Friday, October 29, 2010

Tunesat data, ver. 1.5

Last night I completed the excel sheet on the tunesat entries thus far.  This morning I had to go through and figure out which ones were missing ownership and composer information.  I needed David's help on some of them because the songs I didn't have info for were some of the same ones in our catalogue that I was missing from before.  In the end, we excluded some of the songs (he said ownership was iffy on some of them anyways).  I used David's laptop today to rip the rest of the CDs that we had, and then spent the afternoon continuing the compilation of data for the excel sheet.

So looking forward to this weekend, hopefully Adrian and I will be able to go to the Halloween show at the Hammerstein Ballroom on Saturday.  Happy Halloween, everyone!

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Tunesat deadline

David informed me today that we have to get the tunesat data out ASAP - to be completed and sent out by Monday.  In addition to the data discs, they also requested an excel document outlining the following:

  • file ref path (the file name on the computer)
  • Name of the Song
  • Album Name
  • Artist Name
  • Publisher Name & Ownership share
  • Composer Name(s) & Ownership share(s)
In addition to that, for the publisher and composer columns, we needed to identify which publishing firm they are a member of - so for example, all Cold Chillin' and Marley Marl label artists are ASCAP signed and Michael Tolcher and Susie Suh are both BMI label artists.

So because of this deadline, I spent today compiling the excel sheet of all the songs I had ripped, which will be a running tally until we decide on a cut off number.  We can send up to 100 songs before incurring extra fees for including extra songs.


Wednesday, October 27, 2010

myachi trade show

Today David was out again due to the Biz Bash trade show taking place in the city.  I continued with my work from yesterday, and the projects for class as well - very convenient timing, I do have to admit.  I started reading up on graduate programs for music business, and different career paths in the industry, since I am considering staying up here after graduation.  There are so many options!  David is going to be a great resource (and a realistic one too) in helping me figure some of that out. 

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Mashable article

David is in the city today for a meeting, so I'm not sure when he'll be getting back.  I'm continuing to rip cds for Tunesats (so many CDs!) and starting to go through the Cold Chillin' materials for the blog.  I'm also using this time to reflect more intensively for my projects as the checkpoint is coming up next week.

I came across this article on my friend Mike Del Rio's facebook - 4 Ways Bands Can Cash In Online Without Labels.  Mike worked with The History Channel and his music is featured on their channel currently.  It's just another example of diversifying your music, and the avenues used to make their music profitable.  It's a growing way for musicians to provide steady income while trying to pursue other projects.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Projects

Today I worked on an "executive summary" that David prepared for Myachi - helping him edit and revise it.  It's actually more of an annual report with the length, but it's providing current and potential investors the history, current position, and future plans of the company.

My next project (while working on the CDs and auditing) will be to start a blog on the Cold Chillin' Record label.  David has seen this blog and wants me to start that as a marketing tool on the label.  The blog will utilize the old marketing materials we have for the label and will highlight the history of the label, artists, etc - so a resource for those hip hop aficionados and as a marketing tool as well.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Cameo Gallery in Brooklyn

This weekend I went with Adrian, the graphic designer for Myachi, to Brooklyn for a show at the Cameo Gallery.  We went to see The London Souls, an amazing underground rock band who are a throwback to the oooold school rock 'n' roll that I love (seriously, check them out, you won't be sorry).  The venue was packed, and isn't much more than a bare room with a stage on one end.  The set up was really good, the acoustics were great considering the location (it was pure noise bouncing off the walls back at you) and the lighting set up was subtle, but effective.  What was interesting were the musicians that Adrian introduced me to - some awesome up and coming artists.  This show (like the Joshua Bell concert) was exactly what I needed to remind me of my passion for music.  One of the artists I met was Mike Del Rio, a personal friend of Adrian's, who mixes rock/alternative music with beats and his own lyrics.  Another was Tommy Eichman, the manager of Alexa Ray Joel (Billy Joel's daughter) who was also in attendance.  A third, Johnny Boy, along with Del Rio and Tommy play in Alexa Ray's band.  Overall, a fantastic night of great music and awesome people!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

S Factor and more licensing agreements

I read through one of the proposals that David wrote up for the S Factor licensing agreement.  This document is constantly changing because we are constantly adding or finding new things that we want to include in there.  I asked David how he knew what to cover in there, so there are no loopholes.  Essentially, each part of an article in the document should indicate who (on either end), what action or what is being covered, the extent of the coverage, what happens if either side breaks it, when/how long, how are they planning on covering it.  So if you answer these questions, it's a pretty good start. 

