Do your songs get stolen? How do you deal with it?

Anything that doesn't fit into other topics goes here!
There are some songs that were submitted to "labels" and "networks" but in fact, the song owner/producer did not send these songs to those entities and sometimes, people steal these songs and puts it under their name, submitting it to distributors like Tunecore, Distrokid, CD Baby, etc....

How do you deal with it? I know it's very tedious.... thats why I dont release my own songs outside of lmms community, however, that does not decrease the risk so. Do you guys hire lawyers or do the process by yourself? :( If so, how?
I haven't had this happen to me in the 10 something years I've been posting tracks publicly on SoundCloud, Clyp, and Bandcamp. More recently, I've put some of my tracks up for distribution, so they are on Spotify, etc. I think that as long as you have a public facing upload of your work that is timestamped, you should be fine. It's when someone posts something privately, or takes it down that reposting and stealing is easier, from what I've seen. Most sites have a DMCA form, and you have to provide some sort of proof. A timestamped upload can work for that, thanks to United States copyright law (iirc).
This is kind of a tough one to answer. Because sometimes these thieves, use tricks and loop holes in the law, to claim copyright to your works, and get ownership of it. And like in other countries, US copyright law's are known to be filled with loop holes. :P

Thankfully, that hasn't happened to me yet.
brandystarbrite wrote:
Tue Jan 05, 2021 4:57 pm
Because sometimes these thieves, use tricks and loop holes in the law, to claim copyright to your works, and get ownership of it. And like in other countries, US copyright law's are known to be filled with loop holes. :P
This just sounds like fear mongering without including examples of such loopholes or cases where full blown ownership was stolen. The worst I've personally seen is claimant trolls abusing Youtube's automated copyright ID system to falsely claim ownership, but this is relatively easy to resolve and would absolutely disintegrate in any real court.
I'm a producer, and I post on Youtube quite often. I pride myself off my beats, which I always tag and publish as mp3's. Not only will people be unable to repost my music without realizing it's someone else, but they will have to deal with the quality discrepancy.

But before all that I really had no care for that. In my eyes, if someone were copying my beats and republishing them (with the quality drop and my tag, of course) the people listening from the copier's audience are turned to me. If anything, I'd be happy that my content is being distributed by some random on the internet! But of course, that's just me.

If someone were stealing my content, I'd do what I'm already doing as well as posting it on other platforms (Insta, Snap, Facebook, etc.) at the same time so people would recognize when and who posted the song originally.
brandystarbrite wrote:
Tue Jan 05, 2021 4:57 pm
...Because sometimes these thieves, use tricks and loop holes in the law, to claim copyright to your works, and get ownership of it. And like in other countries, US copyright law's are known to be filled with loop holes. :P
All right.... so what loopholes??
Stakeout Punch wrote:
Tue Jan 05, 2021 7:10 pm
The worst I've personally seen is claimant trolls abusing Youtube's automated copyright ID system to falsely claim ownership, but this is relatively easy to resolve and would absolutely disintegrate in any real court.
I've seen that many times... This one fears me the most, even to channels with 20-100 subs and post a random shitpost .flp/Fruity Loops playthrough or even a melody from a "how to genre/style" tutorial videos they claim it! Ah, TheFatRat - The Calling issue. The network label who claimed his song has no contact info whatsoever, so he really has to get a lawyer for this.

Someone I've seen in Twitter and Newgrounds, his song has been claimed even it has been submitted through TuneCore a long time ago (Jumper from Castle Crashers)
Even submitting from distributors does not verify a protection.
DeltaWasin wrote:
Tue Jan 05, 2021 10:36 pm
I'm a producer, and I post on Youtube quite often. I pride myself off my beats, which I always tag and publish as mp3's. Not only will people be unable to repost my music without realizing it's someone else, but they will have to deal with the quality discrepancy.

But before all that I really had no care for that. In my eyes, if someone were copying my beats and republishing them (with the quality drop and my tag, of course) the people listening from the copier's audience are turned to me. If anything, I'd be happy that my content is being distributed by some random on the internet! But of course, that's just me.

If someone were stealing my content, I'd do what I'm already doing as well as posting it on other platforms (Insta, Snap, Facebook, etc.) at the same time so people would recognize when and who posted the song originally.
That helps... your followers recognize your songs and so as well as non-fans, and they will know that when your beats and melodies are stolen. Do you report them the thieves? I always fill in metadata whenever I submit the song to somewhere else.