most of the settlement to buy back the rights to our own material.
From him, essentially.
Copyright your songs, join Ascap, Socan, BMI or whatever association applies for the country you live in, it's easy to do and just might come in really handy one day.

 

[GarethSE]

I wouldn't automatically assume you're better or worse than anyone, but this IS Bulb we're talking about, and you're just about the only person I know that hasn't heard of him and doesn't want to fellate his music. Sure, not every one of his clips is pure solid gold, but the ratio of incredible music to less than incredible music is ridiculously stacked in favour of the former.
You? I've never heard of you, why would I want to steal your musical ideas?

Maybe it just sounds like I'm being an absolute cunthole to you, but funnily enough this is also probably the best advice you could get given.
Copyright your shit, as you've been advised, put your music out there, get heard, WORRY FUCKING LESS.

I gave you a simple answer to a simple question. Whether you liked the answer you got is a whole other discussion, but the sheer amount of other people basically saying the same thing as me, albeit a bit more politically correctly, justifies my viewpoint.

Now go unleash your fucking music dude

 

[xturbox]

now, you got exposed here. How many songs were stolen from you? are you a bit more in/famous? Andy probably has to send a bill for promotion.