Okay, slick, here's the deal, and now you can stop batting your eyes and claiming you're exempt from copyright laws cause you don't feel like fooling with it.

When you or anyone else write a song, poem, book, or play, YOU OWN IT.   You don't have to file for copyright or put magical notices on it, you own it. You hold legal title to it like a deed, and you control all commercial use of it (recordings, airplay, and paid-ticket concerts) during your entire lifetime and 75 years thereafter without your express permission. Unless you specifically declare to the world that it is public domain and you want everyone to do whatever they want with it. (sometimes people donate songs to the world in that way but not very often).   

So unless you can get Jim to say to you "geez, mate, I actually put that into the public domain in '93", then IT'S NOT! And in order that Jim or whoever doesn't have to spend 3 days a week negotiating credit arrangements and 6 cent per disc royalties with every tom dick and harry, he allows the Harry Fox Agency or whoever administer it. They used to let publishers do it directly but they come and go like the wind so now they have these big hairy agencies. It's no big deal, you sign up for however many copies you plan to make and pay x cents a copy or whatever.

If you're hell bent on not dealing with it, fine. Record stuff you write yourself or ancient stuff where there are no pesky authors holding copyright. If you still want to use the work of 20th century composers/lyricists then quit trying to weasel out of what you need to do just cause you just don't feel like compensating somebody for their stuff.