Music Business Archive

Unsigned musicians not appearing on Apple iTunes 10 Ping network

By
Brett
 – September 3, 2010Posted in: Music Business
Unsigned musicians not appearing on Apple iTunes 10 Ping network

Thursday morning Apple introduced iTunes 10 with Ping. Apple is marketing Ping as a social network for music. Early reactions across the web are mixed at best.

So far, detone8.com has been unable to create a band profile, but we hope to get access soon. According to the blog Hypebot, Apple said that artist Ping accounts are by invitation only at this time. We quickly upgraded to iTunes 10 on our Mac, and after a few hours we also upgraded iTunes on Windows Vista. It was easy to create an account, but Ping was sluggish on the Vista computer.

We were only able to add a few artist profiles, and they were only major artists. We looked up Detone8 favorites like Ludo and I Fight Dragons, but they were not listed. Even Saves The Day, a band that has been signed for over a decade, is not among the artist you can follow.

If your band is on iTunes, let us know what you think about Ping. If your band is not on iTunes, check this iTunes guide out.

Basic accounting terms every band should know

By
Scott
 – August 21, 2010Posted in: Music Business
Basic accounting terms every band should know

Accounting may seem like a strange and foreign language to most, but it doesn’t have to be. There are some simple terms that every band should know that will help them whether you are keeping track of your own finances or hiring someone to do it for you. The five major terms in accounting are:

  • Assets
  • Liabilities
  • Owner’s Equity
  • Revenue
  • Expenses

The two most important terms to know right away are revenues and expenses. Simply speaking, these two terms are what you make and what you spend.

Revenues are any money that your band earns as a band. This may include ticket sales from shows, selling CDs or songs on the internet, royalties from licensing opportunities, and merchandise sales. Revenues do not include what your band makes as individuals working part-time jobs. You want to keep the band money separate from each of your personal finances.

Expenses are what you purchase using the band’s money. There may be a whole host of expenses that may crop up in the course of your career, but some of the main ones you will see frequently are:

  • Advertising expense (posters, flyers, etc.)
  • Transportation expense (gas, vehicle rentals, etc.)
  • Rent expense (if you are renting practice space)
  • Tax expense (if your band is set up as a corporation)

Keeping track of the money that comes in and out of the band’s coffers is very important. It is also a basic starting point for your band’s economic success. Use a notebook or Excel program to keep track of your revenues and expenses and make sure you keep it current. Start by keeping track of the cash your band has, whether it is money that you each have put in or that you have earned in revenue.

The other three terms you should know in accounting get a bit more complicated, but you should be familiar with them. Even if you make enough to hire an accountant, it is good to know these things.

  • Assets are any resource that the band has which holds value (i.e. cash, equipment, your bands record deal or licensing agreements)
  • Liabilities are debts the band owes to others (e.g. a band credit card or loan)
  • Owner’s equity is the band’s claim to its assets or basically what your band is worth

Keeping these few terms in mind should help you get started with a more sound financial understanding. To start, though, it is very important for your band to keep money separated from your personal accounts. Keep track of your band’s cash flow each time someone puts money in to the band, takes some out, you gain some revenue, or when any money is spent and you will be on your way to helping your band stay financially afloat.

Image by Flickr.com user GenBug.

2010 Midwest Arts Conference Preview

By
Kevin
 – August 14, 2010Posted in: Music Business
2010 Midwest Arts Conference Preview

The Detone8.com crew is getting ready for Play:stl 2010. The music showcase and music business seminar will be held in St. Louis Mo. Sept. 16-18. We are excited we will be talking with musicians about their music business experiences.

Yet, this is not the only awesome music event going on in the Midwest that week. The 2010 Midwest Arts Conference will be in Indianapolis Sept. 13-16. The conference is a workshop and showcase for professional musicians. The conference brings unique venue buyers, like libraries, who use the event to find and book talent.

How to legally record and make money from a cover song

By
Brett
 – August 12, 2010Posted in: Distribution, Legal aspects of the music business, Music Business
How to legally record and make money from a cover song

Playing a cover song live is one tool in a new band’s arsenal to get people’s attention. Having that song available to iTunes and Pandora audience increases that exposure exponentially. There is more than one way to get the rights to record a cover song, but the easiest is to get the mechanical rights through a company called The Harry Fox Agency (HFA).

