Músicos Independentes! Vocês Devem Ter Acesso A Suporte Legal

Indie musicians, you have access to legal support!

First of all thanks to Joel Andrew for this article.

How to get free legal advice as a musician.

As someone who’s seen a lot of legal disputes between people in the music industry, it’s always a bummer when musicians give up and walk away from something they know is unfair because they believe they have no access to good legal consultation. Lawyers are expensive, the required paperwork can be complicated, and how do you even find a capable lawyer who’s willing to advise an independent musician?

Well, there is good news and I’m ecstatic to tell you about these organizations called Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (or VLAs). This post walks you through what a VLA is, the basics of finding one, how the process usually works to engage with the VLA, and what you can typically expect.

What is a VLA?

VLAs are organizations of lawyers volunteering their time to give real legal advice for free to the artists that need it.

VLAs serve all arts and also the business and industry needs behind those arts—so your business law questions are just as covered here as art law questions. Most states or even cities that have a large arts presence have VLAs in some form or other. Some are affiliated with law schools, some are affiliated with local Arts and Business Councils, and some even tie in more volunteers than just lawyers, like Austin’s Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts. I’ve seen accounting problems be as destructive for musicians as legal problems, so check your local VLA to see what it provides!

“Our volunteer attorneys find advising talented individuals with a passion for their art an important way for them to help ensure a vibrant creative community.” – Lydia Loren, President of OVLA

How to Find a VLA

There is no national organization for VLAs at this time but you can find a national directory of VLAs that St. Louis’ Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts put together at https://vlaa.org/get-help/other-vlas/.

How the Process of Engagement Works

Each VLA can operate a bit differently but there is almost always an initial intake or application process through their website. Nashville’s Volunteer Lawyers and Professionals for the Arts intake process just takes an email while others have an online form to fill out or a PDF to complete and send.

You will be asked to supply information such as:

• what is your legal problem?
• are any lawyers already a part of the issue?
• what is your financial situation?

There will be a small intake fee ($15, $20, or something relatively small compared to the service you will get) to enroll in the service, but the actual advice and your time with the lawyer will be free.

There are often financial caps to consider, and each VLA is a bit different here so these are rough numbers, but if your annual income is more than $45,000, if your music business is generating more than $100,000, or if the value of the deal at issue is more than $100,000, then there might be some cap that makes you ineligible for the VLA.

Once accepted you will be asked to sign some paperwork that formalizes your relationship with the VLA, just like you would if you hired a lawyer, because that is what you will get here… real legal advice for your music!

“Nashville is on an exciting trajectory of economic and creative growth. The Volunteer Lawyers and Professionals for the Arts (VLPA), a program of the Arts & Business Council of Greater Nashville, ensures that artists have access to the legal support and professional services necessary to protect and progress them along their career path. From assistance with nonprofit incorporation, trademark filing, intellectual property protection, and the drafting of various legal agreements and documents, VLPA provides Nashville artists and emerging arts organizations access to services they need but might not otherwise be able to afford. The support of VLPA gives artists the peace of mind to focus on their creative work knowing that their legal interests are covered by trusted and knowledgeable professionals.” – Jill McMillan, Executive Director of ABCNashville

What to Expect (and not to expect) when working with a VLA

There are two things that the VLAs provide:

1. First is the clinic, which is the legal advice from the lawyers. Depending on how your VLA structures the clinic, you will probably receive something like an hour of in-person time with a lawyer. You can ask a bunch of questions, get a contract made, get schooled on a particular topic, map out how to move forward after the clinic… whatever you want as its your time. This is your lawyer, you will be in good hands, and you will be treated just like any other client. This part about mapping out how to move forward after the clinic is potentially the most important part because at some point your time with the lawyer will end. Your clinic lawyer is not signing on to be your lawyer after the clinic unless you hire the lawyer outside of the clinic, which happens sometimes. So, maximize your clinic time by coming prepared with your goals and questions you have as best as you can.
2. The second thing VLAs provide is the ongoing service to your community. VLAs often host events outside of clinics, such as presentations or workshops on how art, law, and business work together. Even if you have no need for a clinic at this time you should check with your local VLA and sign-up for any newsletters because these events will be super helpful! For instance, Oregon’s VLA hosts empowering events that are just around the corner from CD Baby’s headquarters.

