d(see comments) ----- Original Message ----- From: GAmoore@... To: Logic_Cafe@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 6:15 AM Subject: Re: [Logic_Cafe] music publishing biz > Unless there are extraordinary circumstances, I would avoid becoming > represented (signed) by almost any music publishing companies. .... If you do a > little study or get the right partner, you can do this without them. Hang out > with successful writers and see how they do things. > Thanks for great tips, Tim! And for becoming a member of ASCAP if you have a "commericially recorded CD", does that mean you can make your own CD, and have 1000 copies created using one of those services, then put it up for sale on CDBaby? Technically, yes, that constitutes having one of your songs "published". I dont' know how much money could be generated that way, but it does fulfill ASCAP or BMI's requirements. Actually this discussion has motivated me to do a little research on what it takes to call yourself a "publishing company". In John Braheny's book "The Craft and Business of Songwriting" (3rd ed) he tells how to start your own publishing company (p.218). Basically you need to create a unique company name which is sufficient different from your name or any other company name, then you register a "DBA". (I can tell you from my own experience, that as soon as I did that before, I got a letter from my local city government demanding $100/year for a city business license - with some extremely high fines if I didn't comply quite quickly.) You can operate the business in various ways.That is true. What I was saying is the ASCAP or BMI will pay you anyway, even if your publishing company is not a legal entity (ie a DBA, a corporation, or whatever); all that they care about is that this "person" (business) is registered with them. It seems like this is a good business opportunity for someone - to create a cyber publishing company and just charge a minimum fee to "little" songwriters like us - kinda like "help you sell" undercuts the real Real Estate agents. Maybe such a thing already exists? That is how the music publising business got started way back in the day: one guy would write the songs and the other would take care of the business: do a lead sheet, get it copywrited, get the tune placed with an artist and then do the collections. Great companies were started this way and there are some famous stories. But, unfortunately, it is very hard to get publishing companies to do their jobs and the ignorance, ie, lack of education both spiritual and material, on the part of the writers hasn't helped, either. The big companies flash huge somes of money to writers --- because the writers don't know what big sums they are generating. Therefore the pubco many times will end up making much more than the writer--- AND they can get out of audits and reporting if the writer doesn't watch them carefully. But there are good stories, too, of writers who have been trained and who know what to do. I would recommend "how to Be a music Publisher" by Walter E. Hurst, available from 7 Arts Press in Hollywood. They have a number of other books, too, which all new writers should study. In addition, most good universities have courses on Music publishing. UCLA has some courses (I used to give lectures there) but Bonnie Greenberg teaches the best courses and has some papers and books out that I would recommend as well. As a new writer, I would get my hands on as many of these books as possible, read them all, take notes on them and then I would get an internship in a music publishing company or in the royalties division of a record company or in the A&R department of a record company --- so you can see what actually goes on. Good luck. t Greg Greg ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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Re: [Logic_Cafe] music publishing biz
2007-04-05 by Tim McLane