Music Publishers Copy Major Label 360 Model

Music publishers were once thought of as safe havens for artists.  They nurtured songwriters, introduced them to the industry and sought ways to broaden their income with covers and placements. Now, it appears that they want more – a lot more – than a piece of the act’s publishing in exchange for their efforts.

At a recent Association of Independent Music Publishers luncheon at LA’s House Of Blues, a panel of business affairs execs made it clear that now music publishers are demanding additional rights akin to major label 360 deals when signing new artists.

Panelists including David Lessoff (New West Records), Alan Melina (President New Heights Ent.) and Greg Saunders (Warner Publishing) shared a variation of common message according to those present: “If you plan on signing with us, make sure you come with all your rights intact.”

What they said:

• Melina: “If the artist already has a [label] deal we basically say you have to re-negotiate so you can give us the 360 rights so we can up stream them to [our sister] major.”
• Lessoff: “If an artist already has his publishing tied up and then there is only those shiny disks to bring in revenue the deal is not as good for us.”
• Saunders: “A home run for us is signing a writer who is a producer and has direct access to [other] artist[s]. The self contained singer/songwriter is still possible but difficult.”

But how many rights does one artist have to give? And who – if anyone – should they share them with?

Check out the first track off my new artist Andra Govere’s Mixtape “White Swans” feat. Lupe Fiasco.

Listen/Download [Here]

Loveis4Suckaz Mixtape Coming Soon.

IRENE, South Africa – College student Robby Donoho watched Landon Donovan’s golden goal on Wednesday and decided it merited an instant tribute. Little did he know, within hours it would wind up bringing the United States soccer hero, flicking through the Internet half a world away, to tears.

Donoho, a 21-year-old Purdue University senior and avid fan of the men’s national team, collected a montage of clips of USA fans celebrating Donovan’s injury-time winner against Algeria andassembled them into a catchy package, which he put on YouTube.

Within hours, the video had gone viral, and as the American players headed to bed on Friday night ahead of their round-of-16 match against Ghana in Rustenburg, more than 350,000 viewers had tuned in.

It didn’t take long for the images to be passed through to the USA’s training camp near Pretoria and onto the laptop of Donovan himself. For all of the praise and plaudits the goal-scoring star received after his moment of glory, it was seeing the reaction sparked by his calm strike into the bottom corner of the Algerian net that touched him the most.

“Not sure if you guys saw this but it brings tears to my eyes every time,” Donovan wrote on his Facebook account, while linking to Donoho’s video. “Thank you all so much … we can do it.”

The scenes were intoxicating. From a frantic fan leaping from his couch in Arkansas to a raucous bar in Lincoln, Neb. From a Las Vegas casino to a New York sidewalk, where fans congregated to peer at a television through a shop window. From an American enclave in Lyon, France, to the streets of South Africa, the pictures of jubilation were enough to warm the hearts of those who have waited for soccer to matter in America.

For Donoho, it was a moment he will never forget, and it spawned unavoidable mental comparisons with a certain hockey game from 30 years ago.

“When I watched Landon’s goal go in, and the response from everyone across the world, it immediately reminded me of the Miracle on Ice,” Donoho wrote in an email to Yahoo! Sports, referring to the USA’s legendary hockey upset of the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. “Those kind of moments captivate a nation and bring us together in a time where belief seems dim and victory doesn’t seem possible. It was down the stretch, with everything on the line.

“The best always comes out in sports, and it did for that moment and Landon. That’s what inspired the world to react with sheer excitement and joy.”

American soccer is not blessed with a long list of spectacular moments. When the end of this tournament allows a sense of perspective to return, if Donovan’s goal does not go down as the national team’s finest hour, it will surely remain its most dramatic.

Head coach Bob Bradley took the decision to shield his players from the glare of the spotlight by sequestering them in a quiet training base in the countryside. Yet the omnipresence of the Internet allowed a sense of the excitement they had conjured back home to seep through.

“There needs to be some kind of distance, but I also think it is important for the players to realize what their achievement means to people,” Bradley said. “That is [not a] bad thing.”

For Donovan, this has been an emotional time. After failing to live up to expectations at the World Cup four years ago in Germany, Wednesday night was the kind of moment he had targeted on the countless nights when the pain of under-performance kept him awake.

When you combine the pride the 28-year-old has in representing his nation with tumultuous recent events in his personal life, it is little surprise Donoho’s stirring video elicited more raw emotion.

