Client Activity Archives

We the People Folk Group officially launched petition to amend the U.S. Constitution

In 2006, my client, We the People, LLC, (“We the People”) was just a sparkle in the eyes of Jim Corrigan and Michael Elly, fueled by a desire to bring back the sounds, energy and emotions of the folk music era of the 60’s and 70’s. Over the years, as they say, one thing led to another, and they formed the folk group called We the People, which includes Buck Brown, Rick Durret, John Terrence, Jackie “Jazz-Smith” Jefferson, Charles Butler, and Tom Roady. Along the way, the group discovered that they shared similar political viewpoints which derived from their love of that era when folk music such as Blowin’ in the Wind served as a catalyst for change and voice for activist groups seeking to change the course of politics. So now, the We the People Folk Group writes and performs songs that seek to “bring back the sounds, joy, excitement and activism of American Folk Music from the 1960’s era.”

With that newfound common voice, the goals of the group began to fall in place. The group drafted a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that seeks nine changes, including Constitutional restraints on campaign contributions and fund-raising. The group’s 28th Amendment Petition was released on Presidents’ Day February 21st, 2011. We the People is seeking 84 million signatures to its petition to amend the Constitution. The petition can be found online here. We the People simultaneously released as a spoken musical performance of the 28th Amendment by the We the People Folk Group.

One major obstacle the group must overcome, of course, is Article V of the U.S. Constitution which provides only two means of amending our current Constitution, i.e., (1) two thirds of the majorities of both Houses must vote to amend or (2) two thirds of the State Legislatures may call a Constitutional Convention proposing amendments. In both instances, third quarters of the States’ legislatures, or 38 states, must ratify such an amendment. Our forefathers certainly did not make things easy. We the People proposes something of an end run around these requirements, by assuming that if 84.5 million people – or a calculated majority of the U.S. population – sign a petition requesting their proposed 28th Amendment be adopted, the amendment can be passed by “Popular Amendment,” something which is unprecedented in U.S. law. The group cites examples of this procedure being used in other countries such as Australia and England.

The group’s press release can be read at this link. Visit their website here.

Client Activity, Life on the Row, RIAA

Jimmy Eugene opens for Gary Allan and performs for a sold out crowd!

My friend and client, Dr. Jimmy Eugene Pollard, performed a sampling of his music in front of a sold-out crowd, performing as the opening act for Gary Allan’s immensely successful Get Off On the Pain tour. The Pavillion at the Coushatta Casino Resort welcomed over 4000 people for the February 19th event. Allan’s tour has earned a spot on the New York Times Top 10 year end list and earned rave reviews in People, USA Today, Country Weekly, American Songwriter, Billboard, Associated Press among others.

Jimmy Eugene is most known for his interesting life story captured in his book, On the Journey Back. Jimmy was a teenage runaway, joining the military after lying about his age at 17. After service to his country, Jimmy returned to complete a degree in dentistry. He serve another stint in the Navy, achieving officer status, and then retired. Later, he entered medical school and became a maxillofacial surgeon, building a huge practice in Lake Charles, Louisiana (and another in Texas). It was almost twenty years later that Jimmy started writing music. He was in a severe automobile accident, injuring his spine. While in traction, Jimmy had a dream and began hearing music for the first time in his life. He learned to play the guitar and begin to write song. Through a series of connection with Nashville, Jimmy became a client.

Saturday night’s performance was only Jimmy’s third time on stage. “I was a little disoriented when the lights hit me up there,” Jimmy told me in his back stage motor coach. Jimmy performed songs from his new album, Joy of the Journey. He was backed by a team of A-List players from Nashville, hand selected by Steve Tveit of Omnisound and veterans Pat McCrath on guitar, Dug Grieves on electric, Dow Tomlin on bass, Dennis Wage on keyboard, and Steve Hinson on steel guitar, among others. The Louisiana fans seemed to enjoy the performance. A special thank you goes out to our musicians, and to Randy, Jay and all of the other fine staff members at Coushatta for making our visit there extremely enjoyable. Loved the crawfish étouffèe!

Visit Jimmy’s website for more information.

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Technorati Tags: Music Industry,Coushatta Casino Resort,Gary Allan,Get Off On the Pain tour,Louisiana

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Client Activity, Music Row News, Nashville

New Collaboration “Baby Be My Valentine” Released on iTunes

I have to put a plug in for my brother, C. Kim Shrum, whose collaboration with the artist, Lanc

e Songs, Baby Be My Vale

ntine was released this week on iTunes. You can check out the production here. My brother has been writing songs as long as I can remember, and is one of the reasons I ventured into entertainment law. Kim and I, together with our oldest sibling Michael, started a publishing company in the early 90’s called Painted Cow Publishing, so naturally I had to go to law school! The rest is history. Anyway, great work on the song gentlemen! Sounds great.

