studio work??

[lilBB]

Scenario:

local producer wants you to come in and do 2 things: 1)lay some guitar on songs he's already created; 2)come up with new songs together..

not a fly by night guy, actually has really good material, is signed to a label and we are somewhat familiar with each other and respect each other.

i know there's paperwork involved (contracts, etc) that musicians/producers can use. my problem is WHICH one's??

my objective is to work with him, understanding that he is not paying right now, but opportunity lies ahead. and i believe that too which is why its not a "pay me a fee and ill play" type deal.

i do want to create songs with him, but make sure i receive credit, future revenue, anything... without spoiling the creative opportunity now.

 

[uriahsmusic]

...I have been here a million times....
The first and foremost thing you must do is realize that there are two sides to this story.

The first is creative and personal.....the second is not!

If this person is signed with a label then they thoroughly understand the agreements that need to be dealt with in order to secure your share be given o you.

I repeat!!!

If this person is signed with a label then they thoroughly understand the agreements that need to be dealt with in order to secure your share be given o you.

soooo!

Do not feel self conscious about the paperwork and making sure it is in order before you start...he knows about it already!

....as for what paperwork you need...do not fool yourself here...do not fool yourself here....do not...not...not....fool yourself...

I am going to tell you your future...

You will have a great ole time writing and creating...the songs will work out great....then at some point in the future after it is all over...you will hear your self or your ideas on a recording....

You will say whoopie!!!...I'm gunna get paaayyyeedd!...

you call dude up and cant get a answer...he's busy...so you keep trying.....no answer....

someone says you should get a lawyer!....so you do....the lawyer says show me what you got!....You say we had an agreement...we filled out some basic contracts and got busy....

The lawyer throws you out of his office....

When you write music with someone you get the music copy written together.


Do not accept money in front without a document that expressly says that the the creative input was NOT a work for hire!!!!


GET A LAWYER UP FRONT TO LOOK AT THE CONTRACTS AND COVER EVERYTHING THAT YOU EXPECT TO HAVE TO SUE FOR IN THE FUTURE!

IF YOU CANT AFFORD A LAWYER THEN EXPECT TO BE ROBBED!

CUT OFF YOUR CABLE AND INTERNET AND PAY THE ENTERTAINMENT ATTORNEY!

THEY MAKE MOVIES ABOUT THIS STUFF...THE BASIC CONTRACTS COVER THE OTHER GUY...NOT YOU....THERE ARE AMENDMENTS THAT NEED TO BE ADDED TO SWAY THE DEAL TO FAVOR YOU....

If the guy is upright he will give you the paperwork to have reviewed and tell you upfront what you have to gain....take notes.

...Here is what I say to every offer that I get....
Wow this sounds like a great opportunity...so what's the agreement going to be in terms of future money for ME?....Then shut up and let him talk and take notes...

...If he says Dude it's not complicated like that...were just jammin....Dude let's just write some stuff....

....He doesnt intend to pay you at all....

So why am I saying all of this???

You have to decide up front why you are there. If you don't mind taking a little abuse for the cause of getting further...then roll with it....

...If you have to get paid for everything you do...then express that to them....

P.s.  Every paying gig I ever got from a published person came from doing someone else a favor....

[lilBB]

THANK YOU Uriah... valuable information.

i have a friend who's got some paperwork i may be able to use after i look at it and an attorney friend looks at it.

"When you write music with someone you get the music copy written together"

i will DEFINITELY follow up with him and do that. i wonder if at the least we can sign a short form agreement that says at least we'll copyright the original music together...

thanks again man. im going to read and re-read this post!

[gtrdave]

Something to understand about Copyright: the ONLY thing protected under copyright is the melody and the lyrics. Not the chords, not the chord progression, not the cool riff that you came up with, not the drum loop, etc...only the melody and the lyrics.

