[Professional Etiquette]

I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. Some music "professionals" aren;t even the termage. I've had the same behaviour occur with fellow musicians as well............let's just not get me to go off on that one.

And some indie labels are just as guilty.

[Album Art]

thanks for all the feedback, and I saw that I uploaded the wrong version. When I redid the font, I realized, you could barely see the name. here is the new version.

[Album Art]

I used to do alot of graphic work, and I did my band's album cover. Is it okay?

[Band Managers]

When I was younger, less experienced and more naive I was in a band that had a couple of managers. They weren't much good, although one certainly knew the business (and ex member of a folk band called Pendragon) he wasn't a great manager.

You bring up a good point about what a manager brings you. Sure, the common or garden inexperienced or "friend" manager doesn't know much that can help with career progression, but an experienced manager can bring a whole new dimension. The trouble is finding a good, experienced manager!

I guess it also depends on how you want to spend your time.

Certainly with the experience I have now I wouldn't have a manager. To be honest, i think it does bands good to manage themselves in the eraly days because it helps them learn about the business, but at the same time they need to learn from someone, and possibly get their material before the best managers in their area.

I agree, we manage ourselves..and everything is okay.

[Starting One's Own Label: The Journey]

John suggeste I do this. I am taking the plunge into becoming my own record label, with all that entails, because I've gotten tired of waiting for somebody else to do it. I have (as I mentioned earlier) not the faintest idea what I'm doing, and will learn as I go along. John suggested the experiences might be useful for others, and encouraged me to write 'em down and post 'em.

This will accordingly be a sort of stream-of-consciousness thread, like www.musesk.com allowed me to do with a couple of songs-in-progress. I'll add to it as I have more stuff. *You* all feel free to chime in, correct me (I will no doubt need correction on a regular basis), ask questions, and share y'all's own experiences. To paraphrase Ben Stein, we might all learn something.

First installment follows. Thanks.

Joe

PUBLISHING COMPANY 101.

So. Wants to get played on the radio, does we? And the radio station manager says she can't play anything that isn't registered with one of the performing-rights organizations, so they can pay royalties. Fair enough. This writer wants airplay, but this writer also agrees that writers ought to get paid.

This writer has a CD out, professionally recorded and mastered, and has been selling copies at gigs. This writer can do that, because all of the songs are original (lyrics and music by said writer), and said writer performed them, too. The Radio Station Thing is a new wrinkle. Sounds like writer needs... a PUBLISHER.

Publishers, however, are not easily obtainable. One doesn't just go down to the local Publisher Store and pick one off a shelf. A publisher has to be interested in representing YOU; the publisher is going to be putting out a lot of effort and money marketing your music to record companies, movie and TV producers, and "artists" looking (theoretically) for new material, and won't make any money until and unless something sells. It's very much the same dilemma a real estate agent faces–and the real estate agent isn't interested in having something in the "catalog" that's not going to sell, either.

Rather than trying to get the attention of a publisher (which a lot of other people are trying to do, too), it's always possible to become ONE'S OWN publisher. Doing that does mean you become responsible for your own marketing; then again, if no one else seems to be interested, why not? It is (theoretically) always possible to "assign" (that's what it's called) the "publishing rights" (that's what they're called) to somebody else later. In the meantime, you've got a publisher (even if it is yourself), and you can now deal with the performing rights organization–and the radio station.

So how to go about it? There are plenty of resources on line (that even agree about a lot of things). There are also people on line who are happy to sell books on the subject, and colleges that will sell you courses on it. We'll stick–right now–to the free stuff.

FIRST STEP in becoming a publisher is to register as a publisher with one of the performing rights organizations (PROs). There are 3 in the U.S.–ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. BMI is a corporation owned by radio stations (I think) and is free. ASCAP is a membership organization and dues are (or were) ten bucks. Don't know much about SESAC, except they're the only one that sent me a letter asking me to join (that's not necessarily a good reason to do so). I'll pick ASCAP, because they reportedly monitor live performances, which is where the majority of my stuff gets played. (BMI only monitors radio stations.)