Client Activity, Entertainment Industry News, Entertainment Law, Life on the Row, Music Industry, Music Law, Music Publishing, Music Row Nashville, Music Row News

Politico’s interview with Corgan following his testimony before Judiciary Committee on HR 848

Link to Politico Interview

As a follow up to my previous post on the subject, the radio widget above should play Politico’s interview with Smashing Pumpkin’s founder and frontman Billy Corgan following his testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee in support of HR 848, the Performance Rights Act.

Corgan testified on Capitol Hill on behalf of the musicFIRST Coalition yesterday. Corgan testified that the current sytems is “hurting the music business” because of radio stations’ failure to compensate musicians for performing their music.

My readers know my thoughts on this subject. While I agree with Corgan’s overall sentiment, I stand by my emphasis yesterday that the legislation as it is written may be drafted in favor of the record labels more so than the performing artists.

HR 848 should have a provision that provides for direct payment of royalties to the artists who performed on the sound recording and which specifically does NOT rely on the record labels to distribute these royalties “in accordance with the terms of the artist’s contract.” (See my previous post). This kind of language contained in the House version of the legislation at Section 6 only assures that the record labels would receive all the performance royalties and that performing artists would have to overcome numerous obstacles to ever see any of the additional income, inevitably leading to more disputes with the record label. The current artists agreements with record labels simply do not contain provisions addressing payment of these types of royalties and, even if they did, the artists who have unrecouped balances on their ledger sheets would never see a dime.

My proposal is that the current system for collection and distribution of performance royalties for musical compositions be utilized. Specifically, why not allow BMI, SESAC and ASCAP to collect and distribute the performance royalties for sound recording copyrights on behalf of member artists, allowing these organizations to pay 50% of the income directly to the artists (the original owners of the sound recordings) and 50% to the record labels (the assignee owners of the sound recordings). This structure is identical to the distribution of performance royalties for owners of the musical composition copyright. It’s a systems that has functioned well since the turn of the 20th century and it is a systems that, overall, works fairly well.

In general, members of the performance rights organizations have fewer royalty disputes with these entities over than artists do with record labels, since these entities, for the most part, do not function as profit generators. There is no doubt that this idea has some flaws as well, but in comparing the alternative, it seems to me that this would benefit the artists and musicians much more than giving the money to the record labels.

Technorati Tags: Billy Corgan,Smashing Pumpkins,HR 848,Legislation,Music Industry,Music Law,Entertainment Industry,Entertainment Lawyer

Client Activity, Entertainment Industry News, Entertainment Law, Life on the Row, Music Law, Music Row News, Nashville

Judiciary Committee holds hearings on HR 848, the “Performance Rights Act”

The House Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on H.R. 848 (this year’s version of HR 4789) tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. Although the Committee’s website does not identify any witnesses at this time, I am informed by musicFIRST that Smashing Pumpkins’ founder Billy Corgan and Mitch Bainwol, chairman and CEO of the RIAA will be speaking on their behalf at the hearing.

H.R. 848 was introduced to the 111th Congress by Rep. John Conyers on February 4, 2009 then referred to committee on the same day. It was co-sponsored by Tennessee representative, Marsha Blackburn. If passed, HR 848 would amend The Copyright Act (specifically Title 17) to provide “parity in radio performance rights” under the Copyright Act. In other words, the Bill would grant a performance rights in sound recordings performed over terrestrial broadcasts (i.e., traditional radio broadcasts, not satellite). S. 379 is the Senate’s complimentary bill, introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy.

The act has certain provisions to accommodate concerns by the broadcast industry, such as the provision which establishes a flat annual fee in lieu of payment of royalties for individual terrestrial broadcast stations with gross revenues of less than $1.25 million and for non-commercial, public broadcast stations; the provision which grants an exemption from royalty payments for broadcasts of religious services and for incidental uses of musical sound recordings; and the provision which grants terrestrial broadcast stations that make limited feature uses of sound recordings the option to obtain per program licenses.

