Monetizing Entertainment

Student’s Study Guide

2017 Version

Larry Wacholtz

Edited by

Beverly Schneller

Table of Contents

Welcome!

Chapter 1: The Perfect Storm

Summary

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

For Further Learning

Insider’s Career Tip

Chapter 2: The Three Wows

Summary

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

For Further Learning

Insider’s Career Tip

Chapter 3: The Rules of the Game

Summary

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

For Further Learning

Insider’s Career Tip

First Three Chapters Recap

Chapter 4: The Entertainment Business

Summary

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

Check Your Understanding of Key Ideas in This Chapter

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

For Further Learning

Insider’s Career Tip

Chapter 5: The Significance of Narration

Summary

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

For Further Learning

Insider’s Career Tip

Chapter 6: Music Publishing—What’s the Deal?

Summary

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

For Further Learning

Insider’s Career Tip

Recap of Information from Chapters 4–6

Chapter 7: Recording Lightning in a Bottle

Summary

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

For Further Learning

Insider’s Career Tip

Recording Budget Worksheet

Bid Sheet—General Information

Bid Sheet—Projected Expenses—Cost of Show

Bid Sheet—Projected Ticket Sales Revenue

Bid Sheet—Revenue from Food and Merchandise

Bid Sheet—Profit/Loss Projections

Chapter 8: The Label Business—Recording Budgets

Summary

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

For Further Learning

Insider’s Career Tip

Chapter 9: Odds of the Game

Summary

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

For Further Learning

Insider’s Career Tip

Chapters 7–9 Summary of Key Ideas

Chapter 10: Promotion/Publicity and Media

Summary

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

For Further Learning

Insider’s Career Tip

Chapter 11: Representation

Summary

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

For Further Learning

Insider’s Career Tip

Chapter 12: The Concert and Event Business

Summary

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

For Further Learning

Insider’s Career Tip

Chapters 10–12 Key Points

Welcome!

Welcome to Monetizing Entertainment:An Insider’s Handbook forCareers in the Entertainment & Music Industry,and welcome to my world!

Though we may never meet, I want you to know I wrote this book for you.I have spent my professional career in the entertainment and music business, starting with my own company in Nashville, Tennessee, helping industry people find new entertainment opportunities, and after some years as an entrepreneur, I became a full time faculty member at Belmont University, also in Nashville, where I have had the pleasure of teaching wonderful, talented, eager, and inquisitive students who want to be in the entertainment industry.

In the pages of this book, you will find what I hope will become a resource for you as you prepare to become part of this dynamic and fabulous field.The Study Guide,which you are about to start, is meant to help you focus on some of the key ideas and things you will want to learn thoroughly as you complete your reading of the book and your course of study.Each of the chapters in Monetizing Entertainmentis outlined here through

  • A short summary;
  • A list of key insider’s professional terms;
  • A few content-based questions to help you recognize some of the main ideas of the chapter;
  • Two ways you can deepen your learning through taking a few minutes to complete a journal entry and/or to initiate your research into a related topic;
  • An insider’s “tip” which will aid you in seeing how the information in the chapter has its place in the industry.

The accompanying website for students has some but not all of the information contained in this fully developed study guide, so I encourage you to use both to maximize your understanding of the new entertainment and music industry and how to monetize entertainment.

While every author who writes a book would share my dream that you would keep your book and thumb it into shreds from rereading, I am going to be so bold as to you ask you do just that.Monetizing Entertainment is a handbook, and as such, it is as much of a textbook, full of facts, charts, and detailed information on the entertainment industry, as it is a manual for your future.The terms, examples, illustrations, and summaries of legal and professional information were all chosen to help you understand that the industry is a business that works on business models, laws, and financial principles and one that is constantly changing.To be successful in the industry, it is necessary to know these foundations and to use them to frame how you engage with industry executives, representation, creative teams, attorneys, and the talented people who make up the entertainment and music business.

Fasten your seat belts and let’s get started in learning the inner workings of entertainment and what you can do with your career in the industry!

Blessings, L

Larry Wacholtz

October 2016

Nashville, Tennessee

Chapter 1:The Perfect Storm

Summary

How do changes in society and the business of entertainment impact your desire for a career in the industry?

