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Tag Archives: songwriters

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Erin M. Jacobson, Esq. speaking at SyncIt Music’s “Let’s Get Legal” Summit

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Categories: Speaking, Tags: , , ,

Erin M. Jacobson, Esq. will be speaking on how independent songwriters and music publishers can protect their rights at the online, “Let’s Get Legal” summit by SyncIt Music. We will discuss the different parts of a “song”, the ownership and royalties of each.

SyncIt Music will pose various questions on this topic to Ms. Jacobson and there will be opportunity for Q&A. If any attendee cannot make the live session, a video replay will be available for a limited time.

Date/Time: June 10, 2022 at 10 AM PST

Click here to Register!

Save $30 with coupon code ERIN30.

Disclaimer: Note that the link above is an affiliate link, which means Erin M. Jacobson, Esq., A.P.C. may receive a commission from your registration, at no additional cost to you.

Erin M. Jacobson, Esq., A.P.C. and Erin M. Jacobson, Esq. does not endorse any other speakers or sessions in this series, nor is this an endorsement of any company, including the company producing the event. If notice of this event is considered an advertisement, it is general in nature and not directed toward any particular person.

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Erin M. Jacobson, Esq. featured in Music Business Worldwide’s “Inspiring Women” Series

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Categories: Articles, Interview, Music Industry, Music Industry Interviews, Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Erin M. Jacobson, Esq. has been featured in the “Inspiring Women” interview series on Music Business Worldwide.

“It is a great honor to be featured in Music Business Worldwide, and also among so many other inspiring women in our industry,” says Jacobson.

Erin discusses her path to becoming a music lawyer, her innovative work with clients, her views on copyright terminations, fair pay, and the importance of songwriters and music publishers.

Click here to read the interview.

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Erin M. Jacobson re-elected to AIMP Board of Directors

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Categories: Honors and Awards, Music Industry, Music Publishing, Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I am happy to announce that I have been re-elected to the LA Board of Directors of the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP). wb-aimp-luncheon-global-industry-110216AIMP is an industry group focusing on independent music publishers and songwriters.  Members (my colleagues in the industry) vote for Board members, so I am honored to have been chosen.  Keep an eye on the AIMP website for future events and to become more involved with this great organization.  

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This Trial Will Determine Songwriters’ Income Over the Next 5 Years

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Categories: Copyright, Music, Music Industry, Music Publishing, Royalties, Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

By:  Erin M. Jacobson, Esq.

This article was originally posted on Forbes.com.

When a song has millions of streams on Spotify and views on YouTube, most people think “Wow, that artist must be making a ton of money!” It’s easy to make that assumption when music superstars are seen on television wearing designer clothing and leaving the hottest nightclubs in town, only to drive away in their Bentley to charter a private plane to their yacht.

What most people don’t realize is that the above is 1) often an image, 2) accessible to only a small number of music creators within the music business, and 3) there are songwriters who wrote those hit songs and the music publishers that represent those songwriters who are earning a mere $10 per 1 million Pandora streams.

Here’s how the structure works. A songwriter writes a composition, which is usually owned or co-owned by a music publisher, a company that handles the management, exploitation and royalty collection for that composition. The music publisher and songwriter split the income from that composition. The main royalties paid for a composition are mechanical royalties for the reproduction of that composition on CDs and via digital means on iTunes and streaming services, and performance royalties paid when a composition is performed in public. Synchronization fees come into play when a composition is used in television or film, but that is a negotiated contract fee separate from a royalty.

While performance royalties have recently been in dispute, this article focuses on mechanical royalties. Mechanical rates are set by the United States government, specifically by a panel of judges called the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). The CRB determines the royalty rates paid to songwriters and music publishers for every sale of a composition via CD or digital service like iTunes, as well as every time that composition is streamed on services like Spotify, Pandora, etc. The current mechanical rates are 9.1¢ for a sale (split by the music publisher and the songwriter), and streaming mechanicals are fractions of a cent per play.

This month, the CRB has opened hearings to set new mechanical royalty rates, which will be in effect from 2018 through 2022. The CRB will hear testimony from both music creators and music users and will make its decision in December 2017.

While this trial may not be hot news for anyone outside of the music industry, it will determine the amount of money music creators can earn for the next five years.