Do VLAs provide quality legal advice?

I want to stress that these lawyers are some of the most well respected lawyers in the arts. They truly love the arts and are putting their lucrative careers to the side for a moment just to help you out. For instance, my first experience in a VLA clinic was with one of Portland’s top entertainment lawyers giving about an hour of legal advice to a person that just made her first film. That would have been very expensive and I believe that filmmaker would not have sought legal advice if not for the VLA, and she received advice that absolutely impacted her future career. It was amazing to watch!

Also, if you volunteer for a VLA then please reach out to me in the comments below. I would love to connect and make sure that CD Baby artists in your area know how to get in touch with you.

'Grammy Music Education Coalition' Revela Plano De Expandir A Música Nas Escolas Públicas

Grammy Music Education Coalition Reveals Plans to Expand Music Education in Public Schools

With the goal of boosting the number of youth creating, playing and performing music in U.S. public schools, the Grammy Music Education Coalition (GMEC) announces its launch today (Nov. 7). The nonprofit collective is comprised of more than 30 of the nation’s most forward-thinking music education organizations, including the National Association for Music Education, the NAMM Foundation (National Association of Music Merchants), VH1 Save the Music Foundation and Lang Lang International Music Foundation.

In announcing GMEC and what he calls the “first-of-its-kind” approach, Recording Academy president/CEO Neil Portnow tells Billboard that the concept was sparked by a what-if. “The big dream was what if every young person had the opportunity to be involved with music through the public school system,” he explains. “And what if we were able to pool our energy, efforts and resources with others in the music industry who are also doing fine work in music education to attack this big dream? The partnerships we are creating with school districts, teachers, parents and youth are designed to drive systemic change across geographies and communities nationwide.”

Focusing particular emphasis on underserved communities, GMEC will initially roll out in three school districts: Nashville (Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools’ Music Makes Us), New York City (New York City Department of Education) and Philadelphia (The School District of Philadelphia). GMEC will provide customized funding and strategic services based on school system needs assessments. The end result is to create an infrastructure through which school districts will be able to implement robust music education programs that will be independently sustainable. To date, more than $2.5 million has been raised by The Walker Family Foundation, ELMA Philanthropies and the GMEC board. GMEC plans to expand its partnerships to include additional school districts, artists, corporations, non-profit organizations and foundations.

“The benefits of music education extend far beyond the classroom,” says GMEC executive director Dr. Lee Whitmore in a release outlining the coalition’s launch. “By increasing the number of students actively making music, we’re fostering the development of essential cognitive and social skills that better prepare them for success as well as beginning a lifelong appreciation of music.”

Among its first moves in bringing learning content to teachers and students, GMEC has partnered with Disney*Pixar’s Coco. Coming to theaters on Nov. 22, the film centers on 12-year-old lead character Miguel, a self-taught guitarist who dreams of being a great musician. Supported by the Walt Disney Studios, GMEC is collaborating with Berklee College of Music to soon provide new educational materials within Berklee Pulse, the school’s online music education resource. Disney*Pixar’s Coco team will also donate 300 Cordoba guitars to GMEC’s inaugural school system partners. And Guitar Center will donate an additional 300 Cordoba guitars. The 600 instruments will be delivered before the end of the year.

A scene from the film Coco.Courtesy of Disney Pixar

Coco features traditional Mexican music and original songs including “Remember Me,” written by Academy Award-winning songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, and “Un Poco Loco,” written by Adrian Molina and Germaine Franco. “Coco is rooted in music,” says Molina, the film’s co-director and screenwriter as well. “We believe in GMEC and its mission and are honored to work with this organization.”

