Copyright Registration for Sound Recordings 6
ABC Records, Inc., publishes a new album containing twelve new tracks that were never before
published. ABC Records owns the copyright in both the album and the individual tracks. ABC
Records may register the album as a collective work. The registration will cover both the album
and the sound recordings because the copyright in both the sound recordings and the album
are owned by the same party.
Unit of Publication
You may register multiple sound recordings as well as accompanying text and artwork as a “unit of
publication,” if they were physically packaged or bundled together and if all of the recordings were
first published together as that integrated unit. In addition, the entity that bundles the works together
as the integrated unit must be the claimant in all the works that are submitted for registration.
Example
ABC Records bundles ten sound recordings on a CD with an insert containing text and pho-
tographs, distributes the packaged unit to the general public, and owns the copyright in the
sound recordings, text, and photographs. ABC Records may register the sound recordings, text,
and photographs with one application as a unit of publication. The registration will cover all
copyrightable content in the sound recordings, text, and photographs.
For more information concerning these special registration accommodations, see Multiple Works
(
Circular 34).
Copyright Protection in Sound Recordings
Generally, the owner of a sound recording does not have the exclusive right to publicly perform that
work under the Copyright Act. However, the owner of a sound recording does have the exclusive
right to publicly perform a sound recording by means of a digital audio transmission.
Before February 15, 1972, federal copyright law did not protect sound recordings, but common
law, or in some cases statutes enacted in certain states, generally did. In 1971, Congress amended the
copyright law to provide federal copyright protection for sound recordings fixed and first published
with a statutory copyright notice on or after February 15, 1972. All sound recordings created after
January 1, 1978, are automatically protected by copyright. A sound recording is considered created
when it is “fixed” in a phonorecord for the first time. Neither registration in the Copyright Office
nor publication is required for protection under the present law.
Before March 1, 1989, the use of copyright notice was mandatory on all copies or phonorecords
of published works, and any work first published before that date should have carried a notice. The
copyright notice is optional for works published on and after March 1, 1989. For more information
about copyright notice, see Copyright Notice (
Circular 3).
The Uruguay Round Agreements Act, which became effective on January 1, 1996, restored copy-
right protection for certain unpublished foreign sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972,
and certain foreign sound recordings that were published without notice. For further information
concerning restored sound recordings, see Copyright Restoration Under the URAA (
Circular 38B).