Label Budgeting Case Major labels like Universal and Sony have a lot of in-house people that get

paid on a salary to work for them, as they are big enough to be able to afford to pay these people on a weekly basis. The job positions include: the legal department, there own distribution company, A+R, Admin, Accounts, Press promotion, Radio TV promotion ext. On the other hand, Independent or otherwise known as Indy labels will source out their people for legal accounts, distribution, press/promo and so on but when they are needed, this is called going out of house. This is done on the basis that the indy label cannot afford to hire these people on a 24/7 basis as they dont have the funds to do so unlike the bigger labels. The people who they hire are freelances and get paid on agreed contractual term dependent on time. For example they would only contract their contracted promotion team 2 months prior and post the release of new an album. Though they still will have Admin, A+R and a Managing Director. So because Universal have a lot of people working for them that whenever they do release an album they need to sell a lot more

than an indy label just to break even. This is because not only do they need the sale of the album to do well for the band and owner of the label, but they have a whole back catalogue of staff working with them behind the scenes that need to get paid on a weekly basis working for them. This is why big labels such as Universal will pump huge amounts of money into advertising bands and distribution because they have a lot more to loose in respect of money than if an album doesnt sell than an indy label. Also because of this fact makes it a lot easier for the big labels to make their money back on artists and bands that do do successful because they have put so much time and money into them. They also know if one artist/band doesnt sell well that they can always rely on one of their bigger artists/bands release material to recoup losses made from elsewhere. But big labels will only start throwing money at artists or even signing them now if they know they already have a reliable fan base that they know will buy their albums and support their gigs. So they now leave it up to bands/artists to build up there fan base before they swoop in and other them a contract. This is where Indy labels play in a completely different ballpark. Their figures are a lot less in

every respective because the dont have the money like big labels do, so they do have less chance of a big loss but only because they are not putting as much money into their artist/bands in the first place. This is because the risk of loosing a lot of money is a lot greater for and independent label than one of the giant labels because if the indy labels punt on a band goes downhill and the expected sales dont reach their targets they might not have the funds to be able to recover from such a hit. So because of this factor independent labels can be very flexible with their demands to artists when it comes to releasing their music. We did a case study on Dominos Record Label and we found out the founder Lawrence Bell had a very strict budget that he kept to when starting off. His rules were he would only sign bands who had finished recordings so he didnt have to worry about studio costs and so on. He would only press 1000 cd albums, which cost him 1200 and that was for the basic 2 colour artwork. He would only employ a freelance specialist press pr company for 1 month during the release of the album, which cost him 3000 for that service. Off of his own back he would mail the albums to specialist radio producers who he thought would give

them airplay and he employed a large independent distribution company called PIAS at a cost of 20% of the dealer price of the album. In a summery the total cost of an album release from his Independent record label would be 4200. The dealers price, which he would sell to the shops, would be at 6.90 meaning that PIAS would take 1.38 from their 20% deal meaning that each sale would end up being 5.52 per cd. This means that overall Lawrence would have to sell 760 cds to breakeven. From this I found out that independent labels can still make a lot of demands like when Lawrence said he wouldnt pay for any studio time. Its the sort of mutual agreement where the band just wants to get its music out and they know that its going to be costly and knows and Indy label doesnt have the budget of a big label. As for my label that I will be setting up at this moment in time has little income coming into it whatsoever I will be hiring as little freelancers as I possibly can until I start earning money. I will work on the basis that if the band can show me that they can sell albums on their own then I will bring in out of house people for promotion and distribution. I will be recording people from my college and any outsiders I like the sound of as I dont want to limit myself

to just one genre but if I feel that a genre is too weird to sell I will obviously not invest my time and money into them. Before I will even start I will cut a deal with the college were because I am using their equipment and their studios free of charge for all my recordings I will give them 20% of what the artist makes from their cd sales but only if we break even. I will entice bands in by saying that I will not charge them for a 4 track Ep. However if they take me up on this then they will have to come to me when they want to record their album which will cost them 150 and that I will take 50% of whatever they make from cd sales. I will make sure they stick up there free EP on Soundcloud making it available for free download. I am doing this so I can build up a good reputation with my artists while promoting them at the same time. In this deal I will pay for the artwork they want (as long as it is 2 colours basic print), that I will pay for the blank cds and see through sleeves. I will tell them that I will advertise them to the best of my means on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, word of mouth and that distribute them myself to as many independent record shops as I can. I will also guarantee local radio airplay on the college radio as I have good connections there and will also plug away at other local stations. Though I would explain that distribution of the

