Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

I need some advise! I dont want to screw myself "or" blow a deal. I just got a phone message w/an offer of a deal for publishing and production for talent and one of my song's. I don't have a clue of what to expect or ask for! if any of you have had a publishing/production deal, any advise at all on anything to do w/it would be greatly appreciated!
Hayden

In the mean time, check out Taxi.com
and
http://www.ascap.com/index.html
.
There are many answers there.

Thanks Bro! best advise I had all week......

just make sure in whatever you sign, you dont give the rights to your music to another person.

get a lawyer to look over the contract.

thanks Grin. yeah I've already had some try that on me.

yea man..keep it all to yourself.copyright every song.you can just do it and get isdn numbers for the tunes.
harry fox agencey is a good place to go if you want to make sure you are covred.
they will just put you in thier data base.wether or not you are bmi or ascap will be there as well as if you do 'cross copyrights" which can be a good(but expensive) way to keep others from your tunes.if you wrote with anyone,there can be a copyright to one person and another..two individuals or more can have the copyright if they (hopefully) wrote with you.
for example..if neil young wrote a song when he was with crazy horse,he could just have his name on it,but also give danny whitten a copyright too.although nobody would know(this is mythical neil!)
then you are really protected.i had a girl that was usefull to me.she wrote a few of my lyrics and i let her have a copyright on a few tunes.it saves you the day soemone claims they have written your song when you can say up yours i know i own it.
but you MUST copyright everything .there are ways to do copyrights on a bunch of songs with out having to get every single one done individually but i wont say why or how here.just ask the harry fox agency or read thier stuff.know what you are getting into also.most people are just trying to snag tunes these days.its like anynone cant write.why do they want to swipe stuff from others..but alas they do.i had a song or two ripped off years ago that made it quite big locally and it hurt like hell.
so dont let them get you.dont play anything to them before you are covered!

Hayden, keep all the rights to your songs. Doing anything else would be selling your soul to the devil. And make sure you get a percentage of anything else. Lawyer up!!!!!!.

Only experience I ever had with publishing was when I did those things on the local tv station. Never got a cent for it, though I did get some air time.

'Twas shortly after that that everything seemed to come to a standstill for me, musically, except for local gigs.

Somebody said: "after you post a song anywhere on the 'net - the rights are yours" my guess is that's bullshit? ..

ZXYZ.
Nope - it's not BS.
The Library of Congress confirms it.
.
When something is first published in any public form - Internet, newspaper, what-not - you are considered the 'owner,' as you put it.
.
But it'd be up to you to prove that you posted it first.
If someone else posts a copy of it and says it's theirs - have fun . . .
.
You'll have to spend thousands of dollars on blood-sucking lawyers to prove it.
A $45 copyright is a whole lot cheaper . . .
A copyright from the Library of Congress is your best possible legal protection.
.
And - no - don't even ask; mailing it to yourself will not hold up in a court of law - that is a commom fallacy.
.
Why don't you Google the Library of Congress - there's load of information there . . .

Yeah I got the ECO on a desktop icon.. thanx RM. If I ever publish a real song It'll be a real copyright, it's alot simpler than it used to be.

$45 per song.
.
Or: a collection of any number of songs (as long as they fit on one CD) for the same $45.