protect song

If you are in the US, copyright is implicit upon authorship.  There isn't anything you need to do except write it down and you have copyright protection.

Jerome, surely there would be more to it than just writing it down?
Would you not have to prove who wrote it down first?
If I heard a song in a pub ( if I was in USA) and I thought this band is going to make it very big, and I wrote down the words......then a year later they have a hit with the song I predicted.
Does this mean I could say " look, i wrote this down years ago" they have stolen this from me"

How would they prove they wrote it first?

Ken

Full copyright protection is afforded authors the instant they commit the work to fixed form.

Direct from the US Copyright Office.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html

Quote:

"Who Can Claim Copyright?

Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright."

And more directly...

"How to Secure a Copyright
Copyright Secured Automatically upon Creation

The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright. (See following note.) There are, however, certain definite advantages to registration. See “Copyright Registration.â€

Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is “created† when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. “Copies† are material objects from which a work can be read or visually perceived either directly or with the aid of a machine or device, such as books, manuscripts, sheet music, film, videotape, or microfilm. “Phonorecords† are material objects embodying fixations of sounds (excluding, by statutory definition, motion picture soundtracks), such as cassette tapes, CDs, or LPs. Thus, for example, a song (the “work†) can be fixed in sheet music (“copies†) or in phonograph disks (“phonorecords†), or both. If a work is prepared over a period of time, the part of the work that is fixed on a particular date constitutes the created work as of that date."