album is down to them as a band as much as it is too myself. I will rely on the majority of the sales to come from their gigs and I will tell them that I will only consider getting a freelance distributor in if they sell 500 or more albums within the 3 months of release. This will not only show me that they will be pushing hard to sell and promote their album themselves by trying to gig as much as they can but it will also give them an incentive to make sure that they keep their books up to date with the sales of their cds. Which for me will mean the chance of me getting ripped off with them deciding to keep the money they make from their sales to themselves is a lot lower if I wasnt to have this deal in place. So the cost of the album will be as followed: I will buy in 1000 cds at 86.52 for release and 1000 see through sleeves for 19.72. I will also pay 205.72 for the 1000 printed album sleeve. I will pay 30 for the making/editing of the music video. So I have spent 341.96 on the production of the cds and the making of the music video but because I have been paid 150 for the recording of the album bring my total cost down to 191.96. I will make sure the albums get sold at 3 each meaning that if

we sold all the cds we would get 3000. From this figure I would deduct my spending costs, which would bring down the sum to 2808.04. I would then take my 50% share, which would be 1404.02 I would then give the college their 20% cut of the musicians earnings which will be 280.80 leaving the musicians to split 1123.22 between them. This means I would only have to sell 63 copies to breakeven. If the band does sell 500 copies within the 3 months of release I will not deduct my initial spending costs. So that will be 1500 minus 150 for the colleges 20% (of only what the band makes) leaving us both with 1350 between the band and me. From this I will sit down with the band decide with the band whether they want to get a freelance distributor in straight away or if we should try and sell some more ourselves.

Organising A Gig Case We did a case study on the an event put on by SJM promotions at the Shepards Bush Empire where they were going to put on a show for the band We Are Scientists. The organization of the event happened when the promoter of SJM called up a booking agent (ITB) to see if they have any bands who will be on tour during the time of when he wanted to put on an event. So they offered them We Are Scientists and made a 50% each way split what is 25,000 each as they came to the agreement that they would sell the tickets for 25 and because the capacity of the venue is 2000 that means that the max revenue would be 50,000. So they write up a contract but in this they say that the promoter has to spend 4500 on promotion for the event. From SJMs 25,000 they spend 4500 on promotion, 9000 on the hiring of the venue and they pay a 4700 contribution to the events staff and security. Total costs from that was 18200. So if they sold out, their profit would be 6800. This was the budget for the SJM promotions. For ITBs budget the booking agent takes 2500, which is his 10% commission from the 25,000, management then takes their 20% cut of what is now 22,500, which is 4500. Then they gave the

18,000 what was left to the bands Tour Manger who spends 11525 on the booking of everyone who needs to be hired for the show to run smoothly. So in the end if the show sells out they would make a profit of 6475 what would then get shared between the band members. Now because I do not have a 2000 capacity nor the budget to put on an event at a venue like Shepherds Bush Empire I will be throwing the event instead at the venue in my college and as I know a lot of the musicians that play there so I will not need to hirer in an external booking agent as I can do that myself. I will tell the college that I will pay them 300 for the hiring of the venue but. I already know that the maximum capacity of the venue can fit 300 people so if I sell out then that means they get a pound for each person. I will also contractly write up that we both need to put in 50 towards promotion. As I attend this college I know the going rates for the tickets that get sold here. Normally the prices of tickets range from 8 to 12 for the music events that normally get put on here. Though this is the case I will decrease the price of my tickets to the sum of 5 so people are more persuaded to come to my event than go elsewhere on there night out. I will also make this event

available to the public so if students do want to bring external friends from outside the college then they are more than welcome to so. The maximum amount of profit what the event will make will be 1500. I will need to pay for security for the event, but will only need hire 2 people. I will pay them 10/hour for the night of the event and they will be working from 8-1 thats 5 hours pay so 100 for security. I will also paying for a DJ after the bands have finished playing which will set me back another 150 but with this the DJ will bring and set up his own lights. We would also want the bar open all night. The bar is only small and gets operated by 2 people my rate for them will also be 10/hour so that is another 100 spent. That concludes my spending costs. So overall I have spent the grand sum of 700 on this event. That means that in order to break even and cover my cost from this event I would only need to sell 140 tickets. Which I know will be a very realistic and easily achievable goal considering that whenever I have been to any music event at the college it has always sold out. I will tell the bands playing at the event that they will only get paid if we sell out. They will be more than happy to take me up on this offer because after all it is an event where most people will know how to get to and the know the chance of selling out is extremely

high. I will then write a contract up saying if the gig does sell out that each band will get 50 but whatever band does sell the most tickets will get 100 to split between them. This gives the bands a motive to want to sell tickets for the event, creates a bit of friendly competition and takes heat off of the fact that they may not be paid for their time. I will only have 5 bands playing throughout the course of the night so even with this reward scheme I am only spending 300 for all the bands in total and thats only with selling out. So if we do sell out I will be left with 500 profit from this event but if we dont sell out but I still manage to break even then I can still earn anything from the region of 5 - 795.

