The Deal With Sony / Atv Music Publishing Deal

Every music artist begins somewhere. Every artist had to do something to get their music out there. No one just automatically becomes famous. Then everyone wants to listen to your music. You start out new and anonymous and become more popular over time. Artist become famous by advertising. Every music artist should be able to advertise.

The music industry is made of companies which produce and sell music. The music industry as we know it was solidified in the mid-twentieth century, where records succeeded sheet music as the primary product in the music business. Record companies were established, but did not last very long until the late 1980s when the “Big Six”, a group of multinational corporations consisting of Sony, MCA, WEA, Polygram, EMI, and BMG controlled most of the market. Initially there were five corporations (CBS and RCA (both now belonging to Sony), WEA, EMI, and Polygram) that had emerged in 1978 to own 60 per cent of the market. (Wallis and Malm, 1984, p. 81)

Over the years, musicians have allowed their music to be used in advertisements for various businesses. However, doesn’t the artist’s creativity in their music fade away after it has been used in various commercials? Most importantly, advertisements may change the lyrics to a song to relate to the product, so the business would benefit more and take the focus away from what really matters, the music.

The occupation or role that will be discussed is the publisher. Publishers take a song that has been already been composer and attempt to persuade various artists or producers to record the song. Publishers also register copyrights, file mechanical and performing rights to the respective organizations, audit record companies, and collect royalties and payment.

For new bands, one of their first major steps into getting into the business is usually finding a record label. A record label is commonly known by most people as someone who simply signs a band and sells their music. What most people do not know is that they do much more than that. A label does do all the things that people believe they do, however, they also do much more to help an artist. A label is one band’s contact to other artists or promotors that will help further their popularity and reach out to more businesses who could potentially seek endorsement deals to support an artist while also advertising their own product (Lindvall). However, some bands have had negative experiences with labels. There are many negative outlooks on record labels recently and their work with certain artists.

For all of music’s history, the industry has favored the interests of songwriters over those of the performers. It appears that the industry believes that songwriters, both composers and lyricists, have full exclusive rights to whatever they compose, while performers have none to the music they perform. In Rock: Music, Culture, and Business, Schloss, Starr, and Waterman hold this value to be true in all of music’s history as well as currently, today. In terms of music business, this still remains an uneasy question to answer; to say whether, performers and composers both have rights, I have to agree. Schloss, Starr, and Waterman would be correct in that fact because performers like composers place their own styles and twists on the music. Therefore,

Over the past fifty years, the British Music Publishing industry has undergone dramatic changes. It has evolved as an entity with innovations in technology, changes and creations of laws and new mediums to promote and exploit songs to a wider audience. Therefore, the way in which the music publishing industry operates and exploits its assets has completely transformed, and continues to do so at a rapid pace. This paper will attempt to explore the ways in which publishers exploit song copyrights and the way in which this has changed over the past 60 years. It is important to define what is meant by copyright and its role within the industry. The Performing Right Society website states: “Copyright

The battle of the Recording Industry Association of America (R.I.I.A.) vs. LimeWire had as its goal to settle an issue over music piracy. LimeWire was a free peer-to-peer file-sharing network which shared both authorized song and unauthorized songs. The legal campaign of RIAA v. The People started on September 8, 2003, and lasted for five years (1).

Music has become a center piece of life; however it comes with a vigorous price unknown to most of the public. The music industry is littered with corruption. My proposed research problem focuses on the manipulation and control the music industry has upon its artists through an unescapable 360 deal, which in and of itself is not only reducing an artist to almost indentured servitude, but also cripples record labels themselves. The 360 deal is a common mandatory contract record labels utilize to financially support an artist. This includes advances and funds for promotion, touring, and marketing, all which the artist has to pay back to the label. I believe this problem is significant and warrants further research because the record labels are unconstitutionally taking away artists rights in favor of their own greed, in turn, leaving the artist without ownership of their own songs, money, and rights to royalties.

In contrast to the to the roles songwriters, performers, and song publishers had in the time of Tin Pan Alley, the roles performed by these individuals today in the music industry differ in some ways. For example, in today’s popular music industry, a musician could write and publish their own music if they wished to. Although not all musicians do this, it is more commonly done now than back then. I think the roles for each a songwriter, performer, and song publisher have gained more independence in the music industry with time (Resnikoff, “Now You

Starting in the year 1999, a company called Napster opened up a whole new world to the Internet where every song ever made was instantly available to you on your computer for free. It was created by an 18-year-old Northeastern University student named Shawn Fanning. Napster transformed personal computers into servers that shared mp3 files all across the Internet (Mayer, 2008). It became popular very quickly because exchanging mp3 files freely and having any music desired right at your fingertips had never been possible before. However, this program that provided the privilege of having free instant music to download did not last long, it was shut down after just two years by

understand what you're signing up , labels and manager will try to take advantage of the artist,it’s

‘Independent record labels have been around since music started being recorded’ (King, 2012, p.13). Created by fanatics with a passion for music, the recording and production process was often self-funded and the purpose was to nurture talent and creativity. Most of the major record companies we know today would have once started in this manner (King, 2012).

Producers are in the same situation. Inside producers only receive salary plus some royalties as compensation. While outside producers received a production fee and negotiated a royalty of 1% to 5%of the suggested retail price. Production fee varied dramatically, which means the production fee producers received depends most on the level of the producers themselves and the level of the artists they helped. However, they were only about 20 to 30 top producers who may receive so high production fee that they would like to pay for Hit Song Science. Other producers with low or relatively low production fee may not be willing to pay for Hit Song Science out of their slender income. It makes sense that famous artists prefer top producers who can help them make a hit and in turn, receive benefit from the hit. If artists, unsigned artists and producers only received a small portion of income from music, the biggest winner in the process of recording activity is record company. Managers and talent agents alone extract between 25% and 40% of a performer’s income. Record labels have the ability to pay for Hit Song Science. More importantly, they want to forecast sales levels for the titles in their portfolios.

Originally launched as American Record Company in 1929, Sony Music Entertainment Inc. has since established itself as a leading manufacturer of video, audio, communications, and information technology products.