Working with time code.....................................................................
Film and video, as you know, are made up of a series of individual frames that
flash by so quickly that we don’t notice the individual frames at all, but see
motion instead. Nonetheless, all of us have paused our DVD players and seen
what an individual frame looks like. It just looks like a still photograph.Imagine a sudden cut in a movie from a tender love scene to a car chase. There
is what is known as a time code address for the exact frame where the cut
takes place. It might look something like: 1:04:28.13. This means one hour,
four minutes, twenty-eight seconds, and thirteen frames. A time code address
is also referred to as the SMPTE time (Society of Motion Picture and Television
Engineers).Chapter 17: Composing Commercial Music and Songs .............................................
Copyrighting your work
We’ve all heard of the “poor man’s copyright,”
which is when you fold a print copy of your com-
position into thirds and mail it to yourself so that
the post office’s dated cancellation mark is
printed directly on the back of the paper. Well,
the “poor man’s copyright” is not actually valid
in U.S. courts. It was overturned in a 1976 copy-
right revision.
Whenever intellectual property is put in a tan-
gible medium, meaning it’s written down or
recorded, it’s automatically copyrighted as of
that moment. The author now has the six basic
rights that copyright gives: 1. the right to repro-
duce, 2. the right to make derivative works, 3.
the right to distribute, 4. the right to perform, 5.
the right to display publicly, and 6. the right to
perform via digital transmission.
One good thing to do with your material is to
register it with the U.S. Copyright Office. This
sounds imposingly legal and possibly very
expensive, but really, it’s neither. It’s a very
simple process that could possibly save you
from a lot of future hassles in court.
To register your musical work with the U.S.
Copyright Office, you first need to download
“Form PA” from the Copyright Office’s site at
http://www.copyright.gov. After filling out this
form, put it, along with a non-returnable audio
recording of your work to be copyrighted or a
lead sheet or sheet music of the material, and a
check for $45 into a package. Copies should be
legible, and both words and music on the
recording should be clear and audible. The title
of the composition should be clearly written on
the recording and/or sheet music.
Send the package to:Library of Congress
Copyright Office
101 Independence Avenue, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20559-6000
This Copyright Office process serves as a
date/depository for intellectual property; how-
ever, just because it’s filed with the Library of
Congress does not mean you’re not infringing
on anyone else’s copyright either. Basically,
they all go to a storage warehouse and wait for
authors to file copyright-infringement lawsuits.
Then they go dig it up for the courts and look at
the time stamps of the submitted original.