Does anybody know a trustable organization to register lyrics copyrights?

[aerozol]

Hey Anita,

MusicBrainz is open source, and most of the committed users here aren’t big fans of copyright!
Freso already posted this in another thread:

@Freso

To quote Cory Doctorow (who also happens to be a MetaBrainz board member!):

Now, onto the artistic case. It’s the twenty-first century. Copying stuff is never, ever going to get any harder than it is today (or if it does, it’ll be because civilization has collapsed, at which point we’ll have other problems). Hard drives aren’t going to get bulkier, more expensive, or less capacious. Networks won’t get slower or harder to access. If you’re not making art with the intention of having it copied, you’re not really making art for the twenty-first century. There’s something charming about making work you don’t want to be copied, in the same way that it’s nice to go to a Pioneer Village and see the olde-timey blacksmith shoeing a horse at his traditional forge. But it’s hardly, you know, contemporary. I’m a science fiction writer. It’s my job to write about the future (on a good day) or at least the present. Art that’s not supposed to be copied is from the past.

(From the preamble to his novel “Little Brother” (available for free on his website).)

That said, I think you don’t have to worry too much about the copyright anyway, it should automatically apply.
Here’s a NZ site with some useful information:

APRA AMCOS membership explained

And a US one that says pretty much the same thing:
http://info.legalzoom.com/copyright-lyrics-free-20503.html

As far as I can tell ‘Songrite’ simply stores your songs/lyrics so that you have proof that you’ve written them at a specific date. Uploading your song and lyrics to Bandcamp does exactly the same thing - that website has a time stamp of when you uploaded the music too.

If you want to go really official, this seems to be the way to do it in the US:

Registering a copyright with the USCO costs $35, as of 2011. However, for this fee you can register any number of lyrics, as long as they were all written by the same person.

Which probably seems like your best, ‘most official’ way. Probably not that complicated either:

U.S. Copyright Office | U.S. Copyright Office

ASCAP or BMI do kind of similar things, registering your music, but they also control royalties/radio play etc for you.
I’ve just googled this now, but this seems like an interesting post:

Why You Should Think Twice Before Joining ASCAP, BMI or SESAC

Enjoy going down that endless rabbit hole!
Anyway, personally I would either relax and just leave it, or do it in the most direct way possible (go directly to the USCO, or your local equivalent - NZ has some very helpful govt offices that I would call over here, you might do so too).