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

  • Creative destruction
  • Internet downloads
  • Stealing (as an industry term)
  • Innovation (from an industry perspective)
  • Digital signals
  • Digital devices
  • Seeders
  • Leechers
  • BitTorrent
  • Property (in the entertainment industry)
  • Equity loss
  • Consumer behavior
  • Owner’s rights
  • Copyrights.

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

  • What is creative destruction and why is it called that?
  • What role did Napster play in the current state of the entertainment industry?
  • Why is downloading usually referred to as stealing in the industry?
  • What is the impact of streaming on the music industry?
  • Do you agree or disagree that the music industry is in trouble? Why or why not?

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

  • How, based on your reading of Chapter 1, do you think you should prepare yourself to assume a career in the industry?
  • Write about an artist who has changed his or her brand or image.How did that work for them?

For Further Learning

  • Stephen Witt calls the kind of piracy he did an act on “an industrial scale.”Consider the impact of that on your favorite type of entertainment and take some time to discover the economic impact of that level of streaming or downloading on the career of an artist whose work you enjoy.This could include discovering how much money a musical act made on a concert, how many albums sold, how many endorsements signed, and so forth, or for a novelist or poet, the number of their works you can find “free” on Google Books or Google Scholar and how much money they or their publishers made in a recent fiscal year.
  • Acquaint yourself with the career of Cuban artist Tania Bruguera.How has she managed her artistic career and what do her life and work say about art in a communist society? Bruguera was born in Havana in 1968.

Insider’s Career Tip

You will have a better chance of succeeding in the entertainment and music industry if you read widely in such publications as Billboard, Variety, and Music Biz Worldwide, and sign up for the Dean’s List, a daily digest of news.

Use this space to write two or three questions you want to discuss or contribute to your class meetings on this chapter.

Chapter 2:The Three Wows

Summary

The basis of a successful entertainment product is its ability to be seen by the consumer as a “wow,” that is a product that speaks to the consumers’ emotions in a special way that they value uniquely and associate with that product. Within the industry, depending on the types of entertainment products, there are varying ways to create the wow, but the wow will be what the artists and the executives think about when deciding on what products and entertainment products to invest in.Even though the industry has undergone changes, there are still many opportunities to become a contributor, whether as an entertainer or an executive/leader, to the future of entertainment if you take the time to learn the history, the present, and the possible future of each of the entertainment industries.

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

  • A “wow” creative product
  • Image
  • Brand
  • Value
  • Filter.

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

  • What does it mean to have a wow in the entertainment industry?
  • What are the most important first steps you should take to break into the business?
  • What does it mean to have a “career timeline”?
  • What is the biggest problem associated with lasting success?
  • How does having knowledge and experience of the business, financial, and legal aspects of the entertainment industry potentially distinguish a wannabe from a person who has developed a career plan for a future in the industry?
  • What are the five features of the new business models we are experiencing in the industry today?
  • What are the future trends that we are watching in the industry today?
  • How do you become valuable to the industry?

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

  • What are the ways that DIYhas helped and hurt the entertainment industry?
  • How would you describe the entertainment industry?

For Further Learning

  • Consider what makes an entertainment a product a wow. For example, would you say that Shakespeare’s plays are a wow? Does the value of a wow change over time? Why and how?
  • To a certain degree, the idea of a wow is culturally driven.Take a moment to discover an artist from the global entertainment industry whose culture is different from your own.For example, what is the wow associated with the career of percussionist Yissy Garcia of Cuba or the French singer Edith Piaf?

Insider’s Career Tip

Having talent that the entertainment industry will recognize is only the beginning of the process of becoming an artist with a career.Find ways to attend and become involved in entertainment activities to form a network of people who may be able to help you and to allow yourself to be seen as someone with potential value to an entertainment company.You don’t need to have an internship or co-op to get started.How about volunteering for a book drive or to handout water bottles at a local 5K, where there are numerous corporate sponsors?

Use this space to write two or three questions you want to discuss or contribute to your class meetings on this chapter.

