The US Supreme Court this week declined to hear an appeal from Universal Music Group, regarding how much it pays artists for digital music sales.

The case concerns whether the defendant record labels – UMG, Aftermath Records and Interscope Records – owed F.B.T. Prods, the outfit distributed by Interscope that discovered Eminem before he joined Aftermath Records, a higher royalty rate on music sold as digital downloads and ringtones or whether they are merely obligated to pay the same royalty rates traditionally used in physical sales.

The original district court first ruled against F.B.T.’s claims, but in September of last year, the Ninth Circuit held that the district court had improperly denied FBT’s motion for summary judgment and saw digital downloads as “licenses” rather than a traditional sale, which meant that FBT was owed as much as a 50% royalty rate instead of rates between 12 to 20% as is common with physical sales.

UMG tried to get the Ninth Circuit to rehear the case, but that motion was denied and so the record giant sought to bring the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, filing a writ of certiorari that petitions for a hearing. According to the petition, UMG wants the Supreme Court to consider the question of whether F.B.T. should have been allowed to appeal the district court’s summary judgment order after a full jury trial in the case.

This is in fact the first court ruling dictating how labels should pay digital royalties and since the issue has arisen, most new contracts have specifically outlined how much artists and labels make in digital royalties.

Note though that these legal arguments around the issue stems from older contracts, and other artists from Cheap Trick to Pink Floyd have also challenged how their old contracts apply to new methods of music distribution, so this is obviously a case that players in the record industry are following keenly.

Launching her own label is a dream come true for King and marks another step towards her long desired independence in the music business. King, who is sensitive to the struggles of female artists in a male dominated industry felt no other name but ThinkLikeAgirL, the title of her sophomore album would be appropriate.

“ThinkLikeAgirL Music means a lot to me, it’s a big dream that I’m taking one step at a time. I’d like it to grow into a label that offers quality music from female acts and operates outside of the box in terms of artist development, marketing and promotions, music distribution and touring.”

The licensing deal with Warner Music Japan is a part of the first step and is the culmination of over 2 years of studio work for King, who wrote and produced all the tracks on the album. The deal will mean that she will retain 100% ownership of all her music, which for King “is the way it should be.”

According to Diana, “It was pure madness and many sleepless nights – very challenging balancing writing, producing, engineering, managing – being just everything…many times I wanted to give up… it takes a lot of patience but I could see the end result.”

Formerly signed to Sony Music and Warner Music Maverick, King has worked with some of the most accomplished producers in the business and has always been a part of the production process but was only acknowledged as writer. This time around she challenged herself to write and produce her new material. She received ProTools® certification and began the journey from her home studio.

“It felt good having complete control of the creative process… it was hard at first but the more I did it, the more confident I got. I always wanted to produce other artists but I guess I had to prove it to myself first. I can’t describe how it feels to do this kind of work on your own and have others love and appreciate it…it’s humbling. I am a work in progress but I believe I can only get better.”

King’s new music will be released first in Japan this September and the rest of the world will follow shortly after.

Follow Diana King at:
http://www.dianakingdom.com
http://www.myspace.com/dianakingdom
http://www.facebook.com/dianakingdom
http://www.twitter.com/dianakingdom

ELECTRONICA/REGGAE selector DJ Afifa urged a mostly revisionist university reggae music symposium last Friday to stop reminiscing about vintage reggae and look to modern reggae fusions.

Harris played mixes by international groups, including Thievery Corporation, DJ Spooky and an anonymous artiste. One songmixed Mr Brown, the reggae classic by the Wailers, with techno beats. Another single mixed U-Roy with North African beats — the result was modern and not revisionist, she explained.

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There is a lot going on in the Latin market nowadays, and I believe we are witnessing an advance of the future.

The domino effect of the internet and the digital downloads –legal and illegal– followed by the disappearing act of the retailers, and some major and independent record companies, is dramatically changing the business landscape. Some major acts are realizing that the erosion of sales is reducing the marketing budgets and, therefore, the promotion of their music. Record companies are experiencing a drastic decrease of physical sales and there is no significant progress in the digital Latin market, but artists live off their performances, not record sales, and here’s where the paths visualized by these erstwhile partners start to diverge.

Established artists now realize that the old days of spending are over, and they cannot rely entirely on their labels for the promotion of their singles and/or albums, if they want to maintain the amount of personal performances steady. So, artists are starting to have a bigger presence on the internet by themselves. Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter are now great tools for marketing to fans and, much more importantly, they are also starting to promote their music on radio stations, bypassing or replacing the labels’ work with great success. The rationale behind this move is: the labels soon will not have records to sell, and until there is a reliable system to sell music, we still have shows to put on. The first signs of established artists becoming independent are here. Some of them are just signing distribution or license deals for short periods of time and small numbers of records, instead of direct agreements with the labels. Others are considering not to record albums anymore, just recording one song every four to six months, as they believe they can have enough airplay to go on, saving money and time, and really making a profit on every single song recorded.