HFA represents more than 46,000 music publishers, and has the right to grant licenses on behalf of its publishers to record songs to be distributed for money. Depending on the license, you can put your cover song on CDs, cassettes, records and even sell the music digitally in the form of Permanent Digital Downloads (PDDs), ringtones, limited downloads and interactive streams.

To record a cover song you will need to get the proper license, which is called a mechanical license. A mechanical license grants the right to copy and distribute copyrighted material. If you are a new band, and you don’t expect to sell a lot of copies of a song, you can use the super cheap and easy to use Songfile®. Songfile is HFA’s online licensing tool, you can use it if you plan to make 2,500 copies or less of your recording. It enables you to license for both physical (i.e. CDs, cassettes, etc.) and digital, including PDDs, ringtones, and interactive streaming.

Bands that are going to sell more than 2,500 copies can sign up with HFA as a commercial licensee, similar to record labels and online services. HFA issues licenses that cover most audio-only medium, but they do not issue licenses for audio/visual recordings like music videos.

The nice thing about using HFA is that not only do they issue the licenses for musicians to cover songs, but they also collect and distribute the royalties. There is no need to deal with more than one company.

Yet before you can get a mechanical license from HFA, you need to make sure your cover qualifies for a compulsory license. To qualify for a compulsory license the new version of the song has to follow a few rules:

It can’t be a derivative work. This means you can’t make major changes like rewriting the lyrics, taking out sections of the song, sampling a song or creating a new arrangement.

If you think your cover is going to be considered a derivative work, you need to go directly to the publisher of the work and ask them if they think it is a derivative work. If they do not, you can still get a compulsory license. If they do, you will need to get their permission before coming to HFA for a mechanical license.

According to Maurice Russell, Senior Vice President of Licensing, Collections and Business Affairs for HFA, you can tweak a song a little bit. And moving a song from one genre to another is not usually an issue. It becomes an issue when you start to change the melody or lyrics of the song or you add to the song and make it into a sample.

Since compulsory licenses only cover non-dramatic works, they may not apply to covers of complete works such as musical plays or operas.

As long as the work has been commercially released on a record and your cover song qualifies for a compulsory license (i.e. not a derivative work), you can get the mechanical license to the song and pay a statutory rate. Statutory rates are royalty rates, set by the government, which you must pay for each time you distribute a song physically or digitally. It does not matter how much you charge for the song, the rates are always the same.

Now as this seems like a hassle, bands might be tempted to record a cover song and not get the mechanical rights to distribute the songs. This is a bad idea. According to HFA, even giving this music away for free does not make it exempt from copyright laws. If a musician gets caught distributing copyright protected work, even for free, they can incur a legal claim that amounts to much more than what it would have cost to get a mechanical license.

It may not seem to matter when your band is small and unknown, but if you make it in the music industry people are going to check out what you have done in the past. If your goal is to be successful in the music industry, you better play by the rules.

Book Review: The Musician’s Guide to Licensing Music written by Darren Wilsey

By
Scott
 – August 11, 2010Posted in: Legal aspects of the music business
Book Review: The Musician’s Guide to Licensing Music written by Darren Wilsey

book The Musician's Guide to Licensing MusicLicensing your music is a great way to start an income stream and generate revenue for your band. Darren Wilsey’s “The Musician’s Guide to Licensing Music” is an in depth look at all of the facets of music licensing.

Not only does he explain all of the licensing terms and opportunities that exist for your music, he gives very good advice as to how to go about getting licensed as well.

With chapters about the players in the industry, agreements, and protecting yourself, Mr. Wilsey’s advice will give you the knowledge to be ready when you have that first meeting with an industry player or contract to sign. The book also gives some really good advice as to how and why to make contacts in the industry if you want to be successful.

Chapters on how to get your music into each of the different media markets are the gravy in this book. With opportunities in advertising, television, radio, internet, films, digital media, and a host of other outlets, the book covers them all and covers them well.

By providing his own knowledge with a mix of advice from players in the industry (quoted throughout the book), Mr. Wilsey’s book is a great place for all musicians to start once they decide it is in their best interest to license their tunes… which it is.

