music

[smille]

What is the name of your state? california

my daughter has been writing music since the age of 10 and is now 19. for the last year and a half i've been sending her to a vocal coach. he initially was helping her with her voice, but started helping her fix her songs to sound more mature. she also wrote the music. he now wants to put the music to the words and have a demo out by the end of the year. i pay him to help her and i also have to pay for the studio where the demo will be done. he recently gave her copyright papers and wants to be listed as co-author. i feel that being that i'm paying him to work with her she should be the only author. if he wants to be a co-author, i shouldn't be paying him anything. am i wrong? what are her rights? what does being a co-author mean? I'd really appreciate some information on this subject. thanks so much.

smille

 

[divgradcurl]

"i feel that being that i'm paying him to work with her she should be the only author. if he wants to be a co-author, i shouldn't be paying him anything. am i wrong?"

Yes and no. Simply paying someone to do work does not mean that they cannot obtain a copyright for they work that they create. Unless the person is an employee of the person paying them, or the work falls into a small list of specific types of works, the person who creates a work gets a copyright in the work regardless of whether they are being paid or not.

So, if you hire someone to paint a picture for you, even though they are being paid, they own the copyright to that picture. However, usually when such a contract is entered into, the two parties will discuss the issues of ownership of the copyright, and it is perfectly acceptable to have the copyright transferred along with the painting as long as it is part of the contract.

However, in your case, it is not really clear if the coach actually created anything. If your daughter created the music and the lyrics, what did the coach "add" to the mix? If he simply said, "hey, use these words that you wrote along with this music you wrote" then it is unlikely that he added anything "creative" to the work and would not be a coauthor. However, if he did more than this -- if he rewrote lyrics, remixed or rewrote music, etc. -- then it is certainly possible that he IS a coauthor for the complete song, and is entitled to the copyright.

"what are her rights?"

She is the sole copyright holder for her written words and for the music she wrote. However, depending on how much the coach worked on the songs with her, she may only be a coauthor of the finished songs.

"what does being a co-author mean?"

Coauthors have the same rights in a work that a single author would have. A coauthor can license or sell the work WITHOUT permission from the other coauthors.

Your best bet here is to talk with an attorney familiar with the music business -- since you are in CA, this shouldn't be too hard to find! You need to get the copyright situation squared away before going any further -- not only in who owns the copyrights to the songs, but also who will own the copyrights in the sound recordings -- the demo tapes -- that is a different (and very important in its own right) copyright issue.