You’ve recorded your first album. Now what?

If you are recording an album yourself, here are some important steps you should take to protect your music and to make sure you collect royalties that are owed to you when your music is performed on television, radio, and the internet.

Register your copyrights

An important step to take to protect your rights is to register your copyrights with the US copyright office.

If you are recording your own music yourself, there are potentially two copyrights you could hold: a copyright in the composition and a copyright in the sound recording. You can and should register both.

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Webcasting is now finally gaining ground as a legitimate global growth vehicle for any level band.

I was able to meet with two San Francisco bay area musicians – Brian Vandemark and Brandon Watson – both of whom have been gaining knowledge and experience using justin.tv.

They have handled the webcasting duties for their various music projects, and were gracious enough to explain what they have learned so far.

When was the first time you used Justin.tv or any online video streaming site to promote or show your music? What was that experience like?

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London’s The Independent published an interesting interview with Tony Wadsworth, former EMI chief when Radiohead left EMI.  His view of the industry is worth a read.
An excerpt:
“The industry is moving from a transaction based business to a usage and licensing business,” says Wadsworth. He cites the interactive computer games Guitar Hero and Rock Band as [...]

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The future of Internet radio appears more secure after a handful of online stations reached an agreement Tuesday to head off a potentially crippling increase in copyright royalty rates.
As reported in Yahoo Tech, large commercial webcasters will pay copyright owners up to 25 percent of their revenue or a “per-performance” rate that is below the [...]

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Hypebot dropped some numbers on the rising significance of independent labels.
Some of their reported numbers:
-Independent labels accounted for 32% of aggregate album sales in 2008, up almost 1.5% from 2007.
One-third of album sales are indies – sweet!
-Independent labels, as a group, are the largest owners of master recordings in the industry – over 80% of [...]

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Every once in a while you come across an older post that starts sparking new thoughts. Kyle Bylin’s September 2008 post for Hypebot recently came across my screen.

He states: We now form communities around our favorite bands, we want to establish a connection or relationship, and we have a strong desire for music that is real, authentic, and meaningful.

This is consistent with Seth Godin’s now well known Tribes approach: what people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies [or musicians, as the case may be].

Bylin continues: The permeability of the walls we put up around ourselves now only lets certain messages through. You now have to be smarter about what you do, because it’s no longer as easy to buy your way into our headphones.

So he asks musicians: What relationships are you building, where is your community, what connections are being made, how authentic is your message?

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This post from Music Think Tank’s Eric Galen helps musicians think through what they should consider when seeking managerial help. A team is needed these days, to cover the different areas of expertise…

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Hi Music People!
VolumeEleven.net has been redesigned to be a “morning paper” of music business news, top music business blog postings, and innovative company listings for the changing music industry.
No more having to look through all the feeds or websites of the various top music blogs and news sites!  The new Volume Eleven.net home page [...]

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There are reports of a Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger.  Billboard news does a nice job of summarizing the potential effects:
The two strategies of Live Nation and Ticketmaster Entertainment have been quite similar: vertical integration, direct connection between fans and artist, bundling of content and tickets, and harnessing of the secondary market and the revenues produced therein.
The [...]

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Please note that the below is not official legal advice, it is ONLY for the U.S.A., we are not your lawyers, and you should always contact your attorney before entering into any contract such as a license.
I was reading an article in November’s Spin Magazine called “Faking the Band.”  Apparently, unknown studio musicians are using [...]

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