The Business of Music
The business of music is probably one to the most overlooked part of a recording artist, songwriter or music producer’s career. I’ve found that experienced industry professionals sometimes don’t have a clue about the business of music. Time and time again I am approached by recording artist, songwriters and music producers, who are looking for a way to get exposure, build a fan base and start making money with their music.
I must admit that some to the demos I listened to were very good. The production quality met today’s industry standards, art work was unique and eye catching. The overall product looked good on the surface. After digging a little deeper, I found the music was not registered nor was it copyrighted. To make matters worse, the artist didn’t have written agreements with the producers of the music.
With that said, there was nothing I could do with their music, and no way to make money with it; more than often artist present music that's not properly registered or cleared. Publishers, music supervisors, radio stations, Youtube, and other potential sources of revenue streams will not touch your music unless it is properly cleared and registered. So, before you can start making money with your music you must first establish a good business foundation. Not only will a good business foundation make your music marketable, it protects you and your rights. This segment will cover 2 key areas you need to focus on before you can properly register, market, and license your music to start making money. Working from the ground up, starting a new project, a recording artist or music producer should consider these two elements.
Budget and Contracts
Budget
On the surface a budget may sound like a simple and straight forward concept, but it’s not. There are many details and unavoidable expenses when launching a music project. The worst is spending the bulk of your funds on one item and end up with nothing left to cover the list of other things you will need to give your project its best chance for success. Too many projects fizzle out because a budget was not established to ensure key areas of the project would be covered. Not only will you have to pay for recording and recording related expenses, you have to pay for marketing and promotions as well. Let’s consider some of the expenses you will need to incorporate into your budget. When establishing your budget, consider the following:
- Recording/Studio Time
- Photos Shoot
- Video Production
- Promotions (release party, marketing materials, etc.)
- Wardrobe
- Web site design and maintenance
- Manufacturing and distribution
- Social site maintenance
- Memberships, registration fees
- CD / demos
- Administration fees
- Legal fees
This is just an example of some of the expenses you can except to incur when launching a project. By the time you get our making money with your music series, you'll have a good ideal of how to structure your project, the elements you want to include, and the cost. I can’t stress enough the importance of establishing a solid and accurate budget. Thank your project through. Make a list, write it down. Go over it repeatedly to ensure you are incorporating all the key elements needed to give your project the best chance of success. Research the cost, do price comparisons. You can save by doing a lot of the work yourself, like setting up and managing you own web site, which we will get into later in this series. If you can’t afford a lawyer for contracts and other legal issues at the start of your project, do them yourself. There is no law that says you can’t write your own contracts. Of course later on you will need professional legal advice as you grow and start generating revenue. But for now, simple written agreements can save you headaches, time and money, as well as offer you some limited protection until you can afford the expense of an attorney.
Contracts
Although I am not an attorney and cannot give legal advice, I will say that you as an individual have the right to enter into and execute agreements without the assistance of a licensed attorney. Of course if budget permits, hire an attorney; although I find that most entry level and some more experienced industry professionals can’t carry the cost of legal representation, especially, let’s say when you are recording in your best friend’s garage, you wrote the lyrics and he created the music. Who wants to shovel out $3,000 to an attorney for that? But even in a situation like this you need to have a written agreement covering ownership, royalties and publishing rights to any song you create, so if the song suddenly skyrockets there’s no dispute over owns the song or who gets what from sales and publishing royalties.
What’s a contract? A contract is defined as an agreement to do or not to do a certain thing. For all intent and purposes it should be in writing but can be verbal. There are four essential elements to a valid contract;
- The parties to the contract must be capable of contracting (not a minor, mentally stable, etc.).
- Mutual consent (both parties must agree to the terms and conditions of the contract.
- A lawful object (the contract must have a legal objective).
- Consideration (what will each party get by fulfilling the agreement).
Of course there are many details in professionally written contracts that we won’t cover in this series, again, I am not an attorney and am not giving legal advice. This segment focuses on alternative ways to facilitate legal obstacles without the huge expense of legal representation.
Once you have written agreements you can copyright and register your songs with a performing rights organization, and allocate publishing shares according to your agreements; now your songs can be placed with a publishing company looking for songs to license for a new movie soundtrack, commercial or video games. Having written agreements allow you to properly copyright and register your songs, which is the first step in making money with your music.
Visit www.razorsharpmusic.com to get more information on music contracts and making money with your money. Visit us on Youtube as well for live video workshops on music publishing, copyright, streaming , downloading, monetizing, sample contracts, and more. Learn to make money with your music.