Sound recordings and musical works are separately copyrightable works that can be owned by the same or different authors. As such, it is important to distinguish between the two works. A musical work, or a song, usually means a melody and often (but not always) lyrics, while a sound recording is the actual recorded performance of a song. For example, if a songwriter composes and writes the lyrics to a song and Lady Gaga records a version of the song and includes it on her new album, the songwriter owns the copyrights in the musical work (because he wrote the music and lyrics) and Lady Gaga, or more likely her record label, owns the copyrights in her recorded version of the song (i.e., the sound recording),which are then reproduced on phonorecords offered for sale by music retailers as digital audio files, on compact discs and in other formats. The copyrights in sound recordings and musical works create two different revenue streams for their owner(s) in the form of record royalties and music publishing royalties. In the above example, for each digital download,compact disc or other phonorecord containing Lady Gaga’s version of the song that her record label sells, the label must pay mechanical royalties to the songwriter or the songwriter’s music publisher (for the rights to make and sell copies of the song embodied on the sound recording) and record royalties to Lady Gaga (for the rights to make and sell copies of her recorded version of the song). Finally, it’s important to keep the distinction between sound recordings and musical works in mind, when seeking to register the copyrights in such works with the U.S. Copyright Office. Because musical works fall into the category of “literary works” under U.S. copyright law (as opposed to “sound recordings” which are in a different category), the respective owners of the song and the recording of the song must separately register their copyrights, unless the authors of both works are the same (in which case a single application for both the sound recording and musical composition copyrights can be filed).