GMEC’s board members include chair Tarik Ward, director of music programs for ELMA Philanthropies Services (U.S.) Inc.; treasurer Jeffrey C. Walker of the Walker Family Foundation; Recording Academy & MusiCares president/CEO Neil Portnow; Berklee College of Music president Roger H. Brown; Rusty Rueff of the Patti and Rusty Rueff Foundation; Shout! Factory CEO Richard Foos and Bohemian Foundation executive director Cheryl Zimlich. For more information about GMEC, please visit www.grammymusiced.org.

Como A Estátua Do Grammy É Feita - Video

Grammy Awards: See How the Statue Is Made

Have you ever wondered how a Grammy award is made? Well, wonder no longer as John Billings, the “Grammy Man” from Ridgway, Colorado, is here to show us how it’s done.

Billings, who has been crafting the iconic statue for 40 years, started out as an apprentice to the original Grammy maker and took over for him upon his death.

In the video, which can be viewed above, Billings walks us through the process of creating each statue, from filling the molds with a patent trademark metal called grammium to gold plating and assembling the finished pieces.

Billings explains that when the first Grammy came out in 1958, there was a contest on a radio station to name the award. A lady from Texas suggested “Grammy” because it “looked like the old gramophone that her grandmother had when they would play records, and they called it the Grammy.”

When asked what he loves the most about making the Grammy awards, Billings shares: “Since I was a little kid, I spent most of my time building model cars and airplanes, and I’ve just found this wonderful niche of making something that is recognized around the world, and it’s still made in the old school fashion.”

“When you see someone at the awards ceremony holding it up," he continues, "it’s something that will change their life, and it’s something that fulfills mine.”

CAA Lança Um Startup De Estúdio Com US12 Milhões De Fundos

CAA Launches Tech Startup Studio With $12M in Funding

CAA has launched a new venture designed to help building technology and media companies from the ground up. 

The agency on Friday announced Creative Labs, a Vancouver-based startup studio that is designed to dream up and develop new businesses that leverage CAA's resources and relationships. 

Longtime entrepreneur Mike Edwards is leading Creative Labs as CEO with VC and media entrepreneur Leonard Brody serving as chairman. The venture has raised $12.5 million from investors that include Boatrocker Ventures, eOne, Real Ventures, Seedcamp Ventures and London's Telegraph Media Group. Individual investors involved in the round include Saul Klein, Jeff Mallett and Lane Merrifield. 

Creative Labs' first two companies are millennial media startup Belletrist, launched with CAA client Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss, and Ground Control, an interactive audio platform.

"Throughout the past decade, we have conceptualized and launched several successful start-ups on behalf of the agency and our clients, and now, through the formation of Creative Labs, we are able to further our efforts in a scalable, systematic manner," said CAA head of business development Michael Yanover. "Our clients are innovative and entrepreneurial, and Creative Labs will play an integral role in helping develop their new business ideas from concept to launch, and beyond."

CAA has made a number of moves in the startup space over the years, including helping to develop Funny or Die and WhoSay. It also launched CAA Ventures to invest in startups such as Patreon, Giphy and Medium. 

Belletrist launched this spring as a sort of internet-enabled book club for millennial women with a subscription book recommendation service curated by the Scream Queens and American Horror Story actress. 

Ground Control, which is developing content for voice operating systems like the Amazon Alexa, launched in June from entrepreneur Michael Macadaan. In September, it released a daily audio program, Biden's Briefing, hosted by Vice President Joe Biden. Its most recent project is Full Count Baseball Trivia with Buster Posey. 

"One of the biggest challenges facing entrepreneurs is getting their product or company in front of the right audience," said Edwards. "Having a good idea is not enough. CAA's expertise combined with its access to the world's best talent enables us to create, test and develop innovative products and experiences for built-in, highly engaged audiences. It's a massive opportunity and I'm incredibly excited to be a part of it."

