Legal Resources

Legal Resources

• U.S. Copyright Act (United States Code, Title 17)
• Berne Treaty
• Lanham Act
• U.S. Copyright Office
• Forms for Registration of Copyright
• U.S. Patent & Trademark Office
• Forms for Trademark Application
• Entertainment & Sports Law Journal (Published by the Forum on Entertainment & Sports Law Industries of the American Bar Association)
• Recent Copyright Legislation News
• International Trademark Association
• Music Publishers' Association's Copyright Resource Center
• Copyright Clearance Center
• U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 50 (Instructions regarding registration of musical compositions)
• U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 56 ( Instructions regarding registration of sound recordings)
• U.S. Copyright Office, Circular 56a ( Discusses distinction between musical composition and sound recording copyrights)
• Copyright & Fair Use
• Copyright Myths Explained
• Copyright Website
• R. Mark Halligan's Trade Secrets Home Page

• Atlantic Records
• Bertelsmann Music Group, Nashville
• Capitol Nashville
• Sony Music Nashville
• Warner Brothers Nashville
• Lyric Street Records
• Reprise Nashville
• Curb Records

Chart & Publications

• Billboard
• Billboard Top Country Albums
• R&R Top 30 Country Chart
• Gavin
• Gavin Country Chart
• Music Row Magazine
• American Songwriter
• The Nashville Scene
• Nashville Business Journal
• The Tennessean

• BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.)
• ASCAP (The American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers)
• SESAC, Inc.
  (Privately Owned)
• The Harry Fox Agency
  (Mechanical Collection)
• Peforming Right Society
  (England)
• MCPS (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society)
  (England)
• GEMA (The German Authors' Rights Society)
  (Performance and Mechanical Collection)
• Belgium Society of Authors, Composers & Publishers
  (Performance and Mechanical Collection)
• APRA
  (New Zealand & Australia Mechanical Collection)
• The Nordic Copyright Bureau
  (Norway Performance Rights)
• TONO
  (Norway Mechanical Collection)
• BUMA/STERMA
  (Dutch & Netherlands Copyright Society)

Other Music Industry Organizations

• Country Music Association
• Nashville Songwriters Association, International
• Nashville Entertainment Association (NEA)
• World Intellectual Property Organization
• National Academy Of Recording Arts And Sciences (NARAS)
• Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
• National Music Publishers Association (NMPA)
• Songwriters Guild of America (SGA)
• National Academy of Songwriters (NAS)
• American Federation of Musicians (AFM)
  of the United States & Canada
• Nashville Musician's Union
  (Local AFM)
• TNN

• Intellectual Property Law (FindLaw)
• Intellectual Property Magazine
• American Intellectual Property Law Association
• Intellectual Property Papers by Professor Thomas G. Field, J