Image by Flickr.com user notsogoodphotography / Ibrahim Iujaz

The basics of trademarks, service marks, and what they mean for your band

By
Scott
 – August 8, 2010Posted in: Music Business
The basics of trademarks, service marks, and what they mean for your band

Though trademarks may seem like a cool thing to have, they aren’t very important for your band in the early stages and can be costly. Trademarks can be obtained for any word, name, symbol, device, or combination of these things that are used to identify a product – or in the case of a service mark, a service. To properly secure a trademark, you must register it through the United Sates Patent and Trademark Office . Though the basic definition for trademarks is pretty straight forward, not just anything can be registered.

In order to qualify for registry, a mark must be:
• Coined – you made it up
• Completely fanciful – it doesn’t mean anything
Or
• Arbitrary – it has no other meaning in the English language.

For your band, this would mean that for instance a band like Red Hot Chili Peppers would probably not be able to qualify for registry because red hot chili peppers are a food, not a coined name, neither fanciful nor arbitrary. However, perhaps U2 would qualify as it has no real other meaning. Most band names, in general, probably would not qualify, but you may have a logo or symbol that identifies the band that would – think Prince.

Registration for a trademark can take quite awhile to get approved. You may recall seeing the ® symbol which shows that the mark has been registered. The ™ symbol is used to signify a trademark that has not been registered, but the company wishes to retain the mark. Registration for a mark can be quite costly. As of this writing, basic registration runs around $350. The duration of a trademark is pretty much indefinite, but it has to be in continuous use. If you break up for a five or ten years and want to come back, you may have to check to see if you lost the mark.

Overall, it probably doesn’t make too much sense for a band to waste money on a trademark. Most band names probably wouldn’t qualify anyway. It might be possible that you have come up with a symbol that identifies your band and may want to look further into registering that, however. Furthermore, if you have come up with a unique service that you or your band provides, you may have grounds to register for a service mark.

Image by Flickr.com user Lauri Rantala.

Marketing your band to get signed by marketing to fans not record labels

By
Brett
 – July 29, 2010Posted in: Interviews, Marketing, Music Business
Marketing your band to get signed by marketing to fans not record labels

About one year after playing their first show, the band I Fight Dragons (IFD) was signed by a label. It was not luck. It was not about paying their dues. Their strategy, from day one, was not to get signed, but to connect with their fans and take the Chicago scene as quickly as possible.

“I used to read a lot of books about the music business…and the biggest thing everyone always said was that it was not about looking for [labels and managers]. When it was time they will come looking for you…I thought it was not really accurate,” Brian Mazzaferri, the lead vocals and guitar player from IFD, said. “But in our case it really turned out to be true.”

Mazzaferri started IFD with his friends as a concept band. He began writing music that both integrated the sounds from various video games and was composed with video game hardware. Soon he found out that there was an entire genre of music in this style called chiptunes.

As the band was developing and writing music, they also took a serious approach to the business side of the band.

“I really did treat this as a business from day one,” Mazzaferri said.

According to Mazzaferri, one of the first things the band did was hire a social media coach. He wanted to avoid the pitfalls a lot of bands fall into, like wasting time and energy when trying to promote themselves on the web.

“It’s not about paying someone to do something for you,” Mazzaferri said. It was about learning how to become a part of the community, and not just spam everyone out there, he added.

One of the most unique marketing techniques IFD uses is giving free music to fans who sign up for their mailing list. It seems counterintuitive, because they are giving their content away for free. But not completely. By letting IFD send them e-mails, fans are paying for the music. They have created an audience who listens to new IFD material often and knows about IFD promotions and events.

Detone8.com writers have been on the mailing list for several months. We have noticed IFD sends few e-mails, but the ones they sent had great content.

Two of the most interesting promotions IFD have had were the 1,000 first fans certificates and the lifetime subscriptions for music and shows.

When the mailing list reached 1,000 subscriptions Mazzaferri wanted to create a special experience for their oldest fans. He said that everyone who is fan of a band likes to show that they were a fan before the band was big, so IDF gave their fans this opportunity. Any fan who was one of the first 1,000 people on the mailing list can receive a laminated card verifying their “original fan of the band status.” Several hundred people signed up.