The Act specifically states that it will not adversely affect the public performance rights or royalties payable to songwriters or copyright owners of musical works. In particular, the Act prohibits taking into account the rates established by the Copyright Royalty Judges in any proceeding to reduce or adversely affect the license fees payable for public performances by terrestrial broadcast stations. Requires that such license fees for the public performance of musical works be independent of license fees paid for the public performance of sound recordings.

The full text of the bill can be found at govtrack.us.

One provision I found interesting was Section 6, (1)(A), regarding payment of certain royalties, that states, in full:

A featured recording artist who performs on a sound recording that has been licensed for public performance by means of a digital audio transmission shall be entitled to receive payments from the copyright owner of the sound recording in accordance with the terms of the artist’s contract.

Emphasis added. This last clause intrigues me. What I find interesting about it is that under the current structure, the record labels own most, if not all, of the commercial sound recording masters, i.e., they are the “copyright owner of the sound recording.” This clause entitles the “featured recording artist,” e.g., Madonna, Michael Jackson, etc., to receive payments from the owner “in accordance with the terms of the artist’s contract.”

In most artists’ contracts, payments are based on a percentage of the gross revenues from sales of physical units – current artist contracts do not have provision for payment of performance royalties on the sound recording. It would seem that under the Act as written, there is silence as to what happens in this instance where these specific payments of performance royalties are not addressed in the artist’s contract. One possible remedy would be for the legislators to draft language that would apply, such as what they have done with regard to the “non-featured artists in subsection (B) of the same Section 6. This Section 6 is not found in the Senate’s version of the legislation.

All of this makes me curious about what will happen to performance royalties that are paid under this Act to the owners of the sound recording copyrights, i.e. the record labels if there is no language in the artists’ recording agreements to specify as to what percentage the artist is entitled? One thing is certain: an artist who is not recouped under his artist recording agreement will never see any of these performance royalties under such time as his balance is recouped.

One proposal you might suggest to your representatives is that they consider a payment structure similar to that of the current performance rights organizations that collect and pay performance royalties for musical compositions, wherein one half of the royalties go directly to the songwriter and the other half directly to the publisher. If this were the case under the new Act, half of the royalty payments would filter directly to the artist and the other half would go to the record labels. If there truly is a concern about the recording artists not getting paid for his or her performances, this is the only method that would assure this happens.

If you are a recording artist whose performances are being playing on local FM and AM radios, you should investigate the impact this legislation will have on you. Call you Senators and Representatives and ask them to keep you updated.

Technorati Tags: legislation,HR 848,performance rights act,2009,111th Congress,record labels,music industry,entertainment industry,recording contracts,entertainment law,music law,music lawyer

Client Activity, Entertainment Law, Life on the Row, Music Industry, Music Row Nashville, Music Row News, Nashville

Music Row gears up for CRS

When big events like the Country Radio Seminar occur, Music Row begins to buzz with various activities and talk about the celebrities. The Country Radio Seminar is an annual convention designed to educate and promote the exchange of ideas in the country music industry. This year marks the event’s 40th anniversary and it promises to be another great year for attendance.

Among the buzz this year is Gerry House’s induction into the Countr y Music DJ Hall of Fame. House is without a doubt one of the most well known country radio personalities of all time and has been honored many times during his long career as a spinner of vinyl (and now polycarbonate, or make that digits!). He began that career in the small Tennessee town of Maryville at WBCR. In 1975, he stared at WSIX-AM in Nashville then moved over to the FM side in the early ’80s. In 1985, he moved his show to the granddaddy of Country Music Radio, WSM and then to KLAC in Los Angeles. Ultimately, as life often does, he came almost full circle returning to WSIX-FM. In 2008, the Gerry House and the House Foundation morning show on WSIX won “Personality of the Year” awards from the Country Music Association, the Academy of Country Music and Radio & Records. House also received the National Association of Broadcasters’ Marconi Award and Leadership Music’s Dale Franklin Award. Also an accomplished songwriter, House wrote “The Big One” (George Strait), “Little Rock” (Reba McEntire) and “On The Side Of Angels” (LeAnn Rimes). House is joined by the induction Cleveland Ohio’s Chuck Collier, a 30-year veteran of country music radio. On the programming side of the equation, Bob McKay and Moon Mullins are the Country Music Radio Hall of Fame inductees. Merle Haggard will receive the Career Achievement Award and Shelia Shipley Biddy will be presented the President’s Award.

