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Copyright can and should be registered on Songwriting, including music and lyrics, as well as on Sound Recording. It is a wise idea to register Copyright on every song you write or record.
Trademarks can be registered on an artist's name or stage name, as well as on a band name
Music trademarks can be registered as "services" for such things as performances, music producing, music mixing, and on things such as rentals of audio equipment. Music streaming is also a service in trademark law.
Music trademarks can be registered as "goods" for such things such as sales of CDs and vinyl, or downloads of mp3s or other digital formats.
Taylor Swift is registering trademarks on her image and voice to help protect her Name/Image/Likeness (NIL) to try to prevent impostors and AI (Artificial Intelligence) use of her NIL to create fakes.
If you are active in creating music, you should protect the name you use when making music, which might be your real name, a stage or performer name, or a band name.
Be very careful with any contracts involving your music. You should ALWAYS have a music lawyer (not just any lawyer -- but a lawyer who specifically deals in music contract) read and negotiate every contact involving your music. These contracts will affect you for life and will likely affect your loved ones long after you are gone. Copyright protects your work for your lifetime plus 70 years. That is a long time, so be sure to do it right.
Contracts are also on every music service and website that you may use online. These contracts are usually called the Terms of Service, Terms of Use, or sometimes called the Agreement. It's a good idea to have a music lawyer read these for you BEFORE you sign them.
If you register Copyright on your songs before they are published, you can register up to 10 songs as a Group Registration of Unpublished Works, (GRUW) if you are an individual or small business, if all the works are of the same type, and all the works have the same author/creator and copyright claimant. This can save a lot of money because you pay one registration fee for all 10 songs. However, it is much easier to find Copyright records in the database if each song is registered separately, if you can afford that.
"Published" means a song has been available for sale or licensing. If a song is simply on the internet so your friends and potential fans can listen to it, this is not published, and you can still use the GRUW registration.
Contact: SusanBasko@gmail.com
Contact: SusanBasko@gmail.com