Composing, Publishing And Sound Recording Rights, Oh My!!

Pretty Lucky...

Last Week’s Bonus Round: “No Place To Fall” by the incomparable and tragic Townes Van Zandt - the version I chose is from the 17 song double album “Rear View Mirror”, and is featured in today’s “WhatI’mListening2” playlist.

“"No Place to Fall" sports one of Van Zandt's strongest melodies with a melancholy chorus that immediately imbeds itself in your mind. Pedal steel, a brief mandolin solo, and almost inaudible percussion add to the despairing feel of the track.“ Credit: AllMusic.com

“Released September 24, 2017 for the first time on Vinyl “Rear View Mirror” was recorded at the Blue Onion Café in Norman Oklahoma in 1978. Truly one of the greatest live recordings of Townes Van Zandt with his renowned band members Danny “Ruester” Rowland (lead acoustic guitar) from Waylon Jennings band the Waylors, and Owen Cody (violin/fiddle) from Billy Joe Shaver’s band. This album was Tower Records Store magazine “PULSE” #1 Folk Album of the Year 1997”. Credit: townesvanzandt.com Link: townesvanzandt.com

“Rear View Mirror Review by William Ruhlmann

In 1990, Townes Van Zandt was working on a three-CD retrospective for which he was re-recording much of his repertoire. That album never appeared, but in 1993, the tiny Austin-based Sundown label released Rear View Mirror, a 17-track album running nearly 58 minutes and containing newly recorded versions of Van Zandt songs dating back to 1968. Though a cover note claims "unique instrumentation," that seems to consist of only of an occasional second guitar and a fiddle. (Sparse applause indicates the recording had been made in a club.) Many of Van Zandt's best-known songs are included -- "Pancho & Lefty," "If I Needed You," "To Live Is to Fly," "Tecumseh Valley," and others -- and while this is not the best set of recordings of those songs, the tendency of Van Zandt's albums to go out of print might mean this is the only one you would find in your nearest record bin, in which case the album is highly recommended.” Credit: AllMusic.com Link: AllMusic.com Rear View Mirror

Ed note: I kinda disagree with the “not the best set of recordings” comment by the reviewer, though I concede we may have different standards here. Mr. Van Zandt’s love for these songs is evident and comes through clearly in my opinion, regardless of whatever technical issues Mr. Ruhlmann may have perceived.

Michael Acoustic

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Have I mentioned how tired of winter and cold I am? Yeah, well, it’s still here but the sun is sorta out, and that helps immensely! Especially when you’ve just completed a fun time at the US Copyright Office website…

Actually, the process isn’t that bad, and in the copyright office’s defense they really do an excellent job with help files - if you’ve never copyrighted anything (and if you have songs - written, recorded, ready to go - it’s time to copyright them now!) the process can be a little daunting, but it really does pay to go through the help files so you have all the stuff you need to include in the application. It took me about 45 minutes to copyright, pay for, and upload a sound recording of a previously copyrighted song (lyrics and title) as the composer and publisher (via my LLC - which I created solely for the purpose of holding my copyrights). Not really that bad, and I now own all three potential sources of revenue (for this song at least): Composer, Publisher, Master Recording rights holder if this song is streamed, licensed, publicly performed, covered, etc. So, feeling good about that.

The road to this moment has been a long one, dating back to 2020 (remember that?!?!) when I first wrote the lyrics, came up with some chords, and a melody. After creating a Limited Liability Company (LLC) through the Secretary Of State’s office where I live, I copyrighted the lyrics and title using a chord chart. Later I learned the copyright office only cares about the lyrics and disregarded (for copyright purposes) the chords I was using. Good thing, too - if chord progressions could be copyrighted in themselves, no one would ever be able to write another song without paying someone else, and pretty soon we’d all be just paying each other and never writing songs again. Or something…

So what do I (or you) really “own” by copyrighting a sound recording of my (or yours when you copyright your original works) previously copyrighted lyrics as composer and publisher? I now own something really important - the “arrangement” - the unique way I played the guitar part and sang the lyrics. The copyright as a composer includes only the lyrics - verses, chorus(es), bridge, tag/out lyrics. They don’t care, and don’t copyright as a composer, the instrumental intro, interlude/instrumental breaks, and outro. So now, most importantly, I own all future arrangements of my song, whether alike or dissimilar to my original arrangement. I can remix, rearrange and rerelease my song and I still own the arrangement. Anyone else can rearrange my song as their own cover, but they have to pay me royalties for my arrangement. Owning all three rights as composer, publisher, and the sound recording arrangement is the royalty “trifecta”, and a few minutes on the US Copyright Office website is absolutely worth it to me, and maybe my kids and and grandkids (which is kinda presumptuous on my part given how much new music is released daily - it’s actually a stunningly high number), but still…

When I do release this song through a publishing admin and distributor (with more than a little help from some friends), I’ll be heavily promoting it here, and on every other social media site I have an account with (probably even TikTok, though.. well, enough said, I might need a burner phone for that…). Why the promotion? As I’ve mentioned before, your publishing admin (such as CD Baby Pro or Songtrust or others), and distributor (such as CD Baby or Distrokid or others), aren’t going to do it for you. They’ll temporarily, in the case of publishing admins, hold your publishing rights so they can collect those royalties on your behalf and take their percentage cut (price of doing business, folks, and ensuring you’re collecting all your royalties is their business - doing it yourself would be a nightmare!), Your distributor’s job is to place your song on all of the streaming services (for a price, but doing it yourself would leave you no time to write and play and record and read my SubStack, so really worth it, IMHO).

All right, as this journey continues, I’ll post updates here, but probably enough “inside baseball” for today.

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WhatI’mListening2: “Rear View Mirror” Townes Van Zandt

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Bonus Round: An unlikely, but fabulous collaboration!

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Cheers and keep playing!!

Michael Acoustic