The Country Music DJ and Radio Hall of Fame events unofficially mark the beginning of CRS each year. The Hall of Fame Cocktail Party begins at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday evening. The Dinner and Induction Ceremony follows at 6 p.m. The remainder of scheduled events for CRS are as follows:

Wednesday, March 4

Wednesday’s events kick off at 9 a.m. with the Opening Ceremonies and Award Presentation. The keynote address, delivered by marketing expert Seth Godin, will follow at 10 a.m. in the Performance Hall, with the Motivational Speaker/Life Coach panel at 11:15 a.m. This year’s speaker will be former No. 1 country artist-turn motivational coach Sylvia Hutton.

New label Golden Music will sponsor Wednesday’s luncheon, featuring performances by Benton Blount and Williams Riley. The previously scheduled morning Artist Radio Taping Session (sponsored by SESAC) will now be combined with the afternoon A.R.T.S. panel. As a result, the afternoon session will be extended by one hour (2:30 p.m. – 4:50 p.m.).

Performers at ASCAP’s KCRS Live! will include artists and songwriters Jimmy Wayne, Kelley Lovelace, Ashley Gorley and Jonathan Singleton. The popular Music City Jam^TM (7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. in the Performance Hall) will be hosted this year by Tim McGraw and sponsored by the Academy of Country Music.

Additionally, two educational panels will be featured Wednesday afternoon: “Country Radio As Seen Through The PPM Lens,” sponsored by Arbitron, and “Back to the Future: 1969-2049.”

Thursday, March 5:

Designated as Music Industry Town Meeting Day, single day registration for Thursday’s activities may be purchased on-site for $265. The day’s agenda includes the return of the Tech Track and Small Market Track panels. Tech Track panels include “Spinning a Web” and “40 New Media Ideas.” Small Market panels include “Come Hell or High Water: Disaster Preparedness,” “You’re a PD, Now What?” and “Champagne Production on a Beer Budget.” Sixteen panels will be offered in all during the day between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Thursday’s events begin at 9 a.m. with The Country Music Association revealing the results of its 2008 Country Music Consumer Segmentation Study, conducted by Leo Burnett Co. and Starcom MediaVest Group. Sony Music Nashville’s luncheon (noon – 1:50 p.m.) will feature performances by Miranda Lambert and Jake Owen. At 4:10 p.m. Bobby Pinson, Pau l Overstreet, Josh Turner and Jamey Johnson will perform during WCRS Live! (sponsored by BMI and Country Aircheck).

Friday, March 6:
Friday is Radio Sales Day. Single day registration, including entrance to the New Faces of Country Music Show®, is available for $370 on-site. Friday’s events will kick-off with the Managers’ Breakfast at 8 a.m., followed by CRS-40’s second research study, which will present findings from the Edison Research / CRB National Country P1 Study 2009 at 10 a.m.

Panels during the day will focus on important topics that affect the Country Radio format, such as consumer habits, promotional and research ideas, voicetracking and tools to increase sales. Prominent sales panels include “20 Ideas Even a PD Would Love,” “PPM! Selling the Country Format,” “What’s NTR Got To Do With It?” “Creative Closing” and “A Car Dealer Tells All About Advertising.” More than a dozen panels will be offered during Friday’s activities.

Friday’s luncheon, sponsored by Capitol Nashville, will feature performances from Darius Rucker and Little Big Town. Also during lunch, Operation Troop Aid, a non-profit charity organization, will send 500 care packages from CRS-40 to deployed U.S. troops. Packages will contain phone cards, MP3s, beef jerky, trail mix, hand wipes, hand sanitizer, cookies, candy, granola bars, toiletry items and thank you letters. At 4:10 p.m., Barbara Mandrell will interview Kix Brooks during the Life of a Legend series.

One of Country Radio Seminar’s most popular events, The New Faces of Country Music Show and Dinner (sponsored by R&R and CMA) starts at 6:30 p.m. with performances from Lady Antebellum, James Otto, Kellie Pickler, Chuck Wicks and The Zac Brown Band. CRS-40 will then officially close with the unique 40th Anniversary Jam: A Musical Thanks to Radio, to be held at Cadillac Ranch and sponsored by DigitalRodeo.com. Artists will cover their favorite radio hits from the last 40 years, featuring performances by Emerson Drive, Andy Griggs, Julianne Hough, Jamie O’Neal, James Otto, Blake Shelton, Jimmy Wayne, Chuck Wicks, Mark Wills and Darryl Worley, among others.

A new CRS documentary can be seen during the three-day seminar at the Renaissance and Hilton hotels in downtown Nashville. The film, produced by Art Vuolo and titled WCRS-TV, chronicles various CRS highlights over the last 21 years.