IFD got creative again in order to fund the band’s first tour when they opened up for MC Chris. IFD has six members , with a lot of gear, so Mazzaferri knew touring would be very expensive. Their solution? Sell 100 lifetime memberships to shows and free music. Members are given a wallet-size USB drives with the IFD logo on it. The membership includeds a lifetime free pass to any IFD show ever, and access to a free digital copy of anything the band ever releases.The $100 memberships sold out within 48 hours. In two days the band made $10,000.

One of the more amazing aspects is not did locals fans signed up, but worldwide fans purchased memberships. Fans as a far away as Australia and Singapore became members.

The difficulty the band faces now is finding the time to share with an expanding fan base. The e-mail list has more than 10,000 members, and it’s harder to give time to every fan.

It is not luck that the band is successful. They learned early to take the same serious approach to connecting with their fans as they did with writing and performing their music.

People who struggle to advance in the music scene can get caught up in the concept of “paying your dues.” Yet, today IFD is working on their first label-produced album a little over a year after forming the band. Perhaps paying your dues means writing great music and having a serious marketing plan.

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The basics of music licensing

By
Scott
 – July 12, 2010Posted in: Legal aspects of the music business
The basics of music licensing

Music licensing consists of giving permission to someone else to use your music or parts of your music. In today’s market there are so many places that your music can find a home beyond CDs, digital downloads, and the stages of the world.

Entering the world of music licensing can open up new ways for you and your band to make money doing something you enjoy – making music. With an ever-expanding cable TV universe, a huge onrush of independent filmmakers, a commercial world, and the internet, music is needed to help these projects convey their messages.

There are four basic types of licensing you should be familiar with:

• Master License – gives permission to someone to use a full song (one song at a time) from your original recording in their project
• Synchronization license – this license is specifically permission to use your song together with a visual image
• Mechanical license – permission to duplicate and sell your audio recording
• Compulsory license – permission to “cover” a song and record, duplicate, and sell it

It is very important to keep track of your music copyrights, who controls the master recording rights, and any licensing you have out on your music. Though these four types of licenses give the basics of what is available, there are many nuances to licensing that go beyond the basics; such as digital uses, ringtones, or importing.

These licenses can bring with them terms of exclusivity or non-exclusivity. Exclusive agreements mean that you cannot offer licenses for that song to anyone else during the term of the license. Non-exclusive agreements will specify if and where you can license your songs to someone else while still under other licensing terms.

With all of these types of licenses floating around, hopefully you can see how important it is to keep track of everything. Signing with a publishing company can help. Being associated with a Professional Rights Organization (PRO) such as ASCAP or BMI will assist in making sure you are paid your royalties if your agreement specifies those types of payments.

The world of music licensing offers your music a larger arena to be heard from. There are a number of resources on the internet that can also help guide you in the right direction if you are seeking to license your music. Sites such as www.filmmusic.com offer lists of classified ads where you can submit songs for films needing music. You can go to agencies like the Harry Fox Agency (www.harryfox.com) for all sorts of licensing needs. Good music business lawyers can find you licensing opportunities, as well as work the contracts for you. However, music licensing (if not done by you) will generally be done by your music publisher.

How to copyright your music

By
Scott
 – June 15, 2010Posted in: Legal aspects of the music business, Music Business
How to copyright your music

For musicians today, copyrighting your work has become easier with online filing. Once you have decided to file your music with the copyright office, the process is easy.

As mentioned in the “The basics of copyright protection for your band” article, you are afforded the protection of copyright without filing, but once you start dealing with record labels, publishers, licensing, or lawsuits, you are going to have to have your music filed with the copyright office.
At the U.S. Copyright Office website you will be able to find all the information you will need to file both electronically and by mail. Filing electronically will save you $30, however. As of this writing, the fees for filing your music are $35 for e-filing and $65 for mail-in submissions.
There are pdfs and PowerPoint presentations available that you can read and watch which will explain the process to you, but most of it is self-explanatory.

