writeandwrong

Hi, 21miles. You may want to seek advice from an entertainment lawyer to go over the contract provided on the licensing company to ensure you understand all it entails. Do you have a written agreement with these musicians you have paid that was agreed on before they started? Does that contract hand over all their rights to you? Even if you paid them, they are on the recordings, and unless there is some contractual agreement that states otherwise, it seems they would qualify for performing rights payments if you have or if the licensing company publishes your digitized recording that uses those musicians. If they are just listening to it and redo it with their own musicians...the ones you paid wouldn't see any of it (unless you have published a recording with the musicians you used)...again...depending on any agreements. Non-writer musicians can receive artist royalties if they are signed to a label and a recording agreement is involved stating that fact, which might be what is going on here. This has nothing to do with Copyright. Copyright is only for the owners/writers. This is only my take on this. I am not a lawyer. I don't work for the copyright office but most importantly, without seeing all the agreements, etc. it's difficult to fully offer the advice you need, I suggest you seek professional advice as I said in the beginning. Cheryl

Hi, Chuckk. Once a song has been recorded with lyrics and music together. The song legally belongs to both you and your co-writer. It is not a situation where you own the music and the lyricist owns the words. There is no need to submit a score. Audio is sufficient. If it has lyrics, though, a lyric sheet would be submitted. If there are unique chords, you can include the chords on the lyric sheet. If you submit a collection, the authorship has to be the same for everything submitted in that collection. As an added note on collections, if you get a bite on a song, it is recommended you do an individual copyright registration on the song of interest. As for the public domain material, that is an area I'm not familiar with enough to say too much on. You can call the copyright office at (202) 707-3000. Make sure it is a time when you have nothing else planned as you will be on hold for awhile. Morning is the best time to call. *NOTE* I've responded to the best of my ability and am not associated with the Copyright Office or a legal expert. Just offering information based on my own personal experiences. I hope this helps. Cheryl

No, you explained it well (tho you should be getting some rest...caught you!! ;-) They should have had this put into more circles rather than just two to do it properly, which would have had the person creating the circles easily see the pieces to their pies that are missing... Largest circle...obviously...the record company going down in size to the smallest circle, the songwriters. If they had done that, they would have seen the band members would be receiving less than 18%, and it would also show just what tiny portion the songwriter gets...but it could also show the different avenues a songwriter can make money as well as a band rather than just from the song. Okay. I'm shutting up now because I'm gonna be compelled to create all these yummy circles of pies and...I need to watch my weight. The holidays are upon us

Thanks, Donna!

I'm not sure how it all works outside of the US, but the songwriter's share usually doesn't come from the "band payout". That belongs to members of the band after all the expenses are paid (costs above that John noted). The songwriters get paid from performing rights agencies like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and also from the publishing company. I don't take anything from the band when they get paid. My cowriter gets his share because he is the guitarist. He doesn't get extra for being a songwriter when the band gets paid for a performance from a club, bar, festival or wherever they are getting paid for their performance. The performing rights agencies get their money to distribute to their publishers/writers from licensing fees they get from users of music (radio, cable and network TV, bars, clubs, shopping malls, concert halls, airlines, etc.). The value of the payout to the publishers/writers has several different factors, including how much they received in licensing fees from where your songs were performed. These agencies will pay the songwriter directly for the performance, not the club that the band has performed at. As a rule, what the agencies collect, the publisher gets 50% and the writers split the difference of the other 50%. If you self-publish and you are the sole writer, you get 100% of the royalties. This is why it "pays" to have multiple "jobs" in the music industry. Band manager, publisher, publicist, web designer, writer, performer, photographer, videographer, studio musicians...as many jobs as you can fill on your own especially when you are starting out. It keeps more money in your own pocket. The agencies pay for performance royalties. Songwriters also collect mechanical royalties from the sales from downloads, CD sales and other sales containing the musical compositions. Mechanical royalties get paid to the record companies who pay the publishing companies (or representatives like the Harry Fox Agency) or if you self-publish, directly to you. The publisher shares these royalties with the writer (the amount being whatever is in the contract between the publisher and writers). The statutory rate for mechanical royalties is 9.1 cents per song and so much more per minute over for a longer song. Hope this makes sense and helps you understand a little bit from this end of the songwriting process. This is fresh in my head as this is the step I've been working on a LOT over the past several months. It pays to be be as knowledgeable as possible in every step in the song process regardless if you have a separate publisher or have been signed by a record company because you do not want to be ripped off. P.S. Just because you register your songs with a performing rights society doesn't mean you can skip registering your songs with the copyright office...that's a whole other topic in itself... Cheryl

I'll try! I feel like I'll be missing something if I jump ahead, no?