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Ripping CDs, part 2

My computer has been acting up and my CD drive hasn't been showing up, which has made it more difficult to complete ripping the CDs in order to send the list to Tunesat.  In the meantime, I have reviewed our audit return by Chuks to see what else we need to do on our end in order to consolidate our accounting.  I had David send him the rescan of the previous Notting Hill statement, because we didn't send it before. 

Friday, October 15, 2010

Sonic Equity

David asked me to watch the Bloomberg News report today because his friend, Joel Simon, of JSM Music would be the mystery guest.  I'm really glad I did, his interview went into how music can and is utilized in advertising.  Joel Simon owns the largest music/advertisement agency.  Joel spoke on the importance of the synergy of music to advertisement, how it could be the music that is the message, or the music that supports the message the company is trying to put out there.  He's an example of how he found a need in the industry and found his niche.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Ridiculous amount of paper for a ridiculous amount of money




David and I were talking the other day about how crazy it is the statements we'll get from our clients (ASCAP, BMI, Sony, etc.).  The follow pictures illustrate our point.  The first set is from Harry Fox Agency and the second is from Sony Music.  Note the thickness of the statement vs. the thickness of the CD case.
You'd think that this much paper would mean we're getting a big check, but sometimes this isn't the case.   As a result, we are trying to consolidate our statements and moving to receiving them digitally if possible.   
 


Wednesday, October 13, 2010

While David's been gone, it's been so quiet in the office, without the buzz of the phone going off every few minutes, and I've been able to concentrate on developing my business plan for my business, and working out some details on the projects that Mr. Butcher assigned to us. 

We received an email from Tunesat with the instructions on how to get the songs to them, and apparently it isn't uploading them to their server like we anticipated (we were waiting on log-in information).  We have to send it to them either on a data disk or a harddrive, so after I get all the songs to my computer, we'll have to burn a disk and send it to them with an excel sheet detailing each song.

We also received back Chuks second auditng statement - I think since he didn't hear back from us last week he went through his work again and checked through everything.  We do have to send him one statement, however, because parts of it were cut off when we scanned it through initially.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Lincoln Center

Last week I saw that Joshua Bell was playing a couple concerts in the area (one at the Tilles Center out in Long Island and one at the Lincoln Center).  I wanted to go to one of the performances because they were debuting Magnus Lindberg's Kraft composition.  He composed this piece in the 1980s but it's only been played a few times, and I believe only once in the US.  There was an article in the NY Times about their expedition to a New Jersey junkyard to find materials to use in the performance - they had gears, a nitrogen tank, oxygen tanks, metal slabs, etc - everything you could think of.  The premise behind the music was an "exploration in sound" - majorly the sounds created were from acoustic instruments (that is, not electronic) but he did have a computer producing some artificial sounds.  A lot of elements in this piece reminded me of John Cage and atonality - there's not a distinct melody to follow, per se, but it definitely had it's rhythms and patterns. 

They complemented this last piece with Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, Sibelius's Violin Concerto, and then the closing with Kraft.  Joshua Bell was amazing, as always, and his performance reminds me why I love classical music.  I think it was important that I went to this performance because of that, and it's helping me to identify what I want to pursue within music. 

Funny enough, I sat next to a jazz musician and composer from NY that night.  We got talking because I commented on his TOMS shoes and then just went from there.  I asked how he got into music and he said he just kept coming back to it time and time again and so that's how he's been working.  It's cool to meet people and to learn these things.

Monday, October 11, 2010

tunesat continued

My day today continued with ripping songs and checking off the songs on our list.  We can upload to Tunesat up to 100 songs that we want them to follow, so I have to figure out which ones are the most profitable and to make sure that they are included among those songs.

David is leaving for Florida tomorrow and will be gone until Thursday.  He's given me some assignments to work on while he's gone.  He will be visiting Ringling College with David Shapiro and Sam Logan (I believe he's involved in this as well) who work closely with the school's film program.  They are setting up a class that will be Myachi based - they'll come up with various designs and graphics (from what I understand) that they will consider using as a part of their products.

