Music Industry Discussion

I know a lot of you folks are in bands or are solo artists, so this might be of your interest: Alpine is having a contest called "Rock the Dash" at the moment. Sign your band up, upload your songs, and be exposed to hundreds of thousands of folks. People will proceed to vote for artists they enjoy.

And while the exposure alone is worth signing up, there's some crap you can win as well. What's at stake:



So sign your band up and see where you stack up, and make sure to get all your fans/friends on there to push you up the rankings!

Go to: http://underground.alpine-usa.com/RocktheDash

Hope that helps some of y'all!

there are just too many of these things going on for me. I don't trust these deals; they get a lot of the best music from unsigned bands at no expense and who knows what they get out of it. maybe dirt cheap sign up's to desperate unsigned artist's, since we seem to be the most prayed upon.

maybe I'm a lil paranoid but ...
just because your paranoid dont mean their not after you!

www.myspace.com/blunderingeye
www.myspace.com/445175001
http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/6039/

"putting your head in a hole means you left your ass is in the air"

Is it ROCK THE DASHBOARD? or "ROCK THE HEADBOARD? lol

Hayden - didn't you get signed on the 1st? (I'l NEVER forgive ya!) So you can no longer bitch about being one of us little guys.

Where I come from, we all know that hoover vacs SUCK! This is just another one of those butt munchers what wants us to give our stuff away for exposure & a "chance at some sort of success."

Take yer spam elsewhere ya twit, or at least be honest enough to tell us what you have in it...

Mixed feelings..

Alpine electronics seems to be a reputable and legit company (I could be wrong), and $5000 gift card is a decent grand prize.

As it stands, I see 469 bands with demos up for voting, and the contest just started officially yesterday.

What does GC/Alpine get out of this?
What do the artists who don't win get? (obvious answer lol)

From their contest rules section:

CONTENT USE: Sponsor does not claim any ownership rights in the text, files, musical works, works of authorship, artworks or any other materials ("Content") that Entrant submits to the Underground related to the Contest. By submitting Content, Entrant hereby grants to Sponsor and its affiliated companies a limited license to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute the Content solely in connection with Sponsor's sale of mobile electronic products, including advertising, publicity, promotion and training purposes. Sponsor shall not operate as an agent of Entrant or promote the Content for the purpose of receiving remuneration from its distribution.

So they can use your music any way they want, for their own advertising/promotion means, but cannot, for instance, sell your song to clear channel for a profit..

That's really not a bad agreement.

[b]

So they can take my song, change it, use it in a commercial, have a band perform it at trade show (or even in the commercial) even if I don't win a thing, and I get squat?
Sorry Kramer. I agree with nearly everything that you post here and you must be my legal adviser now that I'm signed... he he he, but it sounds like a pretty shitty deal to me!
Let em offer some compensation to any artist that wind's up getting their material used in their promotions and it will be a little more fair!

Screw these fukr's that want my heart and soul for the promise of a tiny bit of vanity!!!


www.myspace.com/blunderingeye
www.myspace.com/445175001
http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/6039/

"putting your head in a hole means you left your ass is in the air"

Yeah, they can use your stuff & not even give you any credit for creating it...so much for the "exposure!"

SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! & I don't like it one damned bit!

SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! & I don't like it one damned bit!

Oh, it's ok if you slice it up, flour it, fry it up, and make a sammich widdit.

Take yer spam elsewhere ya twit, or at least be honest enough to tell us what you have in it...

So much for my first post here making a bit of a splash

nah, got nothing at stake here unfortunately, though i could use an Alpine deck in the car right about now. just thought my first post would be a helpful one. do with it what you want.

Don't sweat it man. Lot's of Devil's Advocates on here, and that's a GOOD thing. You'll hear about both sides of the fence before jumping in with both feet. Bet you never thought about the fact that they could use your stuff promoting their product and you not getting anything out of the deal. I wouldn't have if I had heard about it and it was something I was interested in. If I ever hear of some sort of contest that sound like the best thing since pocket t-shirts, you can bet I'll run it up the BM flagpost first.
Remember, these are only opinions.
Opinions are like a$$holes. Everyone's got one...and some are $hitier than others.