Como o Spotify Usa 'Big Data, AI And Machine Learning' Para Alcançar O Sucesso Nos Negócios

The Amazing Ways Spotify Uses Big Data, AI And Machine Learning To Drive Business Success

First of all thanks to Bernard Marr for this article.

Spotify, the largest on-demand music service in the world, has a history of pushing technological boundaries and using big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning to drive success. The digital music company with more than 100 million users has been busy this year enhancing its service and tech capabilities through several acquisitions. Industry watch dogs predict the company will launch an IPO in 2018.

Shutterstock

Data: Powerful By-product of Streaming Music

When you have tens of millions of people listening to music every minute of the day, you have access to an extraordinary amount of intel that includes what songs get the most play time, to where listeners are tuning in from and even what device they are using to access the service. There’s no doubt Spotify is a data-driven company and it uses the data in every part of the organization to drive decisions. As the service continues to acquire data points, it’s using that information to train the algorithms and machines to listen to music and extrapolate insights that impact its business and the experience of listeners.

One example is the Discover Weekly feature on Spotify that reached 40 million people in its first year. Every user gets a personalized playlist every week from Spotify of music that they have not heard before on the service, but that will be something the listener is expected to enjoy—a modern-day version of a best friend creating a personalized mix tape.

Spotify for Artists

In an effort to make its mountains of data available to musicians and their managers, Spotify just launched the Spotify for Artists app that provides mobile access to analytics—everything from which playlists are generating new fans to how many streams they are getting overall. Think Google Analytics for musicians. It was originally launched in a web version earlier this year, but the mobile app allows musicians to access the info from the tour bus and the geographic streaming data can be instrumental to musicians and their teams to plan tours more effectively. Artists also have more control over their presence on Spotify including selecting the “artist’s pick,” and they can update their bios and post playlists.

This is just the latest initiative from Spotify to make a concerted effort to empower artists and make them less skeptical of the company. Fans First is another Spotify program that uses data to find an artist’s most passionate fans and target them with special offers.

Spotify Acquires Technology Firms to Enhance Service

With the acquisition of Niland, the fourth acquisition for 2017, Spotify will use the API-based product and machine learning to provide its users with better search and recommendations to help them discover music they will like.

Earlier this year, Spotify acquired the blockchain startup Mediachain Labs to help develop solutions via a decentralized database to better connect artists and licensing agreements with the tracks on Spotify’s service. MightyTV, a content recommendation service, and audio detection startup Sonalytic were also acquired this year.

What’s Next for Spotify?

When news broke that Francois Pachet, a French scientist and expert on music composed by AI, joined the Spotify team to “focus on making tools to help artists in their creative process,” not everyone believed that’s ALL that he’d do. You can just imagine how a leader in AI (Artificial Intelligence)might use his expertise to turn the tables at Spotify to make AI-composed music that would push out artists and their labels. So far, Spotify denies that this will be the case even though this isn’t the first AI feature they launched—AI Duet released earlier this year where listeners could create a duet with a computer.

We can also expect the company to continue to humanize data in creative ways like it did when it used its vast amounts of data to launch a global ad campaign that highlighted some of the more bizarre user habits of 2016. Headlines included “Dear person who played ‘Sorry’ 42 times on Valentine’s Day, what did you do?” and “Dear 3,749 people who streamed ‘It's the End of the World as We Know It’ the day of the Brexit vote, hang in there.”

As Spotify learned in 2015, its community will respond if it feels like it’s taking too many liberties with data. After introducing large-scale changes to its privacy policy, users let the company know they were angry by cancelling subscriptions and taking to social media to express their dismay. This prompted Spotify CEO Daniel Ek  to apologize for unclear communication and made it clear any access to personal data would only occur with the permission of the individual.

We might not know today where Spotify will innovate next, but we will be watching. As innovators they will encounter learning experiences and even failures as they use big data, AI and machine learning to drive success. Those are experiences we can all learn from.

