Gimmie That Beat

Today’s Topic: “Work-For-Hire” Agreements   According to the United States Copyright Act [17 USC Sec. 102] , an author enjoys copyright protection as soon as he/she “fixes” his/her original work in a “tangible medium of expression” (for example by writing it down or recording it). The same principle applies, however, for independent contractors (artists, back-up musicians, back-up vocalists, etc.) who are hired to contribute to larger productions. What does that mean? Well, artists, that means that even though you pay the back-up singers on your tracks, or the graphic designers, video editors, and web developers to help package your branding tools, each contributor continues to have ownership in whatever original work they’ve created. Just because you’ve paid for a service does not mean that you own the product or the money you make from it (what we lawyers call “results and proceeds” )! We imagine at this point that you’ve probably become concerned about how you can own...

Today’s Topic: TuneCore vs CDBaby With digital music sales increasing due to the decline of physical albums, companies (called “aggregators”) such as TuneCore and CDBaby are revolutionizing marketing opportunities for independent artists. Aside from offering online music distribution and performance-royalty collection (working alongside PROs), they also collect publishing royalties from the sale and streaming of compositions. When faced with the choice of affiliation, however, an in-depth comparison between the two giants may seem daunting. Allow us to provide a starting point… (1) With CDBaby, the sign-up cost is $12.95 per song and $49 per album with no annual fee. There is a 15% commission for collecting publishing royalties, with a self-renewing contract term (as long as neither composer or CDBaby terminates) for songwriters & composers (there is a 1-year contract for publishers). In contrast, TuneCore offers free membership, but services trigger fees af...

Today’s Topic: The Harry Fox Agency (HFA) Under US copyright law (and in most other developed countries), an individual has copyright ownership in his/her original musical composition as soon as he/she fixes it in a “tangible medium” (like writing it down or recording it). One of the important ways in which composers can profit from their creation of a new musical composition is when it is used in a sound recording (a “record”). When a musical composition is used in a record and a copy of that record is sold, the owner of copyright in that record (there can be many different sound recordings of any particular musical composition – think about all the different versions of “White Christmas”) pays a “mechanical royalty” to the composer under what is called a “mechanical license.” Under the mechanical license, the composer grants to the sound recording owner (usually a record company) the right to reproduce and distribute the copyrighted musical composition. The Harry Fox Agency (HF...

The owner of a copyright in a protected musical composition may use the work as (s)he wishes; conversely, (s)he may prevent others from using that work without authorization. Whenever a musical work ("song") is being performed for commercial purposes, that owner should almost always expect to receive a royalty. Making individual efforts to collect royalties, however, require hours of investigation and paperwork - tracking how many times the song has been played, determining whether it was performed on TV, in a film, on the radio or Internet, or calculating which percentage of the royalty goes to which owner (if the song has co-composers). This is where it makes sense to become a member of a Performance Rights Organization ("PRO"). The purpose of these organizations is to track the "public performance" of musical compositions (anything from elevator-music to radio play to live band concerts), collect license fees for copyright owners who are PRO member...