If this trend continues and more artists successfully market their own records, we are going to see the creation of independent marketing companies to service those artists, and more artists creating their own marketing structures. Some of them will see this as an opportunity to be free in the creation process on a record, make their own decisions, take their own risks, invest their own money and measure their own success. New artists will continue to break out as a product of a record label, but many new ones will find the promotion of a single by an independent marketing company very attractive. In other words, record labels could be one more player in the promotion of new artists, instead of being “the player.”

It looks like anything can happen in the present environment and everybody is pondering their next move. Are we, independent music publishers, ready for the challenges and changes ahead?

© 2010 Maximo Aguirre

Hats off to Panos Panay and his team! Sonicbids is evolving – they are launching the initial testing phase of a no-cost Gig Listing.

This step towards change will hopefully mean access to more live performance opportunities for artists with limited budgets.

In order to apply for an opportunity to play a gig on Sonicbids, most of the time the artist needs to pay a submission fee which could range from US$5 – US$50. According to Branden of ArtistData (a Sonicbids company), “while these fees have provided as a good filter over the years, artists have continually given feedback to Sonicbids that they’d like to see more free gig listings. This initiative is a direct response to that feedback.”

Starting today, Sonicbids will be testing the no-cost listing system and eventually wants the vast majority of the gigs on the site to be free. “We know this is the direction we want to go, but it’s also important to do it right. This initial test will allow us to learn all the positive and negative effects no-cost listings has” (Sonicbids).

Visit SONICBIDS for more information.

Beame & Mencher LLP

This seminar is part 3 in a three-part interactive series examining the business of music, songwriters, and music publishing. Presentations will focus primarily on songwriters who are also recording artists:

• exploring the interplay between songwriting, publishing deals, and recording contracts
• examining the differences in copyright protection between musical compositions (songs) and sound recordings (masters),
• highlighting the impact of the controlled composition clause of a recording agreement on a songwriter’s publishing,
• and looking to the role of the “360 deal” on the future of music publishing (if any).

Attendees will get the opportunity to network with industry professionals, learn how to protect their music, and earn money from their craft.
Register online today.

To learn more, visit www.bmlawgroup.com or register at www.bmlawgroup.eventbrite.com.

While sitting in a lecture on Music Publishing and Copyright in 2009, former L’Acadco dancer and now 360ARTISTS President, Simone Harris, made a decision to educate dancers about their rights under copyright law in the same way that musicians can access information on how to protect their musical product.

According to Harris, “choreographers in the Caribbean region have for far too long been treated as the forgotten creators of original content….they have just as much legal protection from infringments as musicians and should be aware of their rights under law.”

Since that moment of committement to empowering choreographers,360ARISTS has partenerd with the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston Jamaia, eNKompan.E, Re:Designing Legal and Jane of all Trades to produce Jamaica’s first dedicated dance copyright workshop.

The workshop which was held on April 30 (the final day of Jamaica’s Intellectual Property Week) featured presentations from Phillippa Davis of the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office (JIPO), Mrs. Degrasse-Johnson, Director of the Edna Manley College – School of Dance, Valerie Sutton, creator of the DanceWriting dance notation technique, the Dance Notation Bureau, and other dance notation and dance copyright experts. (Valerie Sutton was not able to be physically present but presented via Skype).

Harris and the Choreography is Copyrightable team, which includes, Neila Ebanks and Kayanne Taylor Esq., believe that this project has signaled a new day for the dance community across the region and are committed to taking Choreography is Copyrightable into as many places and spaces as physically possible.

The team has been invited to host the workshop in Barbados during the Caribbean Educative Arts Festival in October. They hope to host another workshop in Trinidad by 2011.

New media does not depend on the traditional means of communication; rather, it includes the use of the Internet, mobile devices, electronic games, RSS feeds, social networks, blogs and podcasting. While traditional media is still utilized, statistical reports on the growth of new media usage reflects an astounding increase in popularity and preference. New media has introduced affordability, simplicity, convenience and availability, attributes that drive consumer demand in today’s music industry.