The music users’ side includes representatives from digital giants like Google, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon and Apple. These companies are lobbying to further decrease the royalties paid to music creators. For example, Apple wants to pay a flat fee of 9.1¢ per every 100 streams on Apple Music. Companies like Google, Amazon and Apple make billions of dollars per year, and Spotify and Pandora are not profitable but have billions invested in them, yet not one of these companies is willing to allocate more money towards the people that create the music on which they have built their businesses. It is also worth noting that not only have these companies built their business models on music but also are using music to promote their services, such as Amazon using free music streaming to sell Prime subscriptions.

The National Music Publisher’s Association (NMPA) and Nashville Songwriter’s Association (NSAI) are representing music publishers and songwriters at the CRB hearings. “[Tech companies are] creating new ways to distribute music [and] they are also fighting in this trial to pay as little to songwriters for the songs that drive their businesses,” wrote David Israelite, president and CEO of NMPA in a letter to songwriters. “[A] rate structure that allows global tech companies to build their empires on the backs of songwriters, without providing those songwriters with fair compensation, is unsustainable.”

The NMPA has issued an open letter to the digital giant companies, urging them to work with songwriters and music publishers instead of fighting against them. The letter is accompanied by a petition, which has already received over 7,800 signatures.

As I have previously written, the music industry will continue to wither without fair compensation to its creators and those that represent them. Creators of music are not all rich superstars. They are regular people with amazing talents to create music that impacts lives around the world. They are people with families and mortgages and bills to pay. They may not work a 9-5 office job, but that doesn’t make them different than the average American, who earns money from a job, and why shouldn’t songwriters and their representatives earn as well?

*This article does not constitute legal advice.

Erin M. Jacobson is a music attorney whose clients include Grammy and Emmy Award winners, legacy clients and catalogs, songwriters, music publishers, record labels, and independent artists and companies. She is based in Los Angeles where she handles a wide variety of music agreements and negotiations, in addition to owning and overseeing all operations for Indie Artist Resource, the independent musician’s resource for legal and business protection.

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Erin M. Jacobson elected to AIMP Board

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Categories: Business, Copyright, Music, Music Industry, Music Publishing, Speaking, Tags: , , ,

I am thrilled to announce that I have been elected to the Board of Directors of the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP).

wb-aimp-luncheon-global-industry-110216AIMP is an industry group focusing on independent music publishers and songwriters.  Members (aka my colleagues in the industry) vote for Board members, so I am honored to have been chosen.  Keep an eye on the AIMP website for future events and to become more involved with this great organization.

 

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The DOJ’s Discordant Decision: An Overview of the Ruling and Its Repercussions

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Categories: Articles, Legal Issues, Music, Music Industry, Music Publishing, Performance, Royalties, Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

doj-decisionPerformance rights organizations (“PRO’s”) are organizations that track and collect performance royalties on behalf of songwriters and music publishers. In the United States, there are four PRO’s: ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and Global Music Rights (“GMR”). ASCAP and BMI are the two largest U.S. PRO’s and are also non-profit organizations. Since 1941, ASCAP and BMI have been subject to consent decrees issued by the Department of Justice (“DOJ”). These consent decrees are agreements that allow the government to regulate ASCAP and BMI’s license fees and how they operate in order to prevent monopolization and encourage competition. SESAC and GMR are both independent, privately owned companies that operate on a for-profit basis and are not subject to consent decrees.

In 2014, the music community asked for a review of these decrees and requested the removal of digital licensing from the blanket licenses offered by the PRO’s, allowing publishers to negotiate directly with and be paid higher rates by companies licensing music for digital uses.  This is referred to as “Digital Rights Withdrawal” or “DRW.” Digital giants like Google, Pandora, and Sirius/XM, joined by terrestrial radio, lobbied against DRW in order to pay smaller licensing fees to music owners.   The DOJ denied the music community’s request for DRW and has now mandated that music publishers be either “all-in” or “all-out” with the PRO’s, meaning that publishers must allow the PRO’s to license all types of performances of their catalogues or none at all.

