Hip-hop music publishing

Story by Mike Doherty | Friday December 2nd, 2011

Tony Tobias has worked in the cultural industries in Canada for more than 35 years, in the fields of music and media rights management, among others. His publishing company is Pangaea Media & Music Inc., and he’s a member of SOCAN’s Board of Directors. Saukrates is a veteran, Juno-nominated Canadian rapper, singer, and record producer who co-founded Capitol Hill Music, and sings in the group Big Black Lincoln. He’s also a member of Redman’s Gilla House collective, and has worked with K-os and Nelly Furtado. Here, they discuss publishing in hip-hop music.

Tony Tobias:
If you’re a hip-hop songwriter, you should be concerned about what you own of the copyright, which translates into multiple potential revenue streams. Some hip-hop producers don’t have a great handle on what music publishing is. The producer contributes to the master track, but the recording is a different entity to the song, so we have to differentiate – they’re separate as far as copyright is concerned.

There are also different types of producers. The producer-as-investor tells the artist, “I didn’t write the song, but because you can’t pay me, I’m proposing that you put me on the song as a co-writer, so I can benefit from airplay – that might be my only revenue.” Here, the artist retains copyright, as he or she does when working with the producer-as-arranger – or beat-maker – who comes up with beats for the song the artist has created. As an artist, don’t let that producer convince you that they have now co-written a song. The producer-as-composer actually has ideas as a musician and collaborates with the artist on the actual writing of the music, with a clear understanding that they are co-writing and sharing copyright.

In a writing-room situation, before you start, say, “OK, everybody in the room is cool with the fact that this is a collaboration/co-songwriting thing here, and before we leave the room we’ll agree about who contributed what, and here’s the sheet that we’ll all sign, basically accepting the percentage that we agreed.”

Saukrates:
These days the lines get blurred between beat-makers and producers. The more talented beat-makers play a huge role in putting a song through the roof. They can take some of the producer credit, or share it, because they have taken it that far.

A lot of times, new beat-makers get opportunities on a mixtape, which nowadays is just putting your music out there so people can get a feel for what you do. So in that case they might say, “You can use it for a minimal amount, but it’s non-exclusive” – and they’ll retain their publishing, and reap the long-term benefit. Two years later, you call the beat-maker again, and it’s not the same: you can’t use this piece of music for nothing, non-exclusively or exclusively. It’s a battle. It’s war out there!
Up-and-comers don’t even think about the red tape before they go in the studio. That’s something for all veterans to take note of, to keep it loose and be free with it and deal with it all afterwards. If it don’t fly, you find a way to change it, to replace the sample or said musician. The sky’s the limit.

What is sub-publishing and how does it work?

Story by Christopher Taylor-Jones | Saturday June 9th, 2012

SOCAN has reciprocal agreements with other Performing Rights Organizations (PROs) all over the world, which means that when your song is played in Tokyo or Tel Aviv, the songwriter’s share of royalties earned from that performance eventually finds its way to you.

This is not true, however, for the reproduction royalties generated when your song is stored on a server, downloaded to a device, or used as a ringtone in one of those far-flung locales. In order to collect those royalties, you or your publisher must be a member of the reproduction rights collective in that jurisdiction, which typically means that you have to operate a business or have a representative in the territory, hence the need for a sub-publisher.

A sub-publisher acts as an agent on behalf of the original publisher of a musical work in a particular territory for a designated term. In exchange for collecting royalties and promoting the work, the sub-publisher is entitled to a portion of the monies earned, a percentage that’s negotiated on a deal-by-deal basis, but usually in the neighbourhood of 10 to 20 percent.

“If you’re a Canadian publisher, it really behooves you to look outside our borders.” –Mark Jowett, Nettwerk One Music

Most music publishers either employ and/or act as sub-publishers, using international agents to represent their catalogues and doing likewise in Canada for foreign publishers.

“If you’re a Canadian publisher, it really behooves you to look outside our borders,” observes Mark Jowett, head of Nettwerk One Music. “There’s a big appetite for Canadian music around the world, and there are some very good sub-publishers who do more than just collect income. They can be very good partners in terms of growing your business and helping your artists.”

Since its inception in 1984, the Nettwerk Music Group has relied heavily on sub-publishers to extend its reach internationally and bolster its bottom line.
Says Jowett: “With early releases like Skinny Puppy and the Grapes of Wrath, we found that sub-publishers in a territory like Germany, for example, could act sort of like baby managers – they could sub-publish the rights and they could also recommend agents for when the act was touring in Germany, and they could liaise for us with, say, BMG in Sarah McLachlan’s case. So they performed many functions beyond just sub-publishing. They were an invaluable part of our growth internationally.”

Mark Altman, founder of Morning Music, says he employed the reverse strategy to grow his company.
“When Morning Music was founded in 1971, we recognized that our domestic repertoire was not substantial enough to generate revenues sufficient to run our office,” Altman recalls, “so we needed to enhance our repertoire by doing the [sub-publishing] work for other publishers.”

At the time, many sub-publishing agreements were for all of North America, but Altman was able to convince many foreign publishers to treat Canada as a separate territory. “As time went along we increased that business, and have maintained some of those relationships going back 40 years.” Morning Music sub-publishes the Shocking Blue/Bananarama hit “Venus” and works performed by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, among others.