I've got to remember to wear my damn glasses.
I thought it said PORNO OPPORTUNITY.

Take yer spam elsewhere ya twit, or at least be honest enough to tell us what you have in it...

So much for my first post here making a bit of a splash

nah, got nothing at stake here unfortunately, though i could use an Alpine deck in the car right about now. just thought my first post would be a helpful one. do with it what you want.

Okay, if this was an honest attempt at being a good guy, you have my deepest apologies. It just looked like it looked, & I didn't much like the way it looked. Perhaps I overreacted. If I have offended a real muso, it was not my intention.

It still doesn't look like a great opportunity to me, though.

Welcome to the forum, hoover. It gets worse when I'm in a mood...LOL

So they can take my song, change it, use it in a commercial, have a band perform it at trade show (or even in the commercial) even if I don't win a thing, and I get squat?
Sorry Kramer. I agree with nearly everything that you post here and you must be my legal adviser now that I'm signed... he he he, but it sounds like a pretty shitty deal to me!
Let em offer some compensation to any artist that wind's up getting their material used in their promotions and it will be a little more fair!

Screw these fukr's that want my heart and soul for the promise of a tiny bit of vanity!!!

I was just saying..

The right to use the music for their own advertising, and the way they worded it is pretty much a standard within the industry when submitting songs for contests, or even to publishers and licenses for distribution. I gave it a thumbs up simply because they spelled out very clearly that they will NOT have any legal rights to usage of it for anything other than specifically their mobile electronics promotion, which in reality, the average promotion cycle for any corporation is usually 3 months or less...

Most companies who sponsor events like the above leave out the specifics and use vague legal jargon, just so they CAN profit off it by means of 3rd party sales and distribution, if they happen to find themselves with a blockbuster hit.

I maintain.. for what it is - it's a pretty well thought out and reasonable agreement.

As far as you not winning but them using your music.. the glove just doesn't fit.. if you didn't win at least 2nd or 3rd prize, I doubt they would find a reason to use it for promotions when they clearly chose at least 3 winners above it.

Let me play the devil's advocate on this one guys.. this will be fun!


Let's say you own an electronics company. It's no secret that most companies, especially those selling non-essential luxury and comfort items, are hurting right now, and advertising budgets along with payroll are the usual suspects when it comes to cost cutting.

You need to do a promotion to sell car audio
You are a musician/business revolves around music, andwould like to promote about and around that industry, give a few unknown artists a chance to get some exposure.

You could just go to a publisher and have them pick out a few jingles and/or songs from the thousands of artists that have submitted to that publisher.. it's fast, easy, and cheap in comparison to running a big contest or event, but you lose out on the "event" part.

So you have to worry about finalists, whether they really own the legal copyrights to the music they submitted, you have to worry about getting a company like GC to sponsor and donate at least a portion of the amount of the prizes, you have to pony up $$ for the prizes, the party/event/promotion, etc.. you even have to worry about the guy who quit the band 3 years prior who might get a lawyer to claim he helped write the winning song and is due $$..

So you write a contract, express that applicants are responsible for their own copyright and legal issues. You also have to say, well we're putting a LOT of money into this, with no guarantees it will even sell ONE car stereo.. so whoever wins, if the song is catchy, we will want to use it to help sell some gear and not only recoup the cost of this whole thing, but actually make some money, show the event was a success.

Enter the lawyers... they are great at writing contracts with "cover your ass" written all over them. So.. you want to use the song for advertising ... they make sure that you have the right to use it whenever, where-ever, and however you want.

You say.. hey.. wait a minute.. that's their blood, sweat, and tears.. let's put in some verbage to at least ensure they know we wont just go sell it off and profit off the song, other than for this event..

So the lawyer begrudingly does so..

So how would YOU, as the employee of this company who is running the promo, do it different?

I'm really curious on viewpoints here

(smells own opinion)


Yep, it's shitty..!!! lol