Do I have copyright control of a transcript I created listening to a YouTube video?
<p>If I transcribe the words to a song I listened to on YouTube, do I have a legal basis to sell the transcript?</p>

<p>No. Copyright rights only come into existence when creative decisions are made (with just a few narrow exceptions created by statute, none of which are relevant here). You just wrote what you heard, and there is nothing creative about that.</p>

<p>Note that this answer is correct for the United States. Other countries have other kinds of rights they also call copyright.</p>

<p>From my courses on Swiss Copyright law:</p>

<p>It depends.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>The transcript itself is not "new work" (similar to the creativity requirement mentioned in other answers)</p></li>
<li><p>Never the less, if you use Calligraphy or create a video of the lyrics moving in a unique way; that would be Copyrighted as a derivative creation since there is a creative element.</p></li>
</ol>

copyright