Henry Rollins - A importância De Escutar Vinil Para Entender Música

Henry Rollins on the Importance of Vinyl for Listening to and Understanding Music

Henry Rollins is something of a renaissance man. Carving out a successful music career with the genre-defining hardcore punk band Black Flag and later Rollins Band, he didn't stop there. He has since fronted his own show on MTV, had a recurring dramatic role in Sons Of Anarchy, had a successful comedy career, fronted political campaigns focused on LGBT rights, ending world hunger, and more.

Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with him to discuss his new venture, The Sound Of Vinyl, his infectious passion for music, and his work integrating vinyl, technology, and content into an interesting package that could help preserve not just music but the stories behind the music for generations to come.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/HenryRollins2010.jpg

Henry Rollins Speaking

A new era of vinyl

Of Rollins' many achievements, when I first became aware of his new initiative, The Sound Of Vinyl, I was particularly interested to learn more from him about it.

The idea is simple. You can visit the The Sound Of Vinyl website, share your music tastes, and you will be notified when there is vinyl available that you might be interested in. Buying the vinyl is as simple as responding to a text.

The Sound Of Vinyl model at it's core, is somewhat familiar. Netflix started out life in a similar way: you could browse a range of movies, TV shows, and recommendations based on your interests, and a few days later a DVD would arrive.

While you may think that vinyl is a blast from the past from long lost days of listening to records on your parent's turntable, vinyl has actually grown consistently for the last 10 years, and recently outsold digital sales for the first time. There is clearly a growing appetite for vinyl, especially for ardent music fans who want something more than a digital download.

Rollins is a core part of this new endeavor, and while he is passionate about the value of vinyl, he also considers the value of discovering new music as a key part of being a music fan.

Many of you will be familiar with the role of the local record store, replete with owners with a seemingly vast knowledge of what music you should listen to next. Rollins sees this as a vital piece of the The Sound Of Vinyl puzzle, not merely the distribution itself.

"With those kind of wizened, old Woody Herman experts who would kind of scold you as you bought a record, like, 'You’re buying that one but he sold out on that record,' where I’d go, 'Okay, well tell me the Stan Kenton record I really need'. Then, they’d come running out and throw a record into your hand and grab you by the ear and drag you back to the counter and lecture you for another 20 minutes. We’re trying to do that with the The Sound Of Vinyl website", he says.

Rollins' vision for this content piece is expansive. "You’re gonna see on-camera interviews of me extracting information from fascinating people from every aspect of the industry from engineers, record-company owners, journalists, record collectors, and music fans, about everything from how they remastered the Blue Note catalog to the first record they ever bought, to their preferred analog playback environment. You’ll see really well-known and somewhat obscure people wax forth about the vinyl experience and you’ll have access to an insane amount of vinyl. You’ll see Top 10 lists that I’ve written in Starbucks all over Southern California on a weekend because I have no life."

Jono Bacon

The Sound Of Vinyl

Rollins' vision of a hub of information and vinyl is powerful and given the clearly consistent interest in vinyl, it is likely sustainable. It does though tap into a much deeper relationship between the consumer and the medium, of which vinyl is far more unique.

Unlike the world of digital video or optical discs which are merely delivery devices for content, with vinyl the medium itself is part of the charm. Netflix moved naturally from DVD distribution to streaming video because the latter offers greater convenience, but also because the former was utilitarian and frankly, boring. Optical discs simply lack the romanticism and fondness that vinyl fans share with their medium.

In our conversation, I too shared this romanticism with Rollins. It isn't just the content of vinyl, but the packaging, the liner notes and lyrics. It is the feel, and even the smell when you open the record up for the first time.

"Of all of the things that you said, the fact that vinyl has a physical place in the world in that you hold it in your hand, if you drop it, you could hurt it, this gives it more value. I think digital music has devalued the currency of music in that you can run over a CD with a car, and it still plays, which is fine. You can stream it but all of a sudden it is then music-in-the-background. Well, what does the album cover look like? I don’t know."