Chapter 3:The Rules of the Game

Summary

The need for and enforcement of copyright laws, which vary by country and form of governments, goes hand in hand with creativity. When we create something, we are naturally proud of it, and we know we own it, so we want to protect it and share it as we see fit.In the US, we use the website of the US Copyright Office for information about current laws, to access forms for copyright registration, and as a resource in understanding the six exclusive rights we have to our product once it is made into tangible form and thus, eligible to be copyrighted.Trademarks and patents are other ways our inventions are protected legally.Part of the creative destruction process is the impact of illegal downloads and streaming on copyrights and, further, the legal protection of safe harbors on the entertainment industry and creative people.While these have not stifled creativity, so far, their popularity and presences have made it harder for the entertainment industry to maintain its established sources of revenues, project profit and loss on investments, and anticipate the types of products that consumers will purchase.

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

  • Copyright
  • Intellectual property
  • Exclusive rights
  • Value of a music publishing catalog
  • Fixation process
  • Safe harbor
  • Fair use
  • Certificate of Registration and a Certificate of Recordation
  • Deposit copy.

Check Your Understanding of the Key Ideas in This Chapter

  • What is the meaning of property in the entertainment and music business?
  • What are the kinds of creative products that should be copyrighted?
  • What is the history of the copyright laws we use in the United States?
  • Over the years, for what reasons have the copyright laws changed?
  • What does infringement mean and how is infringement handled legally in the US?
  • What are the differences between copyrights, trademarks, patents, and service marks? Do these have different levels of legal protection in the US or are they all treated the same way?
  • What are the artist’s six exclusive rights?
  • How and from whom can the entertainment industry make money in the digital download and streaming environments?

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt

  • How will you protect your rights as a creative person or one who represents creative people?
  • What is the impact or potential impact of digitization on the idea of copyright?

For Further Learning

  • What are the moral, ethical, and cultural significances of having copyright laws and exclusive rights for creators of entertainment products?Look up an example of a copyright, patent, or trademark infringement case to help you develop your response.
  • You will find information on careers in patent and trademark protection in the US government at this site as a way to learn more about what the people who enforce patents and trademarks value about the creative process as they have made this type of work their career.

Insider’s Career Tip

Copyright law is key to creativity and to protecting your idea once it is in a tangible form.To be smart about navigating the world of copyright, you want to know the laws yourself so you can both hire smart when it comes to your legal representation team and protect yourself in the product development phases.

Circle © and the Circle ℗

Use this space to write two or three questions you want to discuss or contribute to your class meetings on this chapter.

First Three Chapters Recap

Create an outline reflective of the relationships between creative destruction, the creation of wow entertainment products, and the protection of created products.How do these pieces fit together?

Complete a diagram that illustrates how you show value to the industry through the processes of networking, building a creative team, and developing a career timeline.

Using a pro and con model, design a table that summarizes the impact of digital technology on the entertainment industry.What are the pluses and minuses and potential impact of digitization on the way we develop, consume, and protect creative works for entertainment?

Chapter 4:The Entertainment Business

Summary

My hope is you are starting to understand how important it is to know how business works. If you’re a creative person, then more than likely you’ll be starting your own entrepreneurial venture. If you’re seeking a career with one of the major studios or labels, management companies,and so forth, then you also understand how important it is to understand business principles, financial aspects of the business of entertainment, and how money works.

Building Your Professional Vocabulary

  • Business channels
  • Revenue streams
  • Target markets
  • Ideal customer
  • Value
  • Representation
  • Metadata
  • Value proposition
  • Entrepreneurship in the entertainment industry.

Check Your Understanding of Key Ideas in This Chapter

  • From a business standpoint, what is your value based on in the entertainment and music business?
  • What does it mean to be an entrepreneur in the entertainment and music business?
  • Why would you start your own business?
  • What are the main differences between creative careers, business careers, and legal careers in the entertainment industry?
  • What is meant by performance-based and performance-centered careers?
  • Why is the entertainment business considered a balancing act?
  • What sources of knowledge are needed to develop a comprehensive understanding of the entertainment industry?
  • What is the relationship between a wow product and the nine steps of business development?
  • How many different types of talent representation are found in the industry and what does each do?
  • What do publishers in the entertainment industry do?
  • How are labels and film production companies similar and different?
  • What are the basic aspects of promotion and publicity every person interested in the entertainment industry should know?
  • What is meant by the creative advantage in the entertainment and music industry?
  • How will you know which type of business will be best for you?

Journal Entry or Reflective Writing Prompt