I also received the licensing agreement David drew up for his S Factor business so I will be reviewing that as well.

Friday, October 8, 2010

New project! aka Tunesat revisited, part 1

Yay for new projects!  My next project involves, Tunesat, which I mentioned earlier in my blog.  Since we've already moved forward with the agreement from before, it's now time to upload the music and let their software do the work and make it easy (or easier) to collect the money.  I spent the rest of the week ripping songs off CDs onto my computer and checking them off our song splits list from before.  Once we create an account on their website, we'll be able to send them the songs to begin the process of tracking our music.  The song files must be in WAV format, 44.1 kHz and 16 bit format, as requested by them.

Something else that came through was a licensing request from Jay-Z, who is requesting the rights to use a sample of one of our songs in an upcoming song of his that will be featured in an upcoming compilation album.  David is still negotiation on the terms of the rights but it looks like there will be some ownership involved with the new song.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Joan Jett and her success

Joan Jett and Manager put out her first record, I Love Rock and Roll, and due to the situation (very quick success), she was able to license her album to a big record label and the rights came back to her when the license was over.  This put her in a strong position owning her own recordings.  Most recording artists' labels own the recordings.  In fact, her success with the song I Love Rock and Roll was so immediate, that her manager didn't have an office (he worked out of his home) - the first album's address was his attorney's address on it!

If you have a hit song and you get some heat behind it, a label typically comes up and says they want to buy the recording from you and their deal is exclusive (world-wide exclusive term of copyright) and you never see the rights to the song again.  So Joan Jett is pretty unique in her situation that she was able to retain the rights to her songs.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Agreements

Yesterday and today I spent reviewing a few different licensing agreements.  One is Joan Jett's licensing agreement that she used to distribute her albums in Germany (and the surrounding countries), the second was using JJ's agreement or basic music agreement for the template for Myachi's agreement with a company in Turkey (this is an ongoing negotiation).  It's interesting to go through the different elements and learn about what all the agreement covers - for example, it includes marketing, which I didn't even think to add (photos for promotion, training the people onsite [Myachi]).  The last agreement I looked through is a new one for David's other business, S Factor - they are looking to change their current position to one that licenses the rights from SFLA.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Pop Art Records

David enlisted my help to find the owners of Pop Art Records.  I was able to find info on the record label itself, but I had to follow through based on a serious of queries.  Once I found that it was owned by Lawrence Goodman, I searched using his name until I found an article interviewing Troy Carter.  Lawrence Goodman is a prominent producer of hip hop music through PAR until its sale in 2006 to Coalition Media Group, headed up by Troy Carter.  CMG represents Lady Gaga and other artists.  We needed to know of this sale because there was a sample claim that involved the label, so we need to know the appropriate persons to contact.

Licensing in Action

This past weekend I went to the NY Giants game with the NYC Zeta Alumnae chapter. We went there to hand out ribbons and sell gear to raise money for the NFL partnership with Zeta for Breast Cancer Awareness month.  We were given tickets for volunteering for the game, and here were our seats!!



My whole point of this post is about seeing licensing in action.  As at any game, they place clips of music to get the crowds hyped up or to introduce the team.  Each time these clips play, they incur licensing fees - so the song is recorded, the length of the play, the number of plays - everything rolled into one determines how much the artist gets paid.  I thought this was interesting that I was able to see this in action and was able to apply what I had learned here to a fun event I was at. 

Friday, October 1, 2010

Auditing

Chuks definitely got back to us in a timely fashion!  David emailed me all the PDF scans of our royalty statements (the same ones that Chuks receives) so I could cross reference his copies with our hardcopies to see what happened.  On one I found that the scan he received was taken landscape style where the file was really portrait-ways.  That meant the lower half of each page was cut off - just goes to show that we're not perfect!  Other discrepancies were due to an opening balance on the statement that was not included in Chuks' data entry (line by line of songs).  Some clients, for example Rhino Entertainment (I think; can't remember off the top of my head), hold the royalty balance until it gets to a certain amount, then they release the check to the publisher.  I sent David my notes, which included a recommendation on keeping consistent with including/excluding opening balances.