It may seem like a lot of work, but most of it is simple information like names and addresses. Be prepared before entering the filing process. If you are having trouble, either refer back to the tutorials or get help from a lawyer.
When you are ready to register your music, you will need:

  • the names of all the authors of the music (so, you will need to decide as a band who – if not all of you – will be listed as the authors)
  • to choose to whom the certificate will be mailed
  • the year of creation and/or publication (if you have already made and distributed copies of your songs, technically you have already published the works)
  • information regarding the origins of the publication
  • names of claimants or correspondents that you are either signing rights over to or that you are allowing to act in your behalf

All of these issues could be sticky subjects and should be discussed prior to filing. Depending on how you have set up your band as a business, whether you are operating your own independent record label, or working everything as individuals, the information you put on the submission forms may vary.
Once you have gotten to a certain point in the registration process you will have to pay for it either by EFT or credit/debit card.
Finally, you will upload your music files. These are the current file formats you by which you may submit your music to the copyright office:

  • .aif, .aiff (Audio Interchange File Format)
  • .au (Audio File)
  • .mid, .midi, .rmi (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)
  • .mp3 (MP3 Audio File or Layer 3 Audio Compression)
  • .ra, .ram (Real Audio File)***
  • .rmi (Resource Interchangable File Format)
  • .wav (Windows Wave Sound File)
  • .wma (Windows Media Audio File)

Luckily, you can file a complete album as a collection of music and only pay one fee. To obtain a paper copy of the copyright submission form, go here.
Here is one last note about how music copyrights work when you write music as a work-for-hire. Work-for-hire is when you write music for a company like a jingle. In this case, the company owns the music and will also own the copyright.

References
Copyright.gov. United States Copyright Office, July 2008. Web. 1 June 2010. .
Passman, Donald S. All You Need to Know About the Music Business. New York: Free Press, 2009. Print.
Twomey, and Fox. Anderson’s Business Law and the Legal Environment. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning, 2008. Print.
Wilsey, Darren, and Daylle Deanna Schwartz. The Musician’s Guide to Licensing Music. New York: Billboard Books, 2010. Print.

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The basics of copyright protection for your band

By
Scott
 – June 9, 2010Posted in: Legal aspects of the music business, Music Business
The basics of copyright protection for your band

The legal side of the music business is probably one of the most ignored (or feared) parts of being in a band or being a musician. Even the basic laws that are designed to protect us are often overlooked or seem too confusing to bog ourselves down with. It really isn’t that difficult.

Copyright law is fundamental to all musicians (and all creative persons.) Learning and understanding the basic laws that protect your music should be a priority as you and your band progress through the steps of your music careers.

For this research, we will assume that all works are originating from within the United States. Cutting through the history and reasons behind the copyright laws, let’s get straight to what is and is not protected by the copyright laws.

A copyright is the protection given under the United States law to authors of “original works.” As the author of your songs, you are granted these rights and may pursue legal action against anyone who violates these rights. The protections you get with a copyright are the rights to:

  • reproduce copies of the work
  • produce alternate versions of the original (prepare derivative works)
  • distribute copies of the work to the public or transfer ownership
  • display the work publicly
  • perform the work publicly

One of the more confusing things about the law is whether you have to actually file with the United States government to obtain a copyright. The answer is that you DO NOT have to register your work to receive copyright protection. In the case of a song, it is considered copyrighted once you have recorded it (onto a tangible format.)

The key for musicians in copyright law is that your songs are not considered copyrighted until you have recorded them. Playing songs in your garage, basement, or live, does not constitute a copyright. You must record the song first before it is afforded copyright protection.

The above protections are for songs and lyrics (as well as a list of other creative works.) Other aspects of your band and image, however, are not protected by copyright laws. For some of the following, we will have to explore other aspects of the law and file for other protections such as trademarks or patents (which we will discuss in another article.) Copyright law does not cover:

  • works not fixed in tangible form (i.e. choreography that is not written down)
  • titles, names, slogans, phrases
  • ideas
  • works consisting of no original authorship

So, if you are afforded the rights to copy without filing with the government, why should you file? The quick and simple answer is that if you ever have any legal action concerning any of your songs, you are going to have to register anyway. This goes for someone trying to sell your music without your permission, possible licensing problems, or even piracy of your music. You will also need to register your copyrights when you get into record deals or distribution through other companies.

In a future article, we will discuss how to go about registering a copyright with the government. It’s pretty simple. If you still have questions or are confused about something regarding copyright law, check out one of the resources used for this article or contact a lawyer in the music business.

If you think your music career is at the point you need copyright protection, it is time to get some serious help. Below we list the most basic sources you will need (not including a lawyer) to understand the specifics of music law.

Image from Flickr user Horia Varlan

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