HATTIE: (Voiceover while we see Daniel Walker playing the piano in his Santa Monica studio.) What you hear is thought translated. It is real. It has value. To learn how we small business owners can protect our intellectual property in this digital world, we talked with composer Daniel Walker and publisher Bob Tarcea. We went to MacroVision in Silicon Valley and to Microsoft in Redmond and to the law firm of Mitchell, Silberberg and Knupp in Los Angeles (links above).

DANIEL WALKER: But the way that I protect myself is I don't put enough of it on there to be of use to anyone.

DANIEL: I'm a film and television composer.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Daniel Walker is like many of the artists in Hollywood. He works hard and deserves to be compensated for his ideas.

DANIEL: The most important thing is to copyright your work. It's a process that's been the same way ever since I've started writing music. You send your copyright information to the federal copyright office. If it's copywritten, then you are protected basically. But there are times you have to prove your authorship and the copyright office will establish that for you. I have three computers running right now. One is making the sounds, one is being the conductor kind of.

(Voiceover) If your music is going to be broadcast on television, or if it's in a film or radio then you need to register the music with a recording collection agency. Here in the United States we have BMI, ASCAP, or SESAC. These agencies collect royalties on broadcasts of the music.

HATTIE: How has your life changed because of digital information being out there?

DANIEL: I'm a BMI writer and BMI has gone way beyond where they were 15 years ago when they were collecting for broadcasts on the networks. They went into cable and now they're collecting for the cable broadcasts. They are now on Internet broadcast. So my royalty collection society has advanced. They are now very much aware of where music is being used. The Internet for me and for people like me is a calling card. It's basically a digital business card, so I have a website that has examples of my music on it.

(Voiceover) Now this piece is probably about 5 minutes long but you'll only hear about 30 seconds of it.

HATTIE: So that gives the person shopping for music the feel of what you could do. They then call you and say, I want that Barracuda piece, and then they have to pay for it.

DANIEL: Then they have to pay for it, exactly. Any time you send a demo to somebody you're giving them a part of what you created. So I'm always very diligent about being aware of where it's going and how it's registered, how it's protected. I'm always very aware of it and very diligent about it. There's only so much you can do.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Boardroom Inc. publishes the largest subscription based newsletter in the world and it has millions of web readers. This warning is posted on its site.

HATTIE: Putting on my web site "copyright and reprint notice" does that help?

MARK: Yes. The goal as a businessman should be first of all to keep honest people honest. There are certain people who read and say, I shouldn't be doing it, they don't want me to do it. Do I think it helps? Yes. Is it the cure all, absolutely not?