So you’ve already written and recorded a song and determined who owns it, but now what can you as an owner do with it? What rights in the song do you have, that no one else does?
The owner of the copyright in a work has certain exclusive rights in that work, rights that no one else but the owner has, including the rights to:
With a constant stream of analytic information measured in song plays, likes, views, and other stats, it can be tempting to play the comparison game in music. Because this constantly updated information is an important indicator of an artist’s success, it could lead some musicians to constantly compare their numbers to other artists. But while some helpful insights could be gleaned by seeing how well your contemporaries are faring in today’s tumultuous music climate, it’s a bad habit to be constantly sizing yourself up against other artists. Here’s why.
There’s nothing more exciting for a new artist than finding out that listeners are starting to learn about and enjoy their music. But using play counts, views, and hits as the only metrics to measure musical success is a bad idea.
If you think about it, using statistics like views and plays to measure an artist’s traction with fans is a relatively new thing. Sure, the music industry has relied on radio charts and record sales to gauge and understand what music is resonating with listeners and what music isn’t, but those metrics are completely different than measuring how often listeners play a particular track on a streaming platform.
Seemingly without notice until recently, the music industry has been experiencing a seismic and possibly irreversible change throughout the last decade. Last year, the Washington Post published an article about the recent decline in international electric guitar sales. The numbers are pretty shocking. In just the past decade, electric guitar sales have dropped by a third, from 1.5 million to a new average of just over 1 million. As you can imagine, this trend has been hell on small music stores, but even large music retailers have been experiencing pain due to waning guitar sales.
If you own a music store, this is all pretty bleak news, but what does the electric guitar’s decline mean for the rest of the music industry?
No matter what kind of music you make, it’s a common goal to be so successful that the price of gas isn’t something you think about much while you’re on the road sharing your music with the world. But for the vast majority of musicians actively developing their careers through touring, the ever-fluctuating cost of filling up is a big concern. For your reading pleasure, we’ve put together a short list of America’s cheapest and most expensive cities for gas.
Each year we’re presented a clean slate. The opportunity to take what we’ve learned the year before and apply it to the one that lies in front of us. No matter how successful your 2017 was, or the roadblocks you may have hit along the way, 2018 presents the perfect opportunity to dust yourself off and make it the most prosperous, successful year yet. Here are three ways to make 2018 your most successful year yet.
One of Picasso’s most famous quotes is the legendary comment on stealing from other artists: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” It’s true—every piece of art has an origin of influence. And while we aren’t encouraging you to steal (get your samples cleared!), we recognize that one of the best ways to build your own sound as a producer is to look to your influences. Every producer who opens up a DAW for the first time has an established history of love for various artists that inspired them to open a DAW in the first place. Right away, you’re probably going to mimic your favorite producer, whether it be their drum patterns or use of effects. But in the 21st century where producers are becoming a dime a dozen, it pays to stand out. You can own your influences, but be careful not to wear them on your sleeve. For the producers who successfully balance their influences with their own original ideas, your work will be much more in demand. Here are a few ways to achieve that goal.
Having a blog express interest in your music can be exciting and affirming for a band. Love it or hate it, tastemakers in the blogosphere are largely responsible for determining what kind of music the world listens to these days. Even passing mentions of bands on popular music blogs have the power to launch careers. So it’s no wonder why so much effort is put into pitching singles and albums to bloggers on behalf of bands and their publicists. Many bands looking for exposure reach out to blogs in hopes of having them debut their singles, but giving exclusive debut rights to just one outlet isn’t always the best move.
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