It's also necessary to join the SAME PRO as a WRITER. If this sounds redundant, remember it wouldn't be if we had a real publisher. Publishers that represent a lot of writers will want to belong to both ASCAP and BMI; we only have to worry about the one our "writer self" belongs to. Rule is that a publisher has to belong to the same PRO as the writer he or she represents. We're both going to join ASCAP–writer and publisher.

When you register with the PRO, they want you to suggest three possible names for your publishing company. They'll pick one. The reason for this is there are a lot of publishers, and you can't have a name somebody else has already claimed. Shouldn't be hard for a creative person to deal with.

SECOND STEP is making sure your paperwork is in order with local, state and Federal regulatory authorities. You need an Employer Identification Number (EIN) from the IRS; you need to file incorporation, partnership, or "doing business as" papers with the state (here in Oregon, that's the Secretary of State's Corporations Division, and we'll do the "doing business as" because we'll be a sole proprietorship); if the town requires business licenses (mine does), you need one of those, too. Note you can't apply for any of those until you have the business name–which is assigned by the PRO.

THIRD STEP. If the songs in the "catalog" aren't copyrighted yet, copyright them in the name of the publisher. If they're already copyrighted by you-the-writer, it's necessary to do an assignment of copyright to the publisher. This is the document (I think) that ensures the publisher is going to get paid. At very least, do this for the songs that are on the existing CD; you'll need to do it later for anything that's going to be on a CD.

FOURTH STEP is for the publisher to register with the Harry Fox Agency. HFA is an outfit that collects "mechanical" royalties whenever somebody cuts a record with your song on it. (I think that includes you cutting your own record, too.) HFA isn't the only outfit that does this, but they are apparently the biggest. Money is paid by a record company to HFA based on how many CDs are MANUFACTURED, not how many are sold, and HFA pays the publisher.

There. Publishing Company 101.

I haven't done any of this yet. These, I understand, are the initial hoops I have to jnump through. Anybody?

From my experience, we started out with a publisher and copyrighting BEFORE putting anything up or out. In otherwords, BMI invited us.*which was good, since they heard some of our songs almost a year ago, hence* I wouldn't go directly with Harry Fox, I've heard not too many good things about them...and supposedly they're kinda slow with

the payments. Alot of people will advise you to either join BMI,ASCAP, orSESAC, but alot of times, your work has to be up-to-par, with alot of caliber artists and songwriters.

Some people will just tell you to self-publish* in my opinion, do whatever feels right* Trademarking is relatively easy, you can do it two ways, *actually alot more*, The most important thing is registering your name,second which is called the "poor man's trademark", is simply getting your name enough recognition, in as many places as you can, **ie, myspace, gigs, the internet** Trust me, there are craploads of hoops to go through,but don't let it discourage you. I'm doing fine and you will as well.

Good Luck.

[U2, Apple and the death of the CD]

Hey Marc

A bit unfair on Bono - he's done a lot to relieve third world debt. He's one of the better superstars in my book

Alistair

yeah, Bono is apart of the handful of celebs who do good things with their money. Bono has done alot for the 3rd world.

[Some of your friends are probably already this f'd]

Oh shit!

I agree, oh shit. And what makes it worse, is that major labels waste so much money. T_T *but they have the funds for it* and the artists should get paid more, *the good ones* Most of the music major labels put out now has been "recycled" over and over , sounds the same, looks the same, but with a different face to it, and to sum it up, lacks originality.

And there goes the artists hard work.

[10 Things to Do Before You Release Your Album]

this is really helpful, we did some of those steps before deciding to become a record label,though. But your info is helpful nonetheless. Thank You!

[How many songs do you write a year?]

Normally, I'd write about 33 a year, and compose music for 2 of them. This year its different because I've written 27 songs and composed 35.

[My Space Pages]

this is my band's myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/dnarcorevolution