I am just wondering, because I have written some children's Christian songs that are to the tune of other songs. I'd like to get them put into a book that could possibly get published. Can you copyright lyrics you wrote that you put to the tune of other songs? Thanks for the help!

All Answers To Questions

As long as you do not include the music to accompany the lyrics. You would only be able to copyright the lyrics.

I bet Weird Al does it all the time.

Copyright includes not only the work as created, but derivative works as well. The greatest hymn of all time ("Be Still My Soul") uses "Finlandia" - Finland's national anthem - for the music. In that case, Katharina von Schlegel wrote the lyrics in 1752. and Jean Sibelius wrote the music in 1899. Obviously, those are both in the public domain by now - but the versions found in most hymnals are copyrighted, none the less. It's only the *arrangement* that's copyrighted. So, yeah, you can copyright the lyrics - but performing your song publicly without permission is copyright infringement.

the lyrics yes, but not the music ex. avirl is being sued b/c her song girfriend sounds just like another song called boyfriend (or something of that sort)

If you wrote the lyrics, you already HAVE copyright. Copyright is a noun referring to rights the creator of a work has automatically. The verb you are looking for is register. You can register your copyright to the lyrics, but you can't publish the tune with them unless you have permission from whoever hold the copyright to the tune.

The lyrics and music have separate copyrights. You automatically have a copyright upon authoring the lyrics, but if you want further protection, register that copyright with the US Patent Office.