In its recent ruling, the DOJ also chose to enforce “full-work licensing,” also known as “100% licensing.”   Under the practice of 100% licensing, any person with a percentage of ownership of the work has the right to license 100% of the work, not just the percentage owned. That licensor is then liable to account to other co-owners of the work for those co-owners’ share of compensation. This principle is in line with the provisions of copyright law governing joint works, and the longstanding language of the consent decrees supports the practice of full-work licensing. Despite the language of the consent decrees, the music industry has never operated on a 100% licensing basis. The principle of allowing one co-owner to license an entire work can be overridden by a contract between the parties, and the music industry has always operated on a “fractional licensing” basis where most owners agree in writing that each owner will administer its own share. Music users obtaining licenses have also historically accepted the practice of fractional licensing, and those users experienced with PRO licenses know that one must get a license from each PRO so that all shares of co-written compositions are covered. PRO’s also collect license fees from music users and pay its members/affiliates on a fractional basis, i.e. the amount collected or paid is proportional to the share of the composition controlled by that PRO.

While the language of the consent decrees and the practice of the industry have long been out-of-sync, the DOJ’s sudden decision to enforce 100% licensing may force an entire industry to change its longstanding way of doing business. The DOJ’s ruling stipulated that if a PRO cannot license 100% of a composition, then that PRO cannot license that composition at all. This means that any compositions written by co-writers belonging to different societies would potentially become unlicensable by the PRO’s.

What Problems Does This Create?

Those that lobbied against reforming the consent decrees failed to realize that their efforts to pay less may also prevent them from using or playing a large percentage of music, or may require them to remove music from rebroadcasts of older programming, because much of the music they wish to use may become unlicensable by the PRO’s.   If compositions are unlicensable by the PRO’s, then music users will have to go directly to music owners for performance licenses. While obtaining direct licenses may be feasible for more experienced users, many music users will not know where to find composition owners or how to go about obtaining licenses from them. If compositions become unlicenseable by the PROs and licenses are not obtained directly from the music owners, it is possible that many compositions may not be used, or many compositions may be used without permission resulting in copyright infringement.

All of these scenarios may hinder music owners from receiving payments for performance royalties, and without the PRO’s, music owners will be responsible for tracking and policing all uses of their music, which is normally too labor intensive and financially burdensome for most music owners.

Foreign performance societies, writers, and publishers are also affected by the DOJ’s ruling. Via reciprocal agreements, U.S. and foreign PRO’s work together to track and collect royalties for performances in a work’s home country and foreign countries. If certain works become unlicensable by U.S. PRO’s, then foreign societies and owners may have to track U.S. performances of their works in the U.S. Anyone in the U.S. wishing to use a foreign work not licensable by a U.S. PRO will have to get a direct license from the foreign licensor. In addition, U.S. owners issuing direct licenses may have to track and collect on foreign performances outside of the societies. Again, this creates burdens on all societies and owners, as well as opening the door for mass amounts of infringement and owners not receiving payments.

The DOJ proposed a solution of modifying all past agreements between co-writers of different societies to allow administration by one owner or PRO. This would apply to both U.S. and foreign writers and publishers. However, this is an impractical solution because many writers will not want another PRO that is not their chosen PRO collecting on their behalf; many writers do not speak to past co-writers or know where to find them; many writers are deceased, leaving one or more co-writers to deal with heirs that may not understand the principles involved or cannot be found; and many writers will not have the financial resources to have their agreements amended.

From a creative standpoint, many writers feel the DOJ’s decision will restrict them to only writing with co-writers from their chosen PRO. Restricting the freedom of writers to collaborate would be a fatal blow to creativity itself and cause many musicians to relegate music to a hobby rather than a career.

Where Are We Now?

The DOJ has allowed ASCAP and BMI a period of one year to comply with the new mandated changes, and if they are still non-compliant after one year, the DOJ can sue ASCAP and BMI for non-compliance with its decision. However, the one-year compliance period has not started yet, and will be delayed by the current efforts of BMI and ASCAP to get this decision reversed.

As of this writing, BMI has sued the DOJ and is appealing the ruling through legal proceedings. ASCAP is developing a lobbying strategy to seek much needed Congressional support and achieve changes from the legislative side. Those of us on the forefront of this issue feel it is best to wait until we have a definite outcome before spending time and resources on modifying agreements or making other changes to longstanding industry practices.  However, consult with me on this issue if you are concerned.

