Discussion Thread

Hi, I have a question about licensing. The Indie Guide says you should form your own publishing company to own the publisher's share of your copyrights, and that there are tools on this site showing us how to do this. But I could not find any info on this. Does anyone have suggestions on how to do this, or know where I can find more info?

And just to clarify, does this mean that if someone wanted to license a song and I hadn't formally created a publisher, I'd only get half the royalty due to me?

Would forming a publishing company be like forming any other company? For example, I live in MA and I know that it costs $500/year to form an LLC, a cost that I would rather avoid. Other than forming a partnership (which won't apply to me -- I'm solo), or a corporation (which is complex and expensive), I don't see how else I can create another legal entity.

Also, does a "Creative Commons" license require you to offer the download for free, or does it just give more freedom to the purchaser after the download? I see the benefits of a Creative Commons license, but currently the only way I can earn money from music is through downloads. I don't expect to play live with either my current or future projects.

Thanks in advance for the input.

Hey there -- here's some info that should help...

> Does anyone have suggestions on how to do this, or know where I can find more info?

There's some "forming a publishing company" info here that should help you since you're in the States:http://www.indieguide.com/wiki/page/Forming_Your_Own_Publishing_Company

> Does this mean that if someone wanted to license a song and I hadn't formally created a publisher, I'd only get half the royalty due to me?

And, there's an article we wrote for our Electronic Musician Magazine column about getting royalties and how that works which you may be interested in:http://emusician.com/interviews/diy_musician/diy_musician_double_royalties/

> Also, does a "Creative Commons" license require you to offer the download for free, or does it just give more freedom to the purchaser after the download? I see the benefits of a Creative Commons license, but currently the only way I can earn money from music is through downloads.

Here's another article we wrote for Electronic Musician Magazine that's an interview with Eric Steuer at Creative Commons. It goes through what Creative Commons is and explains it in more detail:http://emusician.com/interviews/industry-insider-eric-steuer-1109/index.html

We're strong proponents of Creative Commons, but, as we say in our books, you have to decide whether it's for you, and if it is, which license is best for you.

Also, our book, The Indie Band Survival Guide goes into detail about all of these questions and more, so it's a great place to start. 

Thanks Jason, all three of those articles were very helpful. The book is great by the way. I'd be lost without it. I just finished Chapter 7 and wanted to get my ducks in a row before moving on to the next section.

About registering with PRO's for both the song and the sound recording -- does a separate DBA/entity need to be created to register for the recording as well, or just the song? Or am I as an individual both the copyright owner and the performer of the recording?

Also, could I consolidate all of these roles into one? Create a sole proprietorship like "Drinkwater Music" for example, get an EIN from the IRS, and make this business the writer/publisher/owner/performer of everything?

Also I'm still a little unclear on the CC license. For example, I've published some music on Bandcamp, and they let me choose which license I want, but they also let me choose the price for each download (if any). If I chose a CC license for a particular recording, would I still be able to charge a fee for each download of that same recording, at least on my own sites? So you still need to pay for the download, but then you could post it on a blog or whatever, and other people might have free access to it? The reference to NIN seemed to imply that the CC license was used for one version of the album (which was free), and the other higher-quality version was more restricted (and needed to be purchased).

All of the artists mentioned in that CC article are major acts, who have a lot of other revenue streams coming in. How has CC worked for obscure artists? (I know that may be asking for an over-generalization...)

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.

>About registering with PRO's for both the song and the sound recording -- does a separate DBA/entity need to be created to register for >the recording as well, or just the song? Or am I as an individual both the copyright owner and the performer of the recording?>Also, could I consolidate all of these roles into one? Create a sole proprietorship like "Drinkwater Music" for example, get an EIN from >the IRS, and make this business the writer/publisher/owner/performer of everything?

You should be able to create one company that then registers as a publisher or sound recording owner, etc. for all the music in which it owns the copyright. A great book to check out on this and other music law/business questions is Richard Stim's "Music Law: How To Run Your Band's Business". We highly recommend it in our book and it's definitely on topic for the questions you're asking. Here it is at Amazon. 

>Also I'm still a little unclear on the CC license. For example, I've published some music on Bandcamp, and they let me choose which >license I want, but they also let me choose the price for each download (if any). If I chose a CC license for a particular recording, >would I still be able to charge a fee for each download of that same recording, at least on my own sites? So you still need to pay for >the download, but then you could post it on a blog or whatever, and other people might have free access to it?  

It depends on what the CC license states. So, in your example, many CC licenses do not allow commercial use. So if a blog is commercial, then no. But, yes, if it's non-commercial (i.e. no ads), then yes, they could share it with others that way and help promote you. And that's where CC comes in. It's much to do about promotion. This is why in the book we state that each artist has to make their own decision as to what they're most comfortable with: all rights reserved or some rights reserved.

>The reference to NIN seemed to imply that the CC license was used for one version of the album (which was free), and the other >higher-quality version was more restricted (and needed to be purchased).

This is one way to handle CC. For instance, all our music is available under CC at TheSongOfTheDay.com and is downloadable for free. However, higher-quality versions (and ones without the intro audio tag) are available for sale at iTunes, CDBaby, etc. 

>All of the artists mentioned in that CC article are major acts, who have a lot of other revenue streams coming in. How has CC worked >for obscure artists? (I know that may be asking for an over-generalization...)

CC has helped a lot of indie artists when combined with other important business techniques such as marketing and promotion. See Jonathan Coulton as an example. Check out this Electronic Musician interview we did with him that touches on CC and how it's helped him.  

 Thanks again Jason for the thoughtful and detailed response.

You mentioned marketing/promotion... I just recently finished the "Get Noticed" chapter in your book, and was hoping to pick your brain.  It seems like some of those strategies work best for music with lyrics: taking the theme of the lyrics, and using that to connect your music to something else (standing out and piggybacking).  In general my music is instrumental.  Are you familiar with any marketing techniques that have worked well specifically for instrumental musicians?

You mentioned marketing/promotion... I just recently finished the "Get Noticed" chapter in your book, and was hoping to pick your brain.  It seems like some of those strategies work best for music with lyrics: taking the theme of the lyrics, and using that to connect your music to something else (standing out and piggybacking).  In general my music is instrumental.  Are you familiar with any marketing techniques that have worked well specifically for instrumental musicians?

There's absolutely things you can do with instrumentals. They are extremely useful to content creators of all types.

Anyone that does film, radio, or podcasting has needs of beds, bumpers, and theme songs. Your angle in this case is: "use this music for your own work, and just mention my Artist name and website, and provide a link." Whatever audience they have, you get in front of.

So, in Get Noticed, we mention using message boards and places where people hang out that have the same interest as your music. In this case, hang out in Film, podcast, and radio message boards and tell them that you have instrumental music they can use. Any content creator that has an audio component might get your music to more people.

We put together a page like this that has worked fairly well for us. You might want to do the same, so that they know what each song sounds like before hitting play.

http://thesongoftheday.com/index.cgi?_d=070107&_a=temp&_f=instrumentals

There's another way to look at this, depending on how you want to market. If you're trying to get at fans directly, you should know what your music is useful FOR. What I mean is, can it be used for Yoga? Or working out? Or as perfect background music for programming? You may then have angles to hit depending on what your music is like.

Good luck!

Hi Randy, thanks for the suggestions. I'm not familiar with any film or podcast message boards, are there any that you'd recommend?

Also, in this type of a situation, would I maintain two licenses for the same piece of music -- one non-commercial license for the general public, and one commercial license specifically for the content creator who's interested (with a predetermined expiration date)?

Thanks again guys.