Cosynd, the CASE Act and its music industry impact on an artists work.

The CASE Act (Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019) is a proposed law that would create a small claims tribunal within the U.S. Copyright Office allowing artists to seek and claim payment for infringed work. This would create a working office that would give smaller cases a chance, granting independent artists legal recourse historically afforded only to the wealthiest class of hitmakers.

Cosynd, a New York-based legal service automating copyright contracts and registrations, has been an important advocate for this law. With their self-help platform providing information about copyright for independent creators, Cosynd works hand-in-hand with the U.S. Copyright Office already to create a simple way for artists to register their content.

Cosynd provides a set of integrated, intuitive tools for the creative community that legally protect copyrights and reduce expenses. With Cosynd, you can create, negotiate, and execute a standard suite of copyright-related agreements and register those copyrights easier than ever before.

Create faster

Cosynd helps you to quickly deal with the administrative tasks so that you can get back to creating. You can propose the addition of new works to your existing agreements in less than 5 minutes, eliminating the need to create new agreements or schedules each time you create something with your team.

Invite your attorneys

You and your collaborators can invite your attorneys to review your agreement and edit it directly within Cosynd. Don’t have an attorney, but want to use one? Our partners can help you find qualified, vetted attorney at discounted rates.

Register copyrights

Cosynd helps you register your copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office quickly and easily by using information you have already provided, saving you tons of time.

Negotiate better

Eliminate the need for excessive emails, meetings, and calls by centralizing negotiations on Cosynd. Easily propose terms, keep track of changes, chat online, and archive your discussions for future reference. Keep everyone on the same page by collaboratively verifying ownership and agreement terms.

E-Sign

All of your collaborators can digitally sign your agreements and store them on Cosynd. We’ll keep your agreements safe should you ever need to access them again.

Pricing

• For hobbyists that only want to outline ownership. – FREE
• For professional creators that want to control their content. – $10/mo OR $100/yr
• For professional creators that want it all. $15/mo OR $150/yr
• U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE REGISTRATION – $29.99 / application.

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IndiePulse Interviewed Cosynd CEO Jessica Sobhraj to get some more info on this game changing service.

IPM: You’ve had quite an extensive history in the industry. What led you to launch Cosynd?

I’ve been working in sync licensing for over ten years and one of the things that I noticed consistently is that there isn’t an easy way to document who owns music. I had my own licensing company for a while, then I worked with SESAC who ended up buying Rumblefish. My speciality was working with traditional syncs, so film, TV, advertising and gaming, and I would be the person in between the artist and the client trying to facilitate all of the legal paperwork.

The number one thing that kept happening was I kept having to go back to our team and asking, “Who actually owns this music?” I had so many conversations with music creators but also photographers, producers, you name it, and they all said we have a hard time documenting who actually owns the art and registering copyrights. So after 10 years of re-encountering the same problem over and over I pulled together a bunch of industry experts and we formed Cosynd.

IPM: Jessica, the website provides a lot of information and is designed quite well, I could locate and understand everything quite clearly, as I am sure you know, not every musician or artists has an extensive legal team to protect their concerns, how does your company look to help?

The site is set up to provide services to both Artists and businesses, set to create specialized and customized forms, the system is designed to be simple yet detailed, and we don’t force a client to buy or sign up for more than they need, given their specific inquiries.

IPM: Does the services cover all aspects of the music industry needs?

YES, from simple agreements to full documentation, suitable for any use, copyright, ASCAP, BMI and fully secure.

IPM: Why do you feel now that artists really need this?

Well, take The CASE Act into consideration, now that people can now handle protecting their intellectual property and take cases to court for smaller claims, now more than ever, one should consider a service like ours.

IPM: I had talked with some artists once and they said they were putting everything they do in a envelope and mailing to themselves, this was called a “poor man’s copyright”, lets talk about that for a moment… can your services help?

First, lets get something settled, the concept of “poor man’s copyright” is not only false, it is not allowed or held up in court, there are so many artists and producers that have fallen prey to this false legal action, not only will it not hold up in court, you even mention it, the court will dismiss it. In today’s digital age, everything has to be documented legally.

IPM: You’ve just launched Cosynd Pro which is aimed at labels, publishers, managers and law firms. Can you tell us about that?

Cosynd Pro was born out of businesses coming to us with exactly the same issues that content creators have. They needed an easy way to create content ownership agreements and with Cosynd Pro you’re able to create those between any party, whether that’s artist to artist, artist to business or business to business. You don’t even have to be a party in those agreements yourself so if you’re a management company, for example, you can use Cosynd Pro to take care of some of the most important legal agreements for your artist’s albums. Everything is negotiated and signed directly on one central document which cuts out the time spent on multiple emails and phone calls back and forth. The reduction in drafting time is definitely a point of interest for law firms. Our platform is helping them standardize the way that they draft agreements so that both the firm and their clients end up saving time and money.

IPM: Jessica, than you so much for your time, is there anything in closing you may wish to share with our readers?

 

Website: http://www.cosynd.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cosynd/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cosynd