Recognizing that “music marketing has always been and will always be about exposure and discovery” (Kusek, et al, 2005) is important. For years, radio, television, MTV, live shows, magazines, brick and mortar retail outlets, and word of mouth have been the dominant methods of exposing new music to consumers. But in today’s characteristically digital market place, we are exposed to new music in a vast array of new and innovative ways that integrate direct and personalized methods and of course, new media. There is no question that the Internet has grown faster than any other media because of its ability to sustain content that is relevant to everyone (Stewart, 2009) and because of this traditional mass media – radio, television, and print – have come under extreme pressure. Not only are consumers venturing to the Internet to access, discover, share, purchase and download music, but marketing executives are following suit and spending their ad dollars on new media strategies.

With this in mind – the Caribbean Cultural Conference 2010 opens the discussion on how Caribbean artists can incorporate new media strategies as they market, promote, and distribute their product.

(Taken from Simone Harris’ Master’s in Music Business Thesis 2010)

In the first plenary session “Marketing your music in the digital age: The power of new media strategies,” panelists, Harris Simone, Carlette DeLeon, Noah Jolles, Heather Cunningham, and Patrice Barnes discussed the key role that new media, specifically the internet, plays in an artist’s ability to better market their musical products.

Noah Jolles of ND Promotions suggested that the market has opened up tremendously for an ‘independent’ artist but it is incumbent on these artists to better differentiate their product among the sea of other self funded artists who are using the same channels for exposure.
He mentioned that historically, major labels controlled music distribution channels and with the advent of digital aggregators that can get musical product to the global marketplace in a short period of time, artists are now in a position to “get their music out there easily.” Jolles was careful to note, however, that in today’s saturated music marketplace it is important to have a strategic plan that will allow the artist to develop a core market that will be willing to buy the product. Barnes agreed with Jolles arguing that much of the saturation in the Caribbean market is caused by artists who release new music too frequently.

DeLeon from Headline Entertainment, argued that Jamaican artists have never had a problem using new media technology such as social media but they have been unable to translate their online fame into dollars. She advices that artists should use the technology to better determine where their biggest markets are and develop focused strategies that will build their brand in those areas.

Harris agreed with DeLeon while suggesting that the seemingly predominant inability to capture core audience and get them to spend is connected to the fact that many may not understand their market and communicate effectively (beyond doing status updates and posting “check out my video links.”) She mentioned improv jam band, Umprhrey’s McGee, that is wholly independent and averages over 100 shows per year and who have been known for experimenting with new technologies. She believes that Caribbean artists can do the same thing….because the internet has given them access to the same new media tools.
According to Harris “new media has empowered independent artists…it is for our artists to take hold of that power and make it work for them.”

Early on in the discussion the theme centered around the word “attitude.”
Carlette DeLeon argued that she is always careful to assess the individual’s attitude before working with them. Natasha Andrews-Noel stated that she looks at how proactive the artist’s attitude is…how much have they done on their own?

Mike Swinger from Hot Trackz Ent. argued that his company fills a gap because the first thing they do is to invest in artist development…..interview training, presentation, recording production. Even though costly, Mike who has over 15 years experience working with major labels believes that this better prepares artists for the next big opportunity. He highlighted that from a marketing and promotions side, it could cost an artist between $3K and $15K to set up major promo and marketing.

Shirley Menard addressed a question from the audience re:power of attorney….as an entertainment attorney she advised that power of attorney agreements are useful but should not be across the board and should be limited to allow managers to sign checks when the artist is not around.

Michelle Arthurton asked….how has artist management changed in 5 years?
Mike Joseph responded by saying that they are developing artists more and it is crucial that they develop a talent for understanding what’s going to sell according to the demand in the market. He believes that the biggest things that has changed is that there is more guidance rather than just managing a career.

According to Menard today’s market is very do-it-yourself (DIY).
“Before record labels had different departments to cover aspects of the artist’s career but without a label the artist is the label and artist – having to promote and produce.”
In this situation the manger provides tour support, radio support, etc, the manager can have a team but that team is not working for free and the manager becomes the artist’s major support system.

She also added that “in this economy, artists learn about speaking to specific journalists in specific markets, and utilizing companies that can press cds affordably etc – essentially forcing artists to think business and be strategic.

Carlette DeLeon added that – trust is important to artists…stating that the management realm has not changed in Jamaica over the past 5 years. She recommended that artists explore a co management option which allows them to work with a trained professional and a person that they trust.

Advice to artists
Mike – “research management companies before signing on with one.”
Natasha – “do your research and never be quick to sign a contract, make sure you understand the terms/language of the contract, be careful when signing a power of attorney, look out for words like “exclusive”
Shirley Menard – “exclusivity doesn’t mean the manager is exclusive to artist – the artist is exclusive to the manager”
Carlette DeLeon – “leverage bargaining position with manager….put yourself in a position where you can build your brand to be better able to attract a good manager. Work hard at being your own manager until you can find a manager that can do the job for you.”