Rarely do you get the opportunity to meet with some one who has the same "soul" that you have. I had an interesting meeting with Scot Justice over the h olidays. Scot is a fellow blogger who writes the Virtual CF blog over at Typepad. His article about out meeting can be found here. Scot [...]
For almost a decade now, the major labels (at the beginning there were five of them, now only four, EMI, Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal and Warner) have declared that illegal downloading is ravaging their business by destroying the sales of physical product. One may question this declaration, however, in few of the fact that ever [...]
Section 106 of the Copyright Act gives the owner of a copyright a bundle of rights which includes the rights to 1) reproduce the work, 2) prepare derivative works, 3) distribute copies of the works, 4) publicly perform the work and 5) publicly display the work. All of the music publisher's income flows from this [...]
Once a music publisher begins to receive income from the exploitation of the copyrights it has acquired, it must begin to distribute the income to the appropriate writers. Understanding the basic principles of copyright ownership and royalty splits is fundamental to performing the task of distribution of income. One device that is often used to [...]
From a legal perspective, the formation of a music publishing company is, in most respects, very similar the formation of any other type of company, except that the documentation is tailored specifically for the business of music publishing. The first step in the formation of any business, including a music publishing company, is to determine [...]
This blog series will explore music publishing, giving a little bit of history and outlining the basic steps necessary to form a music publishing company. Part 1 looks at a brief history and background of music publishing. Modern music publishing in the United States can trace its roots to "Tin Pan Alley," the name given [...]
I want to wish all of the readers of Law on the Row a very happy and safe Thanksgiving. As a result of the holidays, this has been a slow posting week for me. Rest assured that I will back with something to say next week. Thanks for supporting my blog.
Amy Kurland's Blue Bird Cafe on Hillsboro Road in Nashville is the kind of stuff of which fairy tales are made. Now, Kurland has left the legacy in the hands of Nashville's best songwriting organization, NSAI (Nashville Songwriters Association International) -- a fitting end a dynasty. The legend of Blue Bird Cafe, which first opened [...]
Clay Walker's "Fall" Video Together with Clay Mills and Shane Minor, my new client Sonny Lemaire is one of three songwriters on Clay Walker's new single, Fall, featured in the video link above. The song is currently climbing Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart and, after a 31-week run so far, is breaking well [...]
Perhaps Porter Wagoner should be remembered as the original "Rhinestone Cowboy" because of his penchant for sparkling two-piece rhinestone often adorned with wagon wheels and other cowboy themes -- at one point he owned over 60 suits. The longtime country music legend died at 8:25 p.m. CDT in a Nashville hospice Sunday night at the [...]
