A Bass Players Opinion on It All

My journey through music

a Bass players opinion on it all.

Unit 39: The sound and The music industry, Contracts andRoyalties

In this essay I will be talking about the importance of contracts and royalties in the sound and music industry, I will be talking about a specific job role in the music industry of my choice and discuss the contracts involved in the business. I also will be talking about how contracts are important and will talk about an example of a contract being broken and how rules apply. In the second part of this essay I will talk about the importance of Royalties and will give example of agencies that work in that field and how they work.

My chosen job role is a Solo Bass performer, this involves recording and performing live and with this comes with two approaches, The first way would be to be Self-Employed and in this day an age I believe this is easier and gives the performer more freedom. With technology growing you can record and release your own music without needing a record label. As a self-employed musician I would have to fund everything myself which is one main reason why people sign to record labels. If I was self-employed I would be my own manager and will have to sort out PRS and other royalty related things that I will talk about in the second section of this essay. The other approach to this job is sigh to a record label, the record label would provide a record contract which would mean they will pay for my music to be made and they will release it and market it for me leaving me more time to perform, the down side to this is the the fact I will have less control of the image of music and also will be restricted to what I can do, for example some contracts state that a artist must release 8 albums a year and have to perform a certain amount of hours a year which leaves not much freedom for the artist. In my opinion if I was to pursue this job I would choose the self-employed route because it has more freedom, Steve lawson is a good example of a Self-employed performer becoming just as successful as a signed Artist.

I will now talk about the types of contracts in the music business;

PUBLISHING CONTRACT,

This is a contract between a songwriter and a publisher which gives the publisher the right to use the songwriters music to sell to companies to be used in the TV adverts or video games etc. The importance of this contract is to protect the songwriter and publisher, the contract protects the songwriter by restricting what there music can be used for, for example some contracts say that the music will not be used for pornographic content. The contract protects the publisher by legally giving the publisher right to sell the music and make money because piracy is a big problem in the music industry. the contract will also state how much percentage the publisher will get from using the songwriters music in media, this is very important because if you sighed a publishers contract without reading it properly you could sigh a contract that gives the publisher 60% of the profit of your music which is not something a songwriter wants.

PERFORMANCE CONTRACT,

A performance contract is a contract between the performer and the venue that sets up the terms and conditions of a gig for example the contract will state how long the performer will play for and how much money they will be paid, These contracts are very important in any live event because they protect the performer in case the venue owner refuses to pay and protects the venue owner if the performer broke the contract for example drank alcohol before and during the performance. these contracts are the most used contracts because each live event should have set up a performance contract for each performer.

MANAGEMENT CONTRACT,

This contract is between the Artist and a Manager, this contract decides what the manager can control and also what the Artist will get from the manager, for example the contract will state the manager will be in charge of what gigs you do and in return will insure you will be comfortable and stress free. a Manager’s job is to promote theArtistand sort out the recordings and performances of the Artist. a managers will usually charge 20% of the performers overall earnings. this contract is important for Artists who are not very organised or for bands because the manager will take charge and stop a band member becoming “too big for there boots”. In my opinion I don’t believe in Managers contracts because in the heavily technology based society we live in we can promote ourselves and talk to anyone in the world without needing a middle man.

RECORDING CONTRACTS,

This contract is between a Artist and a Record label, this contract is designed to give an artist the ability to record and release there music with the hassle of funding it your self and not have to worry about promoting and organizing it, the record label use contracts to protect them and to make money for example the contract will say that the artist will be paid a lump sum upfront to pay for the album(s) to be made but the Artist must release a certain amount of albums a year, these contracts can last for life or just 5 years but there are times where a contract is terminated because it has been broken or the company goes under and sold, when a record company is sold an artist could be dropped or be sighed under the new company. if the contract is terminated it could be from the record label not fulfilling there side or the Artist not fulfilling there’s. this is another contract I believe to be outdated because of the cost to distribute being free with use website like ‘Bandcamp’ and the cost of a recording studio dropping because of technology making it easier to do it yourself.

REMIX CONTRACT,

This contract is between the remix Artist and the original Artist, it is a contract asking for the remixing artist to remix the original song and to release it for profit. this contract is designed to allow the remix artist to have free control over remixing the track but also to ensure that the original artist is still credit and paid for creating the original content the original artist would be PPL Royalties but the remix artist will have PRS and MCPS rights.

VERBAL AND WRITTEN CONTRACTS,

There are two types of contracts; verbal and written. these two contracts have different pro’s and cons and I will go over each one and also add my opinion on which one is better.

A verbal contract is a contract that does not require a signature or a bunch over paper but instead will require two parties to come to agreement over how something will happen, a verbal contract is basically the same as a written contract but instead of the terms and conditions being wrote down they will be spoken and usually they will handshake and promise to keep there side but the major problem with this type of contract is the fact there is no real evidence of the contract being made and can if the other party did not hold up there side of the deal you would have a low chance of winning a court case. the only way to really hold up a verbal contract in court is too have a video recording of the contract being made with a real time clock to show that the footage is not edited or fake but still then it isn’t 100% secure.

A Written contract is when the terms and conditions of the agreement is wrote down for both parties to read and agree with, both parties will sigh and then the contract will be legally binding and if either party fails to follow the contract will not have a good defence when it would come to court because a contract requires both parties to sigh and agree as well as have two witnesses to say that it was real. In my opinion this is the better type of contract because with a good written contract you are 100% secure and protected from being “screwed” which is the main purpose of a contract.

I will now give an example of how a contract was breached and how the both parties dealt with it.