Copyright Case Owning a piece of music is called Copyright because you have the rights for the copying or in other word the manufacture of that product. Copyright is created as soon as the idea gets recorded so that could be as simple as getting an idea out your head by writing it down on paper. The copyright law is as stated: UK law (1988 Copyrights and Patents act) is that the legal requirement for record labels is to pay 8.5% of their dealer price to the original copyright owner. There are two types of Copyright: Compositional Copyright & Mechanical Copyright. Compositional copyright is the ownership to the music. It prevents others using the music inappropriately for example using the music to promote a product without permission. Another example of an infringement of compositional copyright is one artist using the same music produced by another artist under their name for example in 1990 it came to light that Vanilla Ice had sampled Queen and David Bowies Under Pressure for his song Ice Ice Baby without consent or license. He settled it out of court with Queen and David Bowie for an undisclosed but it is very likely that it was a very high amount due to its success.

The other type of copyright is called mechanical copyright. Mechanical copyright is where the artist has ownership of the physical recordings and the sales of those physical recordings this allows the artist to sell their music to the public though this is usually done through the use of a record label. The record label pays the artist for the album and then offers the artist a percentage of the money earned from the initial sales of the album. This is a good system because it takes a lot of pressure from an artist to sell music. Assignment of copyright determines the period over which the artists songs get released to the publisher. This is until 70 years after the artists death. You can protect your copyright by making sure that when you record a track or write any lyrics that there is a clear date marked on it. Some paranoid musicians would even go to the lengths of wax ceiling envelopes with the contents of their music inside, marking with the date inside it and post it to themselves by recorded delivery marked with do not open. They would do this in the event that if they ever did need to take somebody to court over the copyright infringement law them they could because before computers this was one of the

best ways to prove your work. The history of music publishing Music publishing rights has been around for a very long time it even pre dates the recording industry. People would publish sheets of music and sell them so the charts to say would be made up from the most bought sheets of music paper. It was a business where people would hire and employ musicians to write pieces of music they would publish and then sell in sheet form. The songwriter would assign the publisher with the right to copy for a royalty (percentage) on every copy sold. But as soon as music started being able to get recorded the A+R people sprouted out of the newly formed record companies and they would go down to Denmark street looking through peoples music for their artists to record. So the publishers began to assign the copyright to the record labels so that they could manufacture records.

The Publishing Contract This contract deals with the songs, the songwriters and the performers. This is all about who gets the right amount of money for their input in the creation of the song. Publishing earnings from successful material can be so large that some band members can end up with a fortune where as the other members who didnt put allot into the writing of the song can end up with very little. This can cause many feuds within the band so some bands agree to split all publishing income equally amongst their line-up. What matters to the artist is that every time the artists song is used somewhere, youre owed a royalty. If its played on bbc radio 1 for example a fee will be payable to the artist from the PRS (Performing Right Society) under an agreement between the PRS and the BBC. When an artist signs to a publisher it can provide many benefits such as less admin and paperwork and which can mean cash upfront too that is another benefit. A good publisher should be constantly looking for new uses for your material through TV, cinema, or adverts. An exclusive publishing deal is where the artists entire songwriting output goes through just one chosen source throughout the length of agreement. This could

be anything from one year to five years, though the Musicians Union does suggest a maximum of three years for obvious reasons. In the Management Contract section of this there would normally be a minimum commitment clause where the artist is obliged to deliver a specified number of songs before the contracts time is out. The management contract This contract is for the manager to know exactly what his job will entail when he starts representing his artist so he knows what sections of his artists output he will have control over, what he can and what he cant touch if other deals have been set. For the artist when they get a manager they essentially getting someone with experience in the industry but it makes sense to limit the management contract to exclude areas what arent your manager forte and push to take control in any areas youve already managed to establish yourself. The terms for this contract Is for how long this contract will be running for and what will happen when it finally does come to the end of its allocated time. For instance when it runs out you could have the option to extend it for a further year. At the end of each year it is

