(Book). Now completely updated and revised, this streetwise guide helps musicians, producers, and others protect their rights and preserve their assets in today's cutthroat music recording industry. Industry insider Moses Avalon tells it like it is how producers dip into budgets, artists steal songs, labels skim royalties, lawyers write contracts in code and shows readers how to survive in the wake of these and other unfortunate truths. Deconstructing actual major record deals, Avalon dissects each party's involvement and perspective: what they actually do, how much they get paid, and what's really on their agenda. This second edition examines the impact of recent developments in the industry, including Internet file sharing and streaming, mergers and acquisitions, trade associations and their agendas, and more.
This book was added to the coursework and our entire final was based off of it in my Entertainment Law course. Great book. If nothing else it will help you analyze contracts and that helped me a great deal in my career in music. Anyone whether an artist, songwriter, producer should read this book. Especially I would reccomend this to any artist starting out and DEFINITELY to any indie or unsigned artist. Any uneducated artist will run to an opportunity rather than get educated first. The Music Industry is 95% business and only 5% music. People get sidetracked by the music side and do not realize that it is a business. And in a business the educated will prosper. This book will help any artist have a better understanding at how the business works from the contract side of things right down to how to spot individuals who may potentially be out to harm you in your career. If anything I learned from this book, I learned how to negotiate my own contracts.
Great reference for anyone who is interested in being in the music industry. Huge eye opener for anyone who isn't familiar with the shadiness of the major labels. This book will make you hate them even more. It always make me feel better when I read about how many ways they screw people over and are now beginning to go down the drain.
This is a very interesting book on the music industry. I have not found this information elsewhere. After reading this book I feel much better about my decision to leave the music industry.
Unfortunatly, I got a used copy which was the original edit from 1998. Needless to say, a lot has changed in the music business then so it wasn't terribly useful. More my fault than anything.