That said, if all you contribute to a song is the chords and someone wants to include your name on the copyright form as a song writer, good enough, but if they refuse because all you contributed were chords, it's within their right to do that because, again, chords do not constitute the "song" in the eyes of the Library of Congress.

Regardless of what you do/play/write/etc...try to get everything in writing before the session. Even if it's just a signed letter of intent or whatever, that's better than nothing at all.

[JayP5150]

Something to understand about Copyright: the ONLY thing protected under copyright is the melody and the lyrics. Not the chords, not the chord progression, not the cool riff that you came up with, not the drum loop, etc...only the melody and the lyrics.

That said, if all you contribute to a song is the chords and someone wants to include your name on the copyright form as a song writer, good enough, but if they refuse because all you contributed were chords, it's within their right to do that because, again, chords do not constitute the "song" in the eyes of the Library of Congress.

Regardless of what you do/play/write/etc...try to get everything in writing before the session. Even if it's just a signed letter of intent or whatever, that's better than nothing at all.

Good to know. I don't feel so bad about my stuff being still un-copywritten, as I have very little talent for constructing melodies lol.

Seriously, though, thanks, I think I misread that whole thing when I looked into it.

[lilBB]

Something to understand about Copyright: the ONLY thing protected under copyright is the melody and the lyrics. Not the chords, not the chord progression, not the cool riff that you came up with, not the drum loop, etc...only the melody and the lyrics.

That said, if all you contribute to a song is the chords and someone wants to include your name on the copyright form as a song writer, good enough, but if they refuse because all you contributed were chords, it's within their right to do that because, again, chords do not constitute the "song" in the eyes of the Library of Congress.

Regardless of what you do/play/write/etc...try to get everything in writing before the session. Even if it's just a signed letter of intent or whatever, that's better than nothing at all.

great info! that is crucial since a lot of originals i would be offering would be mostly chords progressions with licks and inflections interspersed in them.

so there is no benefit in coming up with the chord progression that makes a song??? guess thats the way it is since the same chord progression can be used in 1000 different songs. and that explains the Vanilla Ice copyright controversy since it was on the melody-type portion.

leads to another question then.... can a bass line constitute a form of melody? pretty off the wall but just being sure since it isn't chords or anything. thanks!

[uriahsmusic]

Something to understand about Copyright: the ONLY thing protected under copyright is the melody and the lyrics. Not the chords, not the chord progression, not the cool riff that you came up with, not the drum loop, etc...only the melody and the lyrics.

That said, if all you contribute to a song is the chords and someone wants to include your name on the copyright form as a song writer, good enough, but if they refuse because all you contributed were chords, it's within their right to do that because, again, chords do not constitute the "song" in the eyes of the Library of Congress.

Regardless of what you do/play/write/etc...try to get everything in writing before the session. Even if it's just a signed letter of intent or whatever, that's better than nothing at all.

...uhhh...I am not so sure about this!...to check I logged onto a legal forum and posed this question realy quite specifically!

here is the link:
http://forum.freeadvice.com/copyrights-trademarks-39/i-wrote-music-she-wrote-lyrics-melody-431338.html#post2048725

here is the question and answer I got...I did this becauase as a lawyer in my past explained it to me a copyright is not to say that you own the the chord changes ...but to establish your ownership stake in a song...and your legal right to your portion of ownership will not be denied because your imput was not the melody or lyrics!...

here is the text from the legal forum..
the question

I wrote the music and she wrote the lyrics and melody..
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Texas and NY
I have seen multiple posts that don't quite get to this exact question and the answer has always been that everyone involved owns an equal part of the copyright as long as there is nothing against that premise in writing.
The reason I ask this over is because I have always been told that you can only copyright the lyrics and the melody!
Not the chords or the that funky music track that the song was written to...Just the melody and the lyrics...

What is the real deal?
example is...Sally says lets hit the studio to write!...I show up...I throw down this slammin track (drums, piano guitar etc) she starts putting this melody an lyrics to it...
I wrote the music that she wrote the lyrics and melody to...do we split the copyright?

