All You Need to Know About the Music Business

Book excerpt: The definitive, essential guide to the music industry, now in its eighth edition—revised and updated with crucial information on the industry’s major changes in response to rapid technological advances and economic uncertainty. For the first time ever, the guide also includes advice on the Canadian music scene from entertainment lawyer Chip Sutherland. The past two decades have seen file-sharing technology and digital streaming services transform the music business across the continent, and the changes keep coming at breakneck speed. How are record labels adapting to the demand for instantly accessible, low-cost music while coping with piracy? How can Cana­dian musicians break into the global market? And what does it all mean for aspiring and established artists today? Donald Passman, one of the most trusted music law­yers in the United States, offers his sage advice for creating, selling, sharing, and protecting your music in the Infor­mation Age in this updated Canadian edition of All You Need to Know About the Music Business. And now Cana­dian musicians have a voice of their own, as Chip Sutherland, one of Canada’s most distinguished enter­tainment lawyers, offers insight into the industry trends and particulars of the Great White North. Executives and artists, experts and novices alike will benefit from these detailed yet easy-to-understand expla­nations of the latest technologies, legalities, and practices shaping the music business, such as: • Royalties for music transmitted via digital down­loads, streaming services, cloud lockers, and apps • Updated licensing regulations and industry agree­ments • Selecting and hiring a winning team of advisors—personal and business managers, agents, and attorneys—and structuring their commissions, percentages, and fees in a way that will protect you and maximize these relationships • Mastering the major and the finer points of con­tract negotiations In a bonus Canadian content section at the end of each chapter, they give guidance on the basics, such as how to: • Navigate the Canadian marketplace and the tran­sition to a global presence • Find Canadian financial grants and bursaries • Understand regulations governing Canadian content development • Recognize the unique features of Canadian deal structures • Maximize concert, touring, and merchandising agreements in Canadian and American market­places Anyone interested in making and marketing music—musi­cians, songwriters, agents, promoters, publishers, managers, and record company executives—needs this crucial text to keep up with the frenetic pace of technological and legal change. No one understands the music business on both sides of the border better than Passman and Sutherland. Let them show you how to “make it” in one of the world’s most dynamic and challenging industries.