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Forget the Record Deal, What about the Publishing Deal. While labels are understandably trying to mitigate their risk, by targeting artists who are already as "developed" as possible, it seems that publishers have taken on greater roles as nurturers of talent. Taylor Swift go her start by honing her songwriting abilities under the guidance of Arthur Buenahora at Songy/ATV Music publishing. Keri Hilson speaks about having first developed as a songwriter with Universal Music Publishing, and how that experience helped her launch her solo career with Interscope Records. HERE is a full interview with Eric Beale, who began his tenure in the industry as a songwriter, writing songs for the Jacksons and Diana Ross. Hopefully this interview gives you some further insight into the world of publishing and some hints on how you can either get into the publishing business as a working artist or as a career, helping other artists hone their skills!

Labels - 0, Songwriters - 1 In a historic deal between labels and songwriters the national music publishers association has come away with a major win in an agreement that will see labels forking out the monies from "pending and unmatched accounts" that are set up in cases where a publisher has not been located by a record label, or an ownership dispute over a song. This is good news for the industry because publishers and labels are finally beginning to see eye to eye.

2009 Future of Music Policy Summit CCC: California Copyright Conference NARIP: National Assn. of Record Industry Professionals AIMP: Association of Independent Music Publishers PMA: Production Music Association NMPA: National Music Publishers Association Record companies often earn money that cannot be paid to artists, managers, songwriters, or publishers because of paperwork problems. I know what you're thinking: yeah, right, paperwork problems. NMPA president and CEO David Israelite and Special Master/lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, who will be overseeing the distribution of nearly $300 million to music publishers from the big four record companies.

Eric Beall hit it out of the park this time with his incredible article walking you through just exactly how you would make a connection on the other side of the big record label doors. His advise offers walk arounds to from being unsolicited to solicited, direction for who to actually approach with your recorded material, finding the people who's tastes are suited to your music and always looking for the alternative way into a project. The article does such a good job of explaining how to get your music heard that i'm sure you will start applying this knowledge right away!

Tired of creating songs that sound too much alike? Add a partner to the group. The ideas that a partner can bring to the table and they way that they work through and create songs can bring you all of the orginal flava that your new music has been craving.

Tick Tock, The Copyright Act of 1976 is About to Expire. It's always entertaining to me to watch the money traps that the labels set for artists, back before information was freely available, EXPLODE! Welp, that's exactly what's about to go down. The Copyright Act states that an artist or author who sold a copyright before 1978 can take it back 56 years later and If it was sold during or after 1978 they can take it back 35 years later. Assuming a correct and prompt filing of paper work, the record labels could lose sound recording copyrights they bought in 1978 starting in 2013. How does this affect you? If the labels don't wanna lose the contents of their entire library you can make a for sure bet that the new copyright law will be negotiated in your favor. Higher royalties anyone?

The good the bad and the ugly of the academy awards. Last week i touched on how the music industry was not MY industry in a basic attempt to relay how i felt while watching the Grammys. It was an okay post, but i was really waiting on Eric Beall of the berkleemusicblog to really take the reins on this one and go in. Fortunately we walked away from the grammys with practically the same message. Music has become a spectacle, The recording industry doesn't know how to invest in its future and music is going global. Hit the jump to READ MORE

Are The Record Labels Biting the Hand that Feeds Them Radio broadcasters around the country are growing increasingly concerned about the long-standing relationship with the music industry. The record labels are demanding an additional "tax" (not including the hundreds of millions of dollars paid annually to groups like BMI, ASCAP and SESAC, which goes to compensate songwriters and music publishers) on local radio stations for every song played. The music industry must be in panic mode to intentionally put a strain on the over 80 year mutually beneficial relationship that previously had radio promote record labels and artists and generate millions of dollars in music, hospitality, small-business and merchandise sales. Free local radio reaches 236 million listeners/week but record labels seem to not really give a hoot about free promo, pay up or shut down.

Potential Artist Revenue Streams David Sherbow music business visionary has a good outline of ALL POTENTIAL ARTIST REVENUE STREAMS. The list covers publishing, digital sales, merchandise, live performances, sponsorships, endorsements, fan clubs, and the list goes on. It'd be great if this list could actually link to articles that explain how to work the revenue of each stream. Hopefully we'll see this in Potential Rev Streams list 2.0.

Explore music has recently published the results of a poll determining the scariest theme songs in film. As a songwriter i find this list as an invaluable tool that you can use to compare songs in your library that you have deemed scary. Take a listen to each song in the list, most can be found on Youtube, and listen carefully to what instruments are being used and how they are being used, then mimmic these styles and sounds in your productions. Music supervisors are constantly basing their selections off of similar sounding songs, so having songs that mimmic the top 5 should definitely help with increased placements. Remember good artists copy, great artists steal. Landing at number 1 by the way, Psycho Theme (Psycho) by Bernard Hermann.