And he wasn’t the only one.

“Hearing about Landon’s reaction to my video almost brings me to tears,” said Donoho, who is studying mass communication (broadcast journalism) at Purdue. “I have always gone into making my videos and putting them on YouTube to bring excitement and joy into every viewer that sees them. To hear that the player that inspired the world with his goal saw my video and it inspired him to tears, brings me to tears just typing this.”

With today marking the one year anniversary of MJ’s passing, The Evil Genius Green Lantern composed this mix for Atlanta’s V-103. It airs later today at 9 P.M., but you can download here.

Can you say sold out? Looks like one Detroit (9/2) and one New York (9/13) show weren’t good enough. The dynamic duo have added on to their history-making Home and Home concert series. Sources confirm an additional show will go down in the D on 9/3 and in the BX on 9/14. Tickets on sale tomorrow morning at 10 am. Wow!

It’s always good news to see a classic Jordan Brand colorway is returning, with all of the fusions & hybrids the interest in OG’s continue to grow. It has been confirmed through official Jordan Brand catalog scans that this White/Cement colorway will indeed be making a return in the Spring of 2011. I personally prefer these over the “Fire Red” 3’s that released a few years back. There is still so much time left on 2010 and a few releases to look forward to for the years end but this is definitely great news for Jordan heads.

Meet the Parents was definitely one of my favorite comedy’s but honestly I kind of slept on the follow up Meet the Fockers and now 6 years later we have yet another spin off,Little Fockers. Being that I missed Meet the Fockers it’s kind of hard for me to predict whether this will totally bomb or be laugh out loud hilarious, but if this teaser trailer is any indication I’d say the latter. The chemistry Ben Stiller & Robert De Niro have is undeniable. Check it out below and let me know what you think.

The origin of the 360 stems from the steady decline in album sales over the last decade. Labels were funding artists with advances and would recoup based on record sales and royalties. All other income would go straight to the artist or her affiliate. While record sales have plummeted, concert ticket sales and merchandise sales have stayed fairly strong. The result was strong earnings for artists and pissed off labels who were not able to recoup their initial advances. Not surprisingly, the labels dropped a lot of artists and repositioned themselves (slowly) to adapt to the changing musiceconomy. Savvy investors also came on board, sometimes replacing labels, and presented more mainstream, non-music industry, proposals that work more as a partnership rather than a label/artist venture.

While each 360 deal is different, you can pretty much bet that each will contain the following core elements: The label/investor who funds a band, either with an advance or an investment, will receive a percentage of income from:

1. Royalties (publishing/sometimes writer’s share)

2. Record Sales (all formats)

3. Tour Income

4. Merchandise Sales

5. Licensing Income

Some 360′s go even further and give the label/investor a share of personal appearance income, solo (if it is a band) performance income, dj income, book/tv/movie income etc. Basically income from anything that a band or an individual in a band may earn while under contract could theoretically be collected by a label/investor in a 360 deal. If there is any hope of a 360 deal working, you must negotiate certain removals or certain untouchable categories as well as negotiate the percentages of income shared.

As I have written before, a 360 deal is not the worst thing in the world if it is drafted and enforced in a fair manner. This may come as a surprise to my readers as I tend to be a bit slanted toward artists, but if you think about it, a 360 may just work for some bands. If you get a label or investor who is looking to share in all streams of revenue, then you must have an agreement that certain benchmarks or obligations of the label must be met. If the label plans on sharing in your tour income, they should also be spending money on tour support and promotion. If a label wants income from your personal appearances, the label should help secure such events. The principle behind the 360 is that without the investment made by the label/investor, the band would not succeed. Typical of many labels, they will sign a band to a 360, supply them with a small advance and then disappear. Then the band works its collective ass off to get gigs and sell gear and the label still collects its share. That just plain old sucks.

If however, you have a fair label that wants to share in a 360 deal, they will expect to help you earn more money by promoting all aspects of your career. Whether it is hiring a PR company, street teams, securing world wide distribution, etc., a label that works with and for the band has a much better claim that sharing in all of their artists income is fair.

So do your research, advocate for yourself and your band and make sure that if a label or an investor wants a piece of everything you do, they are helping you achieve everything you want to achieve. (FYI: 360 deals are beasts and should always be negotiated by an attorney)

Image:Odds & Ends Info:Lawyer4Musicians Author: Josh Kaplan

Here’s a video directed by Quddus, Great Job Man!! Check It Out People!