CRS-40 will be held March 4-6, 2009 at the Nashville Convention Center in Nashville, Tenn.

About CRB:
Detailed seminar information and a full agenda can be found online at www.CRB.org. On-site registration is still available for $699 and may be purchased at the Convention Center. The Country Radio Broadcasters, Inc.®, the event sponsor, is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 1969 to bring radio broadcasters from around the world together with the Country Music Industry to ensure vitality and promote growth in the Country Radio format.

Technorati Tags: Music Row,Music Industry Events,Nashville,CRS-40,Country Radio Seminar,Country Radio Broadcasters,Julianne Hough,Miranda Lambert,Gerry House,Country Music Hall of Fame,Radio Hall of Fame,DJ Hall of Fame

Client Activity, Life on the Row

Bobby Don releases “Some Sunday”

My client, Ric Landers and Your Place or Mine Digital, LLC were instrumentally involved in the release of the new single, Some Sunday, written by Emmy nominated songwriter Bobby Don Bloodworth and recorded with his band the Gopher Broke Band. The CD can be purchased here, or you can download and MP3 version. Here is the YouTube video for the song:

Your Place or Mine Digital operates a multitrack portable digital studio, with mix down and mastering capabilities which Ric can set up at any location.

Ric’s relationship with Bobby Don dates back to 1990 when he was the studio manager and chief engineer for the famous Denny Music Group in Nashville. The duo decided to take the day off and go fishing on the Piney River when Bobby Don’s recording session was preempted by an emergency session for Allison Kraus. The two have been friends ever since.

Bobby Don wrote Some Sunday as a retrospective on lessons that should have been learned from past wars, especially Vietnam, and to bemoan the hope of a quick end to the current conflict in Iraq. Bobby Don served in the Navy during Vietnam and knows all too well the pain and loss that goes with the atrocity of war as an eye witness.

Client Activity, Music Row News, Nashville

Best Wishes to my old friend, Will Hoge

I want to take this opportunity and use this forum to wish Will Hoge and his beautiful family best wishes in this difficult and painful time, and offer my family’s prayers for a speedy recovery. Will was one of my first clients when I started practicing entertainment law in Nashville — I negotiated one of his first publishing deals with Big Fish Entertainment — and he has always been one of my favorites.

Hoge is in Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center following an accident involving his motor scooter. The accident occurred August 21st on Main Street in East Nashville.

News reports surfacing today identified his condition as critical, but hospital officials state that he is expected to recover from his serious injuries.

Hoge was apparently forced to collide into the passenger side of a Millicare Carpet Cleaning Van, which, according to police, failed to yield at a turn. There was no evidence of alcohol or drugs involved in the accident.

Will is without question one of Nashville’s most talented Americana singer-songwriter performers in any genre – just the right blend of grit, rock, country, blues and soul rolled up in a big ball of scruff and playing a Stratocaster!

Will, 35 years old and Julia Schmidt have a beautiful 16-month old son, Peyton Liam Hoge. Hang in there Will, and keep on rockin’ for us.

Technorati Tags: Will Hoge,Accident,Scooter,Entertainment,Music

Client Activity, Life on the Row, Nashville

Exile performs on Grand Ole Opry

Sonny LeMaire, together with other members of the 70’s pop/rock sensation, Exile (“Kiss You All Over“) will perform on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry this Saturday, August 9th. Exile’s appearance will be in the 7:30-8:00 p.m. time slot. Other performers on the Opry Saturday evening include Charlie Pride, Radney Foster, Riders in the Sky, and Carrie Underwood. Tickets can be purchased online at the website for the Grand Ole Opry.

Technorati Tags: Entertainment Lawyer,Music Lawyer,Nashville Entertainment Attorney,Nashville,Grand Ole Opry,Sonny LeMaire,Exile

Client Activity, Life on the Row, Music Publishing, Nashville

The Virtual CFO

Rarely do you get the opportunity to meet with some one who has the same “soul” that you have. I had an interesting meeting with Scot Justice over the h olidays. Scot is a fellow blogger who writes the Virtual CF blog over at Typepad. His article about out meeting can be found here. Scot and I share a mutual client who found us both through out blogs. After a good long conversation with Scot, I would recommend him for you small business accounting needs. Like me, Scot’s background is extremely diverse, ranging from small businesses to large corporations. His experience gives him a very broad base from which to offer counsel to small business clients. I like what Scot is doing. One article I found particularly helpful was the one dealing with CPA Mortgage Letters. Check out his blog!

Technorati Tags: Music royalties,accounting,audit