Entertainment Attorney Dina LaPolt Educates Artists and Professionals On How to Navigate Business and Legal Aspects of Music Industry

Dina LaPolt, renowned Los Angeles-based attorney, who is The National Association of Record Industry Professionals’ 2011 Top Music Business Attorney, is once again bringing her expertise and experience to UCLA Extension with her popular “Legal and Practical Aspects of the Music Business” class for its tenth consecutive winter term.  LaPolt’s ability to break down into simple terms the complex legal concepts surrounding the various ways in which rights are exploited and monetized makes this course an essential for all artists, songwriters, managers, lawyers, accountants, executives, producers, publishers and other entertainment industry professionals.

Some of the most important issues covered by the course involve the growth of ancillary revenue streams for artists that are not even related to music but which have become important brand-building tools for music artists, such as sponsorships/endorsements, opportunities in television, book publishing, and creative forms of merchandising.  Licensing music for film, television and video games still create significant opportunities but licensing these rights have become very complicated due to the corporate mergers of the record and publishing companies.  To most, these subjects can be overwhelming but one of the main assets those taking this class will walk away with is a firm grasp of how to navigate one’s way through these minefields in order to have a complete understanding of today’s music business.  LaPolt, her firm’s associates,  and a stable of specific guest lecturers  will also discuss other areas as well such as issues that arise in the recording studio, recording and publishing agreements, as well as fans, brands, social networks, and cultural communities as they affect music, copyrights, and merchandising in a global music market.

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Anti-piracy platform AudioLock.NET announce new deal with Defected Records

Anti-piracy specialists Audiolock.NET, who provide robust and cost effective watermarking and anti-piracy solutions to the music industry, have announced details of a new deal with the world’s leading dance music label, Defected Records. 

The deal will see Defected running their secure watermarked promo delivery and management through the platform with Audiolock also taking care of the scanning and DMCA takedown on illegal links found online once the tracks are released via their powerful automated anti-piracy system.

 Anna Wall, Promotions Manager at Defected says…. “AudioLock.NET’s watermarking, scanning and takedown platform makes it easy to manage all our promo campaigns securely and effectively allowing us to concentrate on promoting our music” 

Ben Rush, CEO of Audiolock.NET says…..”We’re thrilled that such an iconic label has adopted our forward thinking approach to anti-piracy and we look forward to helping protect their content and supporting their ongoing fight against the music pirates”   

In addition, Audiolock.NET have also unveiled a new updated version 2.0 of the platform with a host of new functionality and features.  They are inviting new users to test drive their automated scanning and takedown system for free here

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Getting your bass levels right at mix down

As a mastering engineer one of the most common issues with a music mix is the bass levels. Commonly there is not enough bass, far too much bass or uneven response throughout the lower musical octaves. There can be a number of causes for bass level problems.

1)Inappropriate positioning of monitors/speakers in mix room.
2)Lack of acoustic treatment to deal with low frequency energy.
3)Speaker size inadequate to produce full range audio.
4)Low listening volume.

Ideally your loudspeakers should not be positioned in the corners this produces what is known as “bass tip up” or the proximity effect. It means that low frequency sound waves are reflected and appear in phase at the monitoring position. This means you get a bass boost at the listening spot. This can fool the mixer to believe there is more bass present than there is. I suggest trying to keep speakers 1 meter away from walls where it is practical to do so.

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A Fan-tastic Festive Quiz

A bit of light-hearted fun as the festive season hots up and the New Year fast approaches.

Imagine you are thinking about your year over a nice cup of coffee or a beer in the quiet corner of a bar. Tick the statements that accurately describe your thoughts (statements use ‘we’ and ‘our’ - if you’re a solo artist think ‘I’ and ‘my’). Be honest with yourself.

o       Over the year we generally only found new fans around gigs.

o       We haven’t got round to sorting out own web page.

o       We don’t have a fan email list yet.

o       If you look at the sites we use, it’s not very easy to get what we are about.

o       We spent a lot in the studio this year and feel disappointed with sales.

o       We tell our friends about our gigs but we’re not very good at communicating with our fans to create long lasting loyal relationships. In fact, if we’re totally honest, we’re not sure who our fans are.

o       We’re not very good at listening to anyone, particularly our fans (and also each other).

o       We do have a tendency to put our music out there and hope for the best.

o       We have a vague idea of where we want to get to.

o       We haven’t tried anything new this year so we are getting the same results.

o       Quite honestly, we don’t work well as a team; solo artist: I don’t stand up for my vision.

