Income

The first thing that most young songwriters in the US hear is “you need to sign up for ASCAP or BMI to make sure you get your songwriter royalties.” I have to hand it to ASCAP and BMI’s PR departments. They do a great job of making themselves known. So much so, that most so...

At this point I'm sure you've heard by now that “songwriters just got a raise!” Woohoo! But what does this really mean? And how do you get your money? Ok, lemme break this down for you in plain English. Currently streaming services (otherwise known as DSPs - Digital Service P...

I bet you didn't realize that most cover videos on YouTube are illegal. Unless the artist worked with a Multi Channel Network (MCN) that had an agreement with the publisher, the only way the cover video could be legally monetized (uh, earn money from ads) was if the publisher hap...

So as many of you know I was off the grid last month in New Orleans on a (book!) writing retreat. As much as I love LA, it's very difficult to block out all the distractions of my daily life and solely focus on a creative pursuit. Meetings and (acting) auditions come up and it's...

On December 28th, 2015 long-time streaming foe, David Lowery, who runs the Trichordist blog and fronts the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, filed a class-action lawsuit seeking at least $150 million in damages against Spotify. The lawsuit alleges that Spotify knowingly, wi...

I need to start off by saying that an incredible album dropped last week. You should go and listen to Vulfpeck's Thrill of The Arts right now. It's funky. It grooves. It's soulful. There are some fantastic guest vocalists on there. And guitarist Blake Mills (producer of my favori...

There's a lot of legal mumbo jumbo that goes along with obtaining the rights to get music in a podcast. Dealing with mechanical licenses, public performance licenses, direct licenses, on and on. Oh and if you overlay the music with talking, it's a SEPARATE license!Way too confusi...

Last week Loudr announced that they are making it super easy for artists to obtain a mechanical license to (legally) release cover songs through any digital distributor (not just them). You can read my article on Digital Music News about it here. Harry Fox Agency (HFA) as most of...

I was just at a show last night at the Echo in east LA. A band from Philly was the 2nd of 3 acts. The other two were local, but this Philly band was who we were there to see. I went with a manager friend of mine who had been following these guys for a few years. There was a prett...

We all know recorded music sales are dying. It's a Titanic size plank that sales have been marching down for years, but eventually they'll fall off. But we're not there yet. Last year, Americans bought 257 million albums – an 11% drop from 2013. That's still a hefty number, but...