The Canadian arms of major music publishers like Sony/ATV are de facto sub-publishers for their company’s writers from other territories. For instance, Sony/ATV Music Publishing Canada worked hard to find a domestic home for Australian newcomer Gurrumul, now released on Justin Time Records in Canada. Similarly, Canadian signing K’NAAN is just one example of a homegrown talent who benefited from promotion done overseas by Sony/ATV affiliates.

Sub-publishing is more typically the domain of independent music publishers and it represents a significant piece of business for large domestic operations like Casablanca Media Publishing and ole.

Casablanca President Jennifer Mitchell says, “Sub-publishing is very important to Casablanca – both domestic and foreign. The majority of our business is sub-publishing catalogues in Canada, however, we have been growing our worldwide administration and co-publishing roster over the last decade and continue to see substantial growth in that area. ”

Big administration deals helped put Canada’s ole on the music publishing map: “General administration was a big part of the plan for ole initially,” acknowledges CEO Robert Ott. “We globally administer a lot of clients and there are a few that we administer only in Canada. I would say that those are sub-publishing deals. In Canada we sub-publish BMG which includes [the catalogues of] Cherry Lane, Chrysalis, Bug, Stage Three, Discovery (television) and Bucks Music, among others. ”

If sub-publishing is alive and well on the pop music front, it’s falling behind in the contemporary classical world, where revenues often aren’t high enough to justify sharing a piece of the financial action with an outside agent. And even in the pop world, some publishers are relying more heavily on rights collectives, rather than doing sub-publishing or administration deals in particular territories. “There’s a lot more direct affiliation by publishers with collectives globally,” says ole’s Ott. “More so than in the past. ”

Photo by Vince Mancuso

Seeing the big picture

Story by Dominic Mancuso | Tuesday October 11th, 2011

Dominic Mancuso has been independently making music for 20 years, as a singer-songwriter, performer, film/TV/ theatre music composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer. Last year, he won a World Music Album of the Year Juno Award for his current recording, Comfortably Mine, which transcends cultures and borders, combining traditional Italian music with North American influences. He and his visual artist brother Vince have also created MANCUSO2, a production combining music and live digital art. It’s been staged at Toronto’s Distillery Jazz Festival and Nuit Blanche, and been commissioned by Pfizer, Cadbury/Adams and Bell World. Here, Mancuso offers some thoughts on how to take control of your independent musical career.

In today’s demanding music industry, it takes much more to “make it” than having some good music under your belt. The reality is, music is only part of what’s necessary for long-term success. You also need to arm yourself with technical, visual, marketing and branding skills. I’d like to highlight a few of these “extra-curricular” pursuits that have empowered me to flourish in my musical career.

Build sonic savvy
Early in my career I realized that being “just a musician” wasn’t enough. I wanted to learn about all aspects of the creative process. So while my bandmates were shooting pool in between takes at the recording studio, I’d be sitting next to the engineer watching and learning. We were paying the person to be there, so why not get double value by extracting tricks-of-the-trade?
This attitude paid big dividends as recording technologies advanced. I created a home studio and applied years of these informal “lessons” to make professional recordings within my means. Ninety percent of Comfortably Mine, was recorded at mi casa, and engineering and editing the record in my own studio allowed me to invest instead in the best musicians and a world-class final mix engineer, mastering house and co-producer.

“While my bandmates were shooting pool in between takes at the recording studio, I’d be sitting next to the engineer watching and learning.”

Go Photoshopping
Developing skill sets outside your medium is also a must. Basic proficiency in Photoshop software is an example. We’re living in a visual world saturated with images. Do you grasp the concept of 72dpi vs. 300 dpi images? Can you format your photos for various contexts?
Many of my peers haven’t harnessed the visual side of their careers, but more than ever, success is about selling a whole package. Micro-manage all visual aspects, from font selections to band attire. Don’t post poorly designed or low-quality images – you’re only hurting your brand.

Define your own unique brand
The idea of “brand” can be awkward for musicians. But if you’re creating a product and selling it, then you have lots to learn from the advertising and branding industries.
The sooner we musicians accept the principles and approaches associated with those disciplines as integral to our own success, the sooner we’ll advance our position in the marketplace. Know who you are and carve out your own identity.

Find ways to market your music
Did you know that corporate investment in music is quickly approaching the level of traditional labels? Corporations are the new record labels. Feist had great success with her Apple campaign. Natalie MacMaster placed a song in a Tim Horton’s commercial. These are smart pairings.
Seeking the right relationships to enrich your brand can have multiple benefits. Endorsements provide financial rewards and viable distribution, hard to achieve without paying for advertising.
I realized I had a niche product in Comfortably Mine, an album of traditional Sicilian-Italian songs re-invented. After exhausting conversations with record labels and distributors, I realized the Canadian music industry didn’t really know how to promote it. So I came up with the idea of teaming up with a winery to help disseminate my music.

Since my record was sung mostly in Sicilian dialect, I researched wineries in Italy and Ontario and found Pillitteri Estates in the Niagara region. The bonus: the owners and company name are of Sicilian origin. Bingo!

I met with management and a partnership was struck: They commissioned 10,000 CDs of my music for a promotional campaign. The CDs were attached to bottles of Pilliteri wine and sold at Liquor Control Board of Ontario outlets throughout the province.

Consumers bought a $13 bottle of wine and received a CD of my music. The response was incredible, and I was able to leverage Pilliteri’s popularity and distribution network to reach a completely new audience.

While you may be an expert in music, you’re probably not an expert in production, design, branding and marketing. In these fields, hire the best available to you, learn from them, and understand that their contributions are integral to your career. That’s how I was able to achieve much of my success – by seeing the big picture.