The vinyl cat lady

In the 30 minutes or so that I spent on the phone with Rollins, his sheer passion for music was infectious. This isn't a guy whose musical proclivities are merely career-focused on making (and now distributing) music.

Rollins is a prolific collector himself, dubbing himself a "vinyl cat lady". For him music is not just noise, it is story, context, and relationships too.

"I like collecting because sometimes I don’t listen to music, I just go into the room and I sit with the records. I really enjoy that. I just sit with them because I’m with my ancestors, I’m with my best friends, I’m with the great, genius artists of not only my lifetime but the lifetime of my ancestors. I’m with John Coltrane and Jimmy Hendrix, Sun Ra, and Jane’s Addiction, just sitting in my garage."

https://pixabay.com/p-2592068/?no_redirect

Vinyl is becoming increasingly popular for music fans.

He continues, "Do I know them? No, but do I really? Yes, because I know them through the message of music. What John Coltrane wanted to tell me was not in an interview, it was on the record. So do I know John Coltrane? Are you kidding? I definitely know John Coltrane. Is he my friend? How many times have I listened to 'A Love Supreme'? I think he and I are friends and that’s why I don’t necessarily go running to meet a musician. I’m happy just going to the show standing in the back so that young kids don’t run into me and break my hip."

Behind the music

As we chatted it became clearer and clearer that for Rollins, and myself included, music is far more than the one-dimensional noise coming out of your speakers. The energy, creativity, and wider back-story that went into the music is something Rollins wants to protect. He sees vinyl, and the physicality that we discussed earlier, as a core tool in accomplishing this.

"Some people really sweated and nearly killed the bass player to make that record. Shouldn’t you know more about what you’re listening to? I think the digital experience has distanced a lot of people away from all the best parts of music and to me the vinyl welds you to all the good parts of music."

"First off it sounds better. That’s not up for debate, but the fact that you have to manually put it on the record player, flip the damn thing over, not screw up the record by putting the needle on it incorrectly, put it away, store, and care for it, like, kinda love it a little, which is weird with an inanimate object but I love my records as much as I’ve ever loved any human being. They’re definitely better friends and I’ve never had that with a CD."

Rollins enthusiasm reminded me a little of my now passed grandmother who had a similar passion for books. In her little library she would evocatively gush about the stories, lessons, and learnings buried in the hundreds of books she owned. For her, books were not merely containers of information, but a fundamental part of the human condition and an unlimited wealth of potential for learning and discovery.

"People need to have their minds blown by stuff their grandfathers, literally, grew up on. I want them to put out hard-earned money and get a record that they’ll preserve and give to their kids 20 years later. If you take care of a record it still sounds good. I have records I’ve been playing for three damn decades now and they still sound good. That’s what we’re trying to do on this site, educate, illuminate and spark the curiosity of, and provide a direct-to-customer vinyl service".

Over the years I have met various founders who exhibit a passion for their new venture, but I have never met anyone who shares the sheer level of energy, passion, and approachability as Rollins demonstrated in our discussion. What came thundering through was a deep level of authenticity, and if he and his partners can bring this to The Sound Of Vinyl, they will really have something special on their hands.

Radio Ainda Funciona Bem Para Descobrir Novas Músicas

Radio thrives as a place for music discovery despite the streaming threat

Although it seems like streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music are dominating the music scene, the 2017 edition of Nielsen's Music 360 report found that 49% of people still discover new tunes via good ol' fashioned AM/FM radio. As you can see in this chart from Statista, that compares 27% who use online music services.

Music discovery is one of the largest ways music streaming services have tried to differentiate themselves. Spotify created "Discover Weekly" playlists to present listeners with a tailored list of songs every Monday. 

According to the report, the main reason people are such radio fans is because of the DJs – one thing online streaming services would have a hard time replicating.