Some resources to take action and stay up to date include www.standwithsongwriters.org and www.artistrightswatch.com.

 

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice. The content contained in this article is not legal advice or a legal opinion on any specific matter or matters. This article does not constitute or create an attorney-client relationship between Erin M. Jacobson, Esq. and you or any other user. The law may vary based on the facts or particular circumstances or the law in your state. You should not rely on, act, or fail to act, upon this information without seeking the professional counsel of an attorney licensed in your state.

If this article is considered an advertisement, it is general in nature and not directed towards any particular person or entity.

 

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Do You Need a Music Publisher?

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Categories: Articles, Business, Music Industry, Music Publishing, Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Some musicians have music publishing deals, some musicians have their own publishing companies, and some have both. For many independent musicians, owning their own publishing companies often means nothing more than just having name for publishing matters rather than a fully functioning entity. Musicians often ask me the difference between handling their publishing themselves and what a music publisher will do for them.

1. Manage your catalog

A publisher will handle all copyright registrations, filings with performing rights organizations and mechanical rights collection societies, and other more procedural aspects of owning intellectual property. A publisher will also receive any license requests to use your music and handle the contracts associated with these uses, negotiating the best price they can, which makes sense because they get to take a cut of the proceeds. A publisher will also fight against any unwarranted uses of your music, including suing for infringement if necessary. Again, this is because the publisher usually has a stake in the copyright ownership and income generated from your compositions. A publisher will also have relationships with foreign companies and can enter into agreements so that your music can be promoted and administered in those countries, thus creating more opportunities for you and expanding your fanbase.

2. Promote your catalog

A good publisher that believes in you and stands to profit from your music will find ways to promote it and help you (and them) make more money. This will usually include pitching your music for use in TV and film, pitching your music to other artists in order to get those artists to record your compositions, arranging for sheet music or other reprints of your music for sale, and any other opportunities to promote your compositions and get them recorded.

3. Pair you with co-writers

Some writers mostly write alone, some only write with others, and some may write alone and with others. Sometimes, writing with other people can help a songwriter break into a new genre or get new creative juices flowing when the two writers can vibe on each other’s energy. A publisher will help to facilitate these relationships, as the more great songs its writer writes, the more everyone stands to benefit. Also, if you are a promising writer who has a deal but are still building your resume, your publisher may be able to pair you up with more seasoned writers to help advance your career.

4. Collect income

From a logistical standpoint, this is one of the most important functions of the publisher because an experienced publisher understands all the different revenue streams in the business, how to collect these revenues, and how and what you should be paid. A publisher can also pursue monies you should be receiving but haven’t, and audit your label or other companies with which you’ve collaborated to make sure you are getting paid correctly. In addition, if you are to pay any co-writers or other collaborators, your publisher can take care of this for you so that you don’t have to worry about understanding the complexities of the royalty streams and who gets paid what, as well as dealing with the minutiae of the task, leaving you more time to focus on creating great music.

 

In my opinion, the functions of the publisher can be grouped into two very important areas: promoting your music and taking care of the business end (registrations, contracts, and royalty collection and payment). Both of these aspects are helpful to you and allow you to focus your time on creating music instead of promoting or bookkeeping. A publisher’s relationships and connections can be key to moving your career forward, and any reputable publisher will have administrative systems already established so that the business side runs smoothly. However,most music publishing deals require you to give up all or a portion of your copyright ownership, and all publishing deals will require a percentage of your publishing income as payment for their services. For independent songwriters without a publishing deal or who want to retain full ownership of their compositions, the next best option is to hire a great music lawyer to handle the business part of the equation, but the promotional aspects will still be up to the songwriter. Only you can decide whether these trade-offs are right for your career, or if retaining full ownership and spending more of your time on business work makes you more comfortable.

 

This post was originally published on Sonicbids.com.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice. The content contained in this article is not legal advice or a legal opinion on any specific matter or matters. If this article is considered an advertisement, it is general in nature and not directed towards any particular person or entity. This article does not constitute or create a lawyer-client relationship between Erin M. Jacobson, Esq. and you or any other user. The law may vary based on the facts or particular circumstances or the law in your state. You should not act, or fail to act, upon this information without seeking the professional counsel of an attorney licensed in your state.