Hi, John. I can't say too much as I just came in and only have done the first challenge. It seems there is good participation and people at all levels, which is nice. It looks like the challenges progress as the weeks go on, which is also nice. I'm wondering if every once in awhile there should be a rotation of "new" people...pick a day to welcome new people in and each "group" starts at the same time. It's kinda lonely at the bottom, but at the same time, haven't "grown" with the first group. Just a thought. It might also entice new people to come in rather than overwhelm them with "what they've missed". It's not so much that I couldn't jump in where you all are, but personally...I guess I have a little self-diagnosed OCD? lol Cheryl

Hi, Goldylocks. Hmm...I'm thinking the title simply could be "Summertime". I think maybe if you keep the title you have, you can strengthen your verses to support the title and chorus. To keep your title, you could write down a lot of words that have to do with summer and singing and bring them into your verses. For instance, the last line of verse 1 could be something like, "While seagulls sing flying by" I'm not a fan of using "sing" so early in the lyric if it's in the title. If it was "The Music of Summer" you could incorporate more musical terms rather than just singing related. The chorus could be made stronger by organizing it a little more. Instead of repeating the title two times at the beginning of each chorus section, maybe split it up a little. Here is just a first thought that came into my mind: Oh Summer time sings to you There's music through the air An orchestra of joy As summer sings to you Singing songs everywhere Oh Summer time sings to you Charming everyone around Making hearts beat faster As summer sings to you With a romantic sound I'm just throwing out different directions you could take your lyric to make you think more of the possibilities of what you can do with what you have here. I think this is a very workable start and would like to see/hear what you do with it. Cheryl Edit: I just read through other peoples' responses and found you are new to writing. For a new writer, you did amazingly well and hope you are still sticking with it. Please take what everyone has said as a learning experience. There is always room for improvement and once you are familiar with the tools, you learn to rewrite until you personally are 100% happy with it. I haven't checked out the rest of the challenges yet, but hope you are continuing to plug along with them :-)

Hi, Az09. The song form is ABAB. If you want to keep this structure, I feel you need to strengthen up your chorus and make it pop out. Your title is "Last Taste of Summer". If you called it "Taste of Summer", you could offer different metaphors of tasty summer things to spice up your lyric and bring in some more imagery. You are bringing the different seasons into the song rather than tastes. "You're the reason for this lovely summer season" or something similar is popping into my head for what you have here. Just a few pointers to take what you have and turn it into something that pops out a little more. You have an idea down and sometimes it just takes a little push to light a spark. Once you have done that, then you can work on strengthening the rhyme scheme, etc. Hope I have given you a couple of different ideas to help. Cheryl

Hi, Skin. I love how cut down and pithy your lines are, nothing wordy. One area of your lyric I found seems to need a bit of work is in the chorus, you are saying: "Beautiful gi----rls like you". Your next line says, "She walked by" I think you need to stay focused on who your singer is singing these lyrics to. Otherwise, I think you are getting your point across as to how much you enjoy summer ;-) Cheryl

Hi, LIsa. There's a melody in my head I haven't taken the time to relay yet. We're still working on getting demos done for 13-14 songs from last year's material...so there's plenty of time to play around with the new stuff. For verse 1 my focus was that this woman caught the singer's eye; for verse 2, the focus was to let the listener know the singer actually got involved with the woman to build up to the chorus. Maybe I need to be more obvious in saying it tho. I'm thinking we must be hearing something similar for the chorus :-) The bridge has bothered me from the start because it doesn't support or stand out like it needs to. Will definitely play around with verse 2 and the bridge and see where it goes. Thanks for your kind words and critique. I appreciate it! :-) Cheryl

My apologies, Kel. It must have been a different song you commented on...but anyway...here is "Some Other Day". A guy had a conversation with me about someone and this is what I got from it lol http://forums.songstuff.com/topic/30278-some-other-day/