[myradio]

how did you guys pitch to publishers? did you use a service or send them emails directly? I actually haven't pitched directly to publishers before, but I am going to start doing that. I usually write a song and after its done make a list of the Top 5 artists that I think it would be a good fit for. Then I just get the artist contact info off of Bookingagentinfo.com and shoot them off emails. I haven't been very successful doing this as I have only gotten 1 placement. Any advice that yall can give me on reaching out to publishers would be great....Thanks in advance.

[myradio]

Also, quick question. I know this is probably a dumb question but how do you usually protect yourselfs from somebody stealing your song when you send them out to publishers?

[Sing4me88]

Joining a songwriters guild is usually a good shout to protect yourself. I'm a member of the GISC and whilst its £60 they have a copyrighting service free to members, they have an evaluation service free to members and also some - but very limited - links to publishers etc via their news sheets. Worth a look into in your case I reckon.

[Onelabel]

On the copyright issue I'd say two things.
1) stick your music on something public where it's time stamped (like YouTube etc.) that way you can prove you loaded it on a certain date

2) it's kind of irrelevant, since in reality the chance of someone passing off your song as there's is extremely small. The only time I've heard of it happening recently was indie but fairly successful electro musician who had his songs uploaded to a number of sync agencies. He was able to put it right quickly as already had them on YouTube. I'd say there's almost zero chance a major writer/artist would steal another song - at least to the point where anything could ever be proven

[myradio]

On the copyright issue I'd say two things.
1) stick your music on something public where it's time stamped (like YouTube etc.) that way you can prove you loaded it on a certain date

2) it's kind of irrelevant, since in reality the chance of someone passing off your song as there's is extremely small. The only time I've heard of it happening recently was indie but fairly successful electro musician who had his songs uploaded to a number of sync agencies. He was able to put it right quickly as already had them on YouTube. I'd say there's almost zero chance a major writer/artist would steal another song - at least to the point where anything could ever be proven

I'm not sure about other industries, but in hip-hop I've heard of it happening a few times. Look at these articles:

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.9315/title.timbaland-accused-of-stealing-beats
http://www.musictimes.com/articles/1328/20130911/nicki-minaj-producer-red-one-sued-allegedly-stealing-starships-beat.htm
http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.21194/title.producer-kenoe-accuses-just-blaze-of-stealing-his-beat

[Onelabel]

TBH I don't know much about hip hop so can't really comment. However there's a huge amount of sampling in that genre so I'm not surprised.

Outside of that it's very rare and like I said, loading your music onto something like YouTube is a great way to date/time stamp your music.