If you're singing your own demos...STOP! I'm sure you have all heard of Murphys Law, right? Well have you heard of Murphys Laws of songwriting? Probably not, so let me acquaint you. Ralph Murphy is currently ASCAP's Vice-President of International and Domestic Membership, as well as a legendary songwriter and publisher with more than twenty number One hits under his Levi's. I stumbled across his website the other day and came across this article outlining why it is best not to sing your own demos, and the reasons are not "obvious". Head over to Ralph Murphy's website to check out the advantages of not singing your own demos as well as many more valuable pieces of advice on crafting your hit song, like [this one] for example.

Eric Beall recently made a trip to Amsterdam to partake in the Writers Camp sponsored by Holland's equivalent of our ASCAP/BMI/SESAC and Harry Fox Agency, BUMA STEMRA. While on his visit he actually made time to experience the Vincent van Gogh Art Museum, which he calls "a career retrospective". While browsing the Art and reading the personal letters between Van Gogh and his brother Theo, Eric was able to see numerous parallels between Van Gogh the painter and all of us who write songs and make records. Here are 3 of those parallels outlined here for you. 1. Where you are now is not where you are going. 2. Where you're going will be depend upon your willingness to challenge yourself with new opportunities, and by the people with whom you choose to surround yourself. 3. Ultimately, it's not about where you are, or where you're going. It's all about the journey. To get a more elaborate explanation of these 3 parallels head over to Erics blog to read the full article.

Ways for musicians to make money in their sleep. Place your songs with other recording artists. Let them do the touring and the twittering, while you earn money. Place your songs in films and television shows. Not only does it publicize you as an artist-it generates sync fees and performance income. Place your songs in video games or other products. The licensing rates are pretty low, but the exposure is ridiculously high. And you don't have to travel in a van, tear-down or set-up. Place your songs in advertisements. It's not only about grabbing that Apple iPod spot. There are national, local and international advertising opportunities that could fund your band's next road-trip. Create new music for film/TV libraries, which license "needle-drop" music to a wide variety of media. The sync fees are virtually non-existent, but because these are non-exclusive licenses, the same piece can be used again and again, generating significant performance money....

Unread.

EMI is in the hospital in critical condition. The doctors are saying that onetime behemoth might just be terminally ill.

1. The best approach is slow and cautious. Right now, we are in the jungle. In the jungle, you don't rush blindly ahead. You dip a toe in the sand, and see if you sink. We have no hope of predicting which of these services might catch on. We need to move slowly, with very short-term agreements and see what works and what fails. And we need to be sure not to undermine our other business partners while we do that. Which leads to… 2. We should support our allies and punish our enemies. Rob McDaniels for InGrooves estimates that it takes 150-200 streams of one song to equal the royalty income on a single download. Right now, our industry still relies on the sale of physical product (believe it or not, it's still the primary source of revenue) and on digital downloads. Perhaps streaming is the future. Perhaps not. But we would be very unwise to cut ridiculously low-cost rates to a business model that obviously threatens both physical retailers and iTunes. Let's take care of the people paying our bills. At the same time, we should continue to press ahead with legal efforts against things like Pirate Bay- efforts that are finally starting to show some results. 3. We need to recognize that "bundling" and ad-revenue sharing is a marriage, and it works both ways. If we bundle the cost of music access into the cost of a mobile phone or the sale of a computer, we're now not only in the music business, we're in the electronics business. Any economic factors that hurt the sales of phones and computers will now hurt us as well. 4. Most of all, we need transparency in the negotiations and setting of rates, so that everyone in the music community understands what they're being paid and how it's being calculated.

The Great Balancing Act Between Art and Business Both art and music require a great deal of energy and time, the balance is how and where you spend it. There are many different factors that go into creating a successful business around your music, including record keeping and bookkeeping. The insider has a great post about the difference between these two chores as well as some good advice on multi tasking business and music creation. Einstein said that one definition of insanity was repeating your actions and expecting different outcomes, if you wanna try a new approach to being a successful songwriter then all you gotta do is READ MORE.

What exactly does a music library do. Music libraries are becoming more important to the indie musician as money gets tighter and the demand for indie placements rises. Songplacements.com is now the premier music library in southern California, helping artists land opportunities previously only available to the majors. With that being said, the insider has a great piece on exactly what a music library is and does. Knowing how company's such as Songplacements.com operate empowers you, the independent musician, allowing you to better exploit our services, and hopefully land more placements!