The band ’30 seconds to mars’ were signed to a a record company called EMI and were sued for 30 million us dollars because they failed to release 3 of the 5 albums they were supposed to have released when they sighed there 1999 contract but the band stated that the contract was null and void because the contract was 7 years old and under the California law in which they sighed the contract under supported there point. the record company were in rights of there contract but so were the band because both found loop holes in there contract which is a problem when writing contracts because sometimes failing to see these holes can cause problems like what happened for EMI and the band, the court case was settled with the band sighing a new contract with EMI and the company saying “We are thrilled to have set aside our differences and signed a new agreement with Thirty Seconds to Mars. Our relationship has been extremely rewarding and successful, and we’re eager to move forward and put our global team to work.” This example shows how written contracts can be used against you as well as for you.

ROYALTIES AND ROYALTY COLLECTION AGENCIES,

What is Royalties?

Royalties are the money people are entitled from the money made from the selling of music, royalties are more important then the original money made from the music being sold because royalties is money you get from the song being played in events and radios, royalties are your percentage of the money made from that piece of music. people who will get royalties from the music; the lyricist, band members, record label, publishers and sometimes producers depending on who is part of the making of the music, it is important that you don’t automatically get royalties for being part of the making of music it has to be agreed upon in the a contract for example a session musician will not get royalties for playing on the album because he would agree to take a sum of money to play on the album but not receive royalties. you can acquire royalties without being part of the making of music by being agreeing to distributing for 10% of the royalties or your spouse dying and the the royalties become yours. Royalties are distributed by the company collecting the money of the right people who owe money and then once the money has been calculated and the tax and the companies cost is taken off then the money is distributed to the each person individual who is entitled to it.

The different royalty collection agencies,

Why are PPL,PRS and MCPS important to a artist? well its because without these companies in place, a Artist would have to sort out the money there owned by themselves and this will take a lot of time and effort. with these companies in place it lets the artist carry on making music and gigging without the hassle of sorting out the royalties. the way the companies work is that you register your music and a bank account and they sort out the rest. these companies are very important to artists.

PRS,

PRS(performing rights society) are the royalty collectors for the live side of music, they pay royalties to the songwriters/publishers for other people playing there music in venues and public places, you can get royalties from other people playing your music for example covers, places playing your music over the p.a for example in a store or on a radio station. for your music to be covered by PRS you have to sigh up and pay a fee of £50 minimum. for a shop or venue to play your music they must have register to PRS and pay annually of what music they played that year so that PRS can give the right moneys to the right people. PRS also deal with the royalties were music is used in DVD’s and merchandise.

Sometimes PRS do blanket licences that let people play as much music as they like and any music as they like depending on how important the music is, for example a radio station may need one because they play music 24/7, the only down side to a blanket licence is that they can cost up to £1,000,000 .PRS cannot know what music is being played where and when at all times so they rely on venues and stores keeping record of what they played so that PRS can pay the right people.

MCPS,

PRS-MCPS (performing rights society- mechanical-copyright protection society) are the ones who protect the artists from their music being misused, for example being used in a TV show with permission or being pirated on the internet. MCPS pay royalties to the artist for the misused music as well as helping them with legal action. MCPS also keep count of all the albums being made and sold so that they know that the right amount of royalties are being paid out. MCPS make money by taking a cut of the royalties that got for the Artist/Publisher.

PPL and VPL

PPL (Phonographic Performance Limited) and VPL (Video Performance Limited) both are in charge of collecting royalties from venues and shops from using recordings of music, the difference between PRS and PPL is that PPL protect the actual recording not the performance of the song, for example jukeboxes and CD’s playing over the p.a. the music these have a digital code in the wave form which makes the songs easily read by PPL and these codes are called ISRC’s (international standard recording codes) and can be used all over the world so that PPL can know what music is being played where, these codes are only assigned to registered tracks to make Royalties more manageable.

DRM,

DRM(digital restriction management) are in charge of making sure that music is misused after being bought for example downloading the music and changing the format to make copy’s of it, DRM use scrambling codes that are embedded into the files of the music to stop people from making illegal copy’s of it. DRM is used buy many Online music websites to stop the spread of piracy.

ASCAP,

ASCAP(American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) this is a organisation made by musicians for musicians, with a over 500,000 us songwriters and other roles in the music industry being part of it, the organization is designed to help musicians with their music being licensed and the royalties being correct.

ASCAP do a license similar to the blanket license that PRS do but what this does is allows the venue to play any song from the registered discography of the ASCAP and then pays the royalties correctly to the artists being played. The ASCAP does not just have small artists it also deals with larger musicians like katyperry.

SYNCHRONISATION LICENSE,

synchronisation license is when a musician/ songwriter lets a sync company have the right to use there music on video games and any other visual media, this is a good thing to have because you can make a lot of money from having your music in video games and other forms of media that have sequels, having your music synced to a video game for example with increase your fan base because not only will the people who like your genre listen to you but also the fans of the game your music featured in.

Piracy and the laws against it,

Piracy is when people illegally copy a piece of media and distribute for profit or non profit reasons. Piracy is a big problem in the music industry because when a illegal copy is sold the artist and record company’s receive nothing and there for costing them money. if piracy was not illegal the music industry would of died by now because without people paying for legal copies of the music there would be no income from CD sales. CD’s cost distribute and promote and without the laws that stop piracy there would be no positives in making CD’s. If your content is being illegally distributed and copied and you have evidence to prove it. you can file a lawsuit against the person being a ‘Pirate’. many companies have done this, with a lawsuit being taken out almost every week. A example of piracy lawsuit is the ‘Napster’ case where larsulrich from metallica and some other people took a lawsuit out on Napster because they were illegally distributing music over the internet.