I Participated In ‘GRAMMYs In My District’ And Met Congressman Adam Schiff #GIMD #SupportMusic

Today, I joined fellow members of The Recording Academy to participate in the advocacy division’s GRAMMYs in My District initiative, which organized hundreds of music creators and industry professionals across the United States to speak with their Congressional rep about music rights.

I had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with my rep, Congressman Adam Schiff of California’s 28th District. Representative Schiff has the unique pleasure 🙂 of representing a district whose constituents include many creators, possibly the most content creators in the United States. As an attorney and friend of many creators, Representative Schiff stands as a politician who supports the rights of music creators.

I am happy to say that Representative Schiff already sponsors the Songwriter Equity Act, the Fair Play Fair Pay Act, and the Allocation for Music Producers Act (AMP Act) and will be doing what he can to get other congressional representatives on board. This is not an easy task. Big Media such as the National Association of Broadcasters strongly oppose and lobby against progress that would ensure artists are being fairly compensated for the use of their music on terrestrial radio.

The music community has to work together to fight for changes to push legislation that will given music creators the rights and control over their music, the way any working professional maintains control over the products and services that he/she puts into the marketplace.

We need copyright reform. We need these bills to become laws. We need multi-billion dollar corporations to stop subsidizing the salaries of their executives and their operational costs at the expense of music creators.

I’m Meeting With Congressman Adam Schiff To Discuss The Rights of Music Creators #GIMD

Congressman Adam Schiff

Congressman Adam Schiff represents California’s 28th District

On Wednesday, as part of the “GRAMMYs in My District” initiative, I will join a select group of fellow The Recording Academy / The GRAMMYs members to meet with Congressman Adam Schiff to discuss the rights of music creators. And across the United States, other members will be meeting with their district’s Congress persons as well.

I hope to be able to address the issues that I care about, which affects music creators across the US. I want to urge my Congressman Schiff to support the Fair Play Fair Pay Act, which would create an income stream for artists when their music is played on AM/FM radio (much like the rest of the world) and support the AMP Act, which would allocate royalties to music producers and engineers when the music they’ve worked on is performed on SiriusXM, Music Choice, Pandora, and over 2,500 webcasters and digital music services.

In light of the recent firing of the Register of Copyrights, Maria Pallante, which happened oddly at a time when Google and Amazon is using the loopholes of the U.S. Copyright Act to avoid paying thousands of songwriters for the use of millions of songs across their music properties, I want to address if and how Congress plans to close these loopholes that enable wealthy multinational corporations to stiff the little guys. And I would like Congress to help us move towards a system of equitable representation of songwriters and fair market royalty rates for compulsory licenses.

We will be posting updates during and after these meetings across social media. Follow the hashtag #GIMD for posts. Learn more about The Recording Academy’s Advocacy & Public Policy at www.grammy.org/recording-academy/advocacy.

Turning Lemons Into Lemonade

This is an in-store music video network. It streams new videos for major artists and promotes independent artists in over 130 sneaker retail stores across the United States. The network earns upwards of 3 million impressions by teen and young adult shoppers every month (unlocking unique exposure and new fan opportunities for indie artists). It was founded in 2012 by the then VP of Marketing & Music of the retail chain Shiekh Shoes after he was laid off. The retail chain became the laid-off employee’s customer and has been so for over 4 years now.

The entrepreneur has since earned a master’s degree in music business, has helped over two dozen other music tech entrepreneurs with their startups as a business consultant, mentors music entrepreneurs through SXSW, and has taught music business at UCLA and a number of top music production schools such as SAE Institute in Los Angeles.

I was the laid-off employee and this is how I turned lemons into lemonade.
#entrepreneurship #musicbusiness #hustle

Google and Public Knowledge Coup, Register of Copyrights Fired, Dark Days Ahead

Dr. David C Lowery's avatarThe Trichordist

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Songwriters, performers, authors and creators meet your new copyright overlord: Eric Schmidt of Google. 

These are dark days for all creators and copyright holders.  After a two month campaign by Google funded astroturf group Public Knowledge, the newly appointed librarian of congress Carla Hayden (herself a Schmidt/Soros acolyte) has fired Maria Pallante the register of copyright.   Pallante was the only one standing between Google and what is left of the copyright system.

This firing is virtually unprecedented in US history.  The Librarian of Congress generally leaves the Register of Copyrights to run the affairs of the copyright office. However in the last two months the main Google mouthpiece in Washington DC Public Knowledge has been clamoring for her head.   Why?

Mainly because she has been a fierce advocate  for creators.  But over the last year she had the courage to stand up to Google and Public Knowledge as…

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Google Fires Head of U.S. Copyright Office

Editor Charlie's avatarArtist Rights Watch--News for the Artist Rights Advocacy Community

In a typically backstabbing lame duck kabuki dance, Google has fired Maria Pallante, the head of the U.S. Copyright Office.  This is a real tragedy because Register Pallante was even handed and concerned about treating everyone involved with copyright fairly–consumers as well as creators, not to mention cooperating with Google and Amazon in permitting the filing of millions of NOIs to the great detriment of songwriters.