Once again ...I was told only the lyrics and melody can be copyrighted...

thanx fo answering

here is the answer they gave...

Your understanding is incorrect. The "song" is copyrighted -- the whole thing, not the individual parts. There is one copyright for the entire song, that's it. There may also be a separate copyright for the recording of the song, but there are not separate copyrights for individual pieces of a song, at least in a collaboration like you describe.

I have quite a few item in the library of congress registered this way....

[gtrdave]

I'll have to dig the answer out of my book, but Donald Passman, one of the leading entertainment lawyers who's extremely savvy on copyright law said pretty much what I posted earlier and he based it on similar scenarios that you and I have been involved in as far as the writing of a song.
Understand that if someone puts your name on a copyright form then you are credited as copyright owner BUT you're not necessarily the song writer. That's the detail that can be apparently can be held up in court if you did not contribute to the lyrics and the melody.

I've been through this with a songwriting friend of mine and we did a lot of research on the subject because, like you,  I was the "music" writer and she was the lyric and melody writer. She didn't have to (nor did she want to) give me credit for writing the song and she was in her legal means to do so.

So, you can bet that the NEXT time we worked together, I contributed to both the words and the melody. 

[Abe]

This is some very good discussion. I recall, some years ago, having to only write and submit the lead sheet in addition to an audio tape of the song in order to cover the copyrite process. That was a big problem at STAX. Very few cats could write/transcribe music.

In today's music indstry, I would think the copyright process is much faster/better with the use of computer software.

When I was in school, we had an instructor that preached the "Music Business" from a book that is still in circulation. The title is "This Business of Music, The Definitive Guide to the Music Industry, 10th Edition" by Shemel and Krasilovsky. It's a darn good book to have in your music library.

Here's a link to the book:
http://www.tower.com/this-business-music-m-william-krasilovsky-hardcover/wapi/101218802

What are your views in regards to ASCAP and BMI affiliations in the goepel music industry?

Thanks! 

[gtrdave]

This is some very good discussion. I recall, some years ago, having to only write and submit the lead sheet in addition to an audio tape of the song in order to cover the copyrite process. That was a big problem at STAX. Very few cats could write/transcribe music.

In today's music indstry, I would think the copyright process is much faster/better with the use of computer software.

When I was in school, we had an instructor that preached the "Music Business" from a book that is still in circulation. The title is "This Business of Music, The Definitive Guide to the Music Industry, 10th Edition" by Shemel and Krasilovsky. It's a darn good book to have in your music library.

Here's a link to the book:
http://www.tower.com/this-business-music-m-william-krasilovsky-hardcover/wapi/101218802

What are your views in regards to ASCAP and BMI affiliations in the goepel music industry?

Thanks! 

That's a great book. I have a copy here somewhere.
A couple more are "All you need to know about the music business" by Passman and "Sound advice" by Wadhams.

As far as ASCAP and BMI in Gospel, those are tracking and royalty organizations that help a publisher collect when their songs are played "in public". If you own the publishing to a song that's being played on the radio and you are an ASCAP or BMI member, you should rightly be collecting money from those who are playing back the track.
The process is more in-depth than that, but that's a basic scenario of what those organizations do.
Note that the "songwriter" and "publisher" are not always the same. The songwriter writes the song. They might even record the song. They might not (but could) duplicate the song and get into the hands of those who can get it played back on the radio, etc...that's where the publisher comes in.
Publishing is where the real money gets made in the music biz, imho. There are organizations set up to do nothing BUT publish music. If you can get in on the 51% side of publishing, that's a good place to be.

There is so much more to all this that what I'm offering up and the best resource to learn about it is any of the three books already mentioned. "This business of music" is sort of considered the standard of reference in learning about the music biz.
Passman's book, "all you need to know..." is a more condensed read and, imho, a little simpler to understand for lame brains like me.
"Sound advice" seems to be ok but I haven't been into it much.