All/most ticked – You feel despondent and hopeless. Nothing seems to work. You seem to be going nowhere fast. Everything is a struggle. Fans have not been at the top of your priority list. You want someone to discover you and do all the work for you so you can just be left alone to make music. But you know the music industry has changed and you feel left behind and frustrated. You feel like you’re always banging your head against a brick wall. You know you can do better.

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Do You Really Need A Music Review?

Should you really go through the trouble of setting up a press kit, finding good music blogs, and submitting your music for a (Possibly negative) review?  The answer is a big, giant … maybe.  It all depends on the kind of music promotion you’re seeking.  So many artists will spend untold hours blindly sending EPKs out to hundreds of music blogs thinking that the resulting publicity will cause their popularity and career to skyrocket.  It’s a bit naive. (Some might call it stupid)  The reality is that the vast majority of music reviewing websites have a dedicated, but extremely small readership.  Most of the traffic to these sites comes from other musicians looking to promote their own music, and other music industry professionals. Simply sending all your music out will not by itself do much to benefit you, even if you are reviewed by several blogs.

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Create Music Mobile London - 7 Dec 2011

CDR Knowledge sessions are a series of experiential learning events that bring together tools that are used with the people that make them.

This session explores the world of music creation and development from a mobile perspective

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What is Going on Here?

Here we are in the land of “Best music apps for Facebook”, “2011’s Best Music Start-Ups”, “Creating a Powerhouse Website”, and so on and so on; yet there are so many artists still aimlessly drifting around as if we are still in the 90s.  Please someone tell me what is going on here? Does it not make sense to think that what you’re doing does not make sense anymore? Today there are artists still fighting to get a record deal, yet they haven’t sold a single song, no strong online or offline presence, mundane social media activity, no knowledge of the available technology and programs, but in 2011 they want a record deal. It’s a joke. We have to get to a place where we’re serious about the industry that we chose to sustain and in return it sustains us.  You can’t expect fans to make the transition in supporting a non-major label driven music industry, if you haven’t made a transition yourself.

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Perfect Pitch Piano: Learn to Play Piano by Ear

Perfect Pitch Piano is an app that teaches you to play piano by ear.

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The Genius Of Secrecy

Do not make the mistake. Do not think that being completely transparent is the way forward. Not as an artist. The musical economy may change, and so may the ways of distribution and consumption, but our gut feeling towards art never will.

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What Do You Hear?

What do you hear? Cells in your ear are impacted by waves and register their shape and size-frequencies and amplitude-and almost everyone can hear those. Can you hear more? Listening is a skill; it can be improved upon. I’ll post tips on how to improve your listening skills later but now I just want to share a few examples of “insightful” listening. Please excuse the unfortunate pretentiousness.

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How To Get Your Music Posted In Hip Hop Blogs

A brief guide on increasing your chances of getting your music posted in Hip Hop Blogs. Sample pitch letter included

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What IS Exposure?

“Getting your name out there.”

Some are willing to give away their entire catalog for free in hopes that the extra exposure will build loytalty and gain fans.

Other artists insist that every piece of music should be paid for and don’t care about exposure.

What, exactly, is exposure worth?

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How Important is a Lyric Anyway?!

I am about to propose that lyrics are perhaps less important than one may first think. I’ll admit, I am playing devils advocate a little because we all know that lyrics are very important, but stick with me, I may have a point and it may throw up a nice debate!

The overwhelming majority of people will say that the lyrics are the most important part of a song. They’ll claim that the lyrics are the thing they like most about a given song, especially a ballad.

This afternoon I played devils advocate with my girlfriend who told me how she loves Stevie Wonders’ “Over Joyed”. I agree with her that the song is awesome, but I wanted to know why she likes the song so much. She told me that the lyrics are beautiful and explained that the lyrics are the primary reason she loves listening to the song.

I proposed that the lyrics play a tiny role in why she likes the song. I explained that if we took the lyrics and sung them in a grungy, upbeat punk way (which I know she dislikes) then the lyrics would carry no meaning and she would avoid listening to the song!

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Don't think you need custom cover art? You might want to think again.

As with any business (and yes your band is a business) you try and find out where you can save money. I am advising not to settle for a generic album identity and to budget for a custom cover. Your cover is really an album identity. To promote your album you should use that same design for a Facebook skin, t-shirt design, set design, possible new website design and more. Building a solid brand identity is crucial for success in this modern market, and your cover becomes the visual identity of your music.

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