This post is a running version of the individual posts on Record Producer Agreements from the MusicTechPolicy blog. As we post a few single topics on MTP we will add to this post so eventually you will have the complete article all in one place. You may link to this post, but do not copy it.
Your record producer is probably the most important member of your creative team.
Austin music lawyer Chris Castle will be speaking at the World Creators Summit, an annual conference on artist rights in Washington DC at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center on June 4 and 5, 2013. Chris’s panel “Reconnecting with the Digital Narrative” on June 5 is moderated by Dominic McGonigal - Chairman, C8 Associates (UK), and fellow panelists are Robert Levine – Journalist & Author of ‘Free Ride’, Catharine Saxberg – Chief Executive, Canadian Music Publishers Association, Eddie Schwartz – Co-Chair, Music Creators North America, Songwriters Association of Canada, and Sean M. O’Connor – Visiting Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School.
The fourth biennial World Creators Summit, featuring keynotes from: Maria Pallante, U.S. Register of Copyrights; John Morton, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); Scott Turow, a global best-selling author, and President of The Authors’ Guild; Hervé Di Rosa, a visual artist and Acting President of CISAC; Paul Williams, Award-winning songwriter & actor and President of ASCAP; and Jean-Michel Jarre, a world renowned composer and electronic music producer.
In her keynote address, Pallante will explain the main points of her recently announced copyright overhaul plan; its likely implications for creators and creative businesses; and the long-term goals shaping her policies.
Morton will address anti-piracy policies in his keynote, including the specific strategies put in place by the U.S. administration to identify, track and take down organizations and individuals involved in the trading of illegal content.
Di Rosa’s keynote highlights the role of creators in the digital era and examine what must be done to ensure that they will continue to have the freedom to create and make a living from their art.
The focus of Chris’s panel and the theme of the conference is to discuss why creators need to stand up for their rights, unite, and promote a cause that they believe is just to promote respect for their works, achieve fair remuneration, and secure a guarantee for young creators of a future free of constraint and submission where they will have the freedom to pursue their art.
Here is an excerpt from Chris’s interview for the Summit:
1 – Do you think that the importance of authors’ rights is well understood in the current climate?
The rights of authors and artists are poorly understood by the average person in the best of circumstances. In my view we are at a tipping point when the sustained effort to undermine the value of authors rights in the public dialogue may be difficult to come back from. As it is, we are witnessing one of the great transfers of value of all time from authors to large multinational corporations seeking to commoditize culture through technology.
2 – What is the message that creative industries should pass on to the wider public, and how?
The commoditization of culture and the collectivization of intellectual property rights by large technology companies will not stop with IP. It will continue on to commoditize personal rights of privacy as well and we are already seeing that happen with Wi-Spy, Facebook and other instances where privacy rights are, like authors rights, commoditized to benefit multinationals. These companies are also gaining vast political power and studies have shown that search engines have the ability to manipulate elections without the knowledge of the voters.
3 – Are there learning from the past decade that the music industry could share with other creative industries?
Be more supportive of sincere efforts to apply technology to consumer applications.
Yes, it's the dawning of the age of Aquarius all over again. First, they give us Google Books, the Digital Library of Omnicom...no I meant Alexandria. Wasn't it Alexandria? And now--they're ready for their close up Mr. DeMille.
The State of Texas has lead the way in leveraging its live music business, and it's not all Austin a city that has branded itself the "Live Music Capitol of the World". There are bills introduced in the Texas legislature that incentivize venues to book more live music as well as supporting live sound and lights and all those who work hard to make the live show valuable.
If you came to Meeting 4 of Four Nights of Music Rights last October, you saw Chris Castle and David Lowery (founder of Cracker and Camper Van Beethovan) pick apart one of the biggest problems in the music business–the purchase of advertising on pirate websites by Fortune 100 companies, served by ad networks like Google, Yahoo! and others. We are very appreciative of Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts and the Austin Creative Alliance covering David’s expenses for his travel to Austin so we could bring you an evening of important information.
The Four Nights meeting with David was a preview of what will no doubt be the key issue in policy circles for the year and beyond: How to stop major brands from supporting piracy. These are often the same brands that seek out endorsement deals with the very artists they help pirates monetize.
Canadian Music Week is the premier music festival in Canada and is held in Toronto after SXSW. The Global Forum is a separately ticketed event at CMW. Chris will be the moderator of the event with keynotes by David and also Chris Ruen, the author of Freeloading: How our insatiable hunger for free content starves creativity.
Stay tuned for more updates!
The news that Sony/ATV made a direct deal with Pandora produced some strangely paranoid chatter in the echo chamber. Sony/ATV can bring Pandora to their knees, getting around the rate court, etc. I think it's actually much simpler than that.
What appears to have happened is quite simple--Sony/ATV opted out of letting ASCAP and BMI license their catalog (which now includes EMI so is really quite massive).