According to Billboard:

Pallante was locked out of her computer this morning, according to two sources who spoke with Library employees. Earlier, [the nominal head of the Library of Congress]  had called several members of Congress to tell them about her decision. Later, she called the heads of several media business trade organizations to give them the news, according to one who received such a call.

It is hard to believe that the nominal head of the Library of Congress would fire Register…

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Google and Amazon Leverage Copyright Loophole to Use Songs Without Paying Songwriters

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Chris Castle's avatarMusic Technology Policy

Two vastly wealthy multinational media companies are exploiting a copyright law loophole to sell the world’s music without paying royalties to the world’s songwriters on millions–millions–of songs. Why? Because Google and Amazon–purveyors of Big Data–claim they “can’t” find contact information for song owners in a Google search. So these two companies are exploiting songs without paying royalties by filing millions of notices with the Copyright Office at a huge cost in filing fees that only megacorporations can afford–an unprecedented land grab in nature, size and scope.

That’s right–Google and Amazon are falling over themselves to use their market power to stiff songwriters yet again. And as I will show, it is not just obscure songs that are affected. New releases, including one example from Sting, are also targets suggesting significant revenue loss to songwriters.  (I go into this in more detail on this series of posts.)

I…

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Teen-Focused App Musical.ly Is the Music Industry’s New Secret Weapon | VICE | United Kingdom


Awesome article by Vice on how young singers and rappers are using musical.ly to build fanbases, promote new music, drive engagement and sales, and generate buzz that has led to record deals, radio airplay, and ranking on Billboard charts.

Are any of you using musical.ly as a part of your overall digital strategy? If so how and what results have you seen? 

Impressive app sets for a music tech startup:

Musical.ly boasts more than 11 million video uploads per day from more than 120 million users worldwide; 64 percent of the app’s American users fall within the coveted 13–24 demographic, and 75 percent are female. Hoping to capitalize on that audience, Dae Dae debuted a 15-second snippet of “Wat U Mean” on musical.ly in August; to promote it, he hosted an in-app contest challenging listeners to make a music video of themselves performing his signature dance, where he languidly swings his arms in the air to the song’s staccato “Aye” shouts. Since its inception, the challenge has yielded a staggering 153,719 responses, with scores of newly won fans performing their own renditions of the “Aye” dance.

Read full article: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-social-media-app-musically-is-changing-music-marketing-v23n07

Save the Date: TuneRegistry presents Music Business for Producers & Engineers

Save the Date 11-9-16

You are invited to attend:
TuneRegistry presents Music Business for Producers & Engineers

Join us as we peel back the veil on the world of music business as it relates specifically to music producers and sound engineers. We will explore the unique issues, challenges, and business dealings of P&E from a panel of award-winning music creators and music business experts.

When: Wednesday, November 9th
Time: 7pm to 9pm (7pm – Welcome; 7:05pm to 8:15pm – Panel; 8:15pm to 8:30pm – TuneRegistry Demo; 8:30pm – 8:50pm Mingle)
Location: SAE Institute Los Angeles, 6700 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA , 90038

Panelists:
Bruce Waynne (Producer, The MIDI Mafia) – GRAMMY Award Winner, ASCAP Award Winner
Tat Tong (Producer/Songwriter, The Swaggernautz) – 200 original music placements, 17 platinum records, over 40 Top 20 hits, and 14 Number 1 hits around the world.
Jovany Javier (Singer/Songwriter, The Swaggernautz) – American Idol Sesaon 10 Top 12 Male Finalist, Multiple Major Song Placements
Yonni (Producer/Songwirter) – 2x GRAMMY Nominated
Dennis Dreith (Executive Director, AFM & SAG-AFTRA Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund)
Moderator: Dae Bogan (Co-founder & CEO, TuneRegistry)

The panel will discuss a number of music business topics from the perspective of producers and engineers including: What rights do producers and engineers have? How do P&E protect and enforce their rights? How does P&E make money? What backend royalties can P&E receive? Key terms of various P&E contracts. Music for media (film, television shows, commercials, video games, etc.). Global perspective (rights, money, and piracy). Working with artists; etiquette and standing your ground.

The panel will be followed by a live demo of the TuneRegistry platform and networking.

DETAILS & RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tuneregistry-presents-music-business-for-producers-engineers-tickets-28738821589

LA Area Upcoming Music Industry Conferences & Networking Events

upcoming-events

A summary of a few upcoming music industry conferences and networking events…

10/17-10/18 – Production Music Conference 2016
I will host a roundtable discussion on rights management for composers of production music on Tuesday, October 18th, 9am to 10am.

10/20 – Music 2020 Day at Digital Hollywood
I will moderate the panel “Infrastructure: Building New Pipes, New Rights, and New Micropayment Systems” on Thursday, October 20th, 10:20am to 11:05am.

10/27 – October Music Industry Mixer (Malibu Edition)
I will host the networking mixer and open mic. I will have a guest speaker to discuss music publishing.

11/9 – TuneRegistry Event at SAE Institute Los Angeles
I will moderate the panel “Rights & Money for Producers & Engineers” and demo TuneRegistry.

11/19-11/21 – FestForums Santa Barbara 2016
I will be speaking on the panel “Content Marketing: Why Festivals Have A Leg Up” on Friday, November 19th, 2:30pm to 3:20pm.