usually down to the manager to decide whether to carry on with this artist or not which is normally dependent of sales. A manager who is high up in the (music food chain) to put it will usually ask for more years and more of a percentage of their earning than someone who isnt. Theres something called a performance clauses where the artist has the right to terminate the contract if your manager hasnt lived up to his side of the bargain and hasnt bagged you a recording deal within a specified period of time. The managers territory is where manager will represent you around the world. Most management deals are worldwide. Commission is generally set at 20 percent of gross earnings but this 20 percent could always be negotiated down. There is certain money thats given to the artist by there record company that shouldnt be commissioned through the manager like promotional video costs, recording costs, and the contributions towards the cost of touring. Earnings from touring are a whole subjects in themselves. As its so easy for live outings to make a loss the manager should only take commission after certain costs have been deducted. Cashflow is all where the money goes to after it has been earnt. Now all the

income would normally go through the artists accountant and then the manager would come comes and invoice you for their share or the alternative setup is that all moneys going straight to manager before being appointed to the artist. This also covers the any of the managers expenses. The manger is entitled to claim off the artist to cover for their expenses on their behalf. These are restricted to things that are only for the artist career but normally these costs come out of the 20 percent commission.

Remix Genre Swap Case For the remix project I genre swapped Madonnas Papa dont preach from DancePop classic to an Indie track and more specifically in the style of the band The XX. I also took The Beatles song Fool on the hill and genre swapped that to Grunge from Psychedelic pop wrote in the style of the band The Pixies. With both songs I decided to completely scrap the preexisting chord structures used in the original tracks and go in my own direction because I wanted to push myself musically and I am also just set against any covers of a song which are made to be carbon copies of the original. Knowing that these songs what I was going to write were going out to the public, I decided to do a bit of market research. I asked a lot of people who I knew were big music enthusiasts if they agreed with my thoughts on changing up the covers and the majority agreed with me. So with doing this not only did I find out what the public wanted I

was also doing a bit of advertisement for my tracks in the process and the Madonna song was actually a request from a group of people so I knew this was going to get a little traffic to my track from them before I had even started. With promoting my remix tracks and trying to get as much traffic to people listening to the rest of my work I decided to firstly choose to do two covers of well household names throughout the world. The reason for is that the main way Ill attracting publicity for my tracks will be using the world wide web so it would be foolish of myself to choose an underground cult band so Madonna and The Beatles seemed to fit the bill. So for example using YouTube I could post the link of my song in the comment boxes of their videos because I know that they have a lot of fans that go on video each day and theyd be a lot more inclined to click on my songs if they knew it was a cover of one of their favorite bands. I could also stick them both up on there Facebook page and my own asking people to share it with their friends and hopefully try and get my tracks to trend. With constant peppering of my track from myself and other people online should increase my profile just the amount of times I appear on somebodies profile.

The viral video has people who are no one become Internet sensations over night from anything from a funny cat to a podcast. So another idea to promote my work could be to do something where I involve as many people from my college in like a group dance or something funny where I go around my campus and get all people from as many areas involved in it. I could get someone to film it and tell all the people who were involved that I am going to stick it online and that I will send them the link to check it out. In doing this I can put my song in the background of the video and have a link in the description of my Soundcloud. If I do this not only will I be promoting my track Im also giving a lot of people a real motive to watch the video because it is a well known fact that everybody likes to watch themselves and their friends on video especially if its doing an interesting activity. I decided to do the Madonna song in the style of the XX because I new the XX style would interest people as they managed to get their debut album in the top 50 in the UK and their second album Co-exist to number 1 in the charts. Also the fact that it was a Madonna cover and I had changed so much already in

the sonical elements of the track thought it would be important to stick with female vocals so the target audience could have something to relate to in my track apart from some of the lyrics, which I decided to keep. I really hadnt heard anyone cover a Madonna track before so I thought it could be I niche in the market for it. I did however find out that Kelly Osborne did a punk cover of Papa Dont Preach a while back when looking up the song and it went down like a lead balloon. It did not put me off when choosing this song, as I would blame the entirety of the songs failure not on the choice of song but just in the way it had been poorly delivered. I decided to do the Beatles song in the style of Grunge because I thought it would be really interesting to do a cover of a Beatles song in a genre that hadnt been created while they were active. Also with the reuniting comeback of the famous band The Pixies I thought this would be a good opening in which I could get there fans coming my way which I think they would be happy to come as Grunge has pretty much been dead since the 90s. To do this I thought it was important to have male and female call and response in the song to imitate The Pixies so their fans would be more inclined to like it. I am not too sure what The

Beatles fans would think about this cover as I can not recall on any Beatles song being genre swapped before but whether they click on the track because they want to criticize the very thought before hearing or whether they are actually interested in what the track has to offer doesnt matter to me. As long as they click on my work and listen to my track that is the most important thing.