Recording - January 2021 - 63

JANUARY 2021
TAXI Road Rally 2019

Understanding Music Library Contracts
Part Five
PANELISTS:
Erin Jacobson
Bob Mair
Pedro Costa
Michael Eames
Moderator: Michael Laskow
Editor's Note:
We've included some of last month's section of
the interview to give context to the beginning
of this final section.
Okay, so I want to go around the loop on this one.
I'll start with Michael, because I have had this
discussion, I believe, on TAXI TV with him. This is
something that happens quite a bit lately: I do an
episode that I play music that was forwarded,
and music that was returned on a particular listing for our members. Oftentimes, before I even
go off air, I'm already getting the email from
YouTube saying there are people making copyright claims, telling me that I can't monetize the
video-not that I had anyway. And I look and go,
" Wow, look at that we played 14 pieces of music
on this episode, and nine of the 14 are already
published either by TuneCore, by CD Baby, by
some entity. " So I just want to be clear to the
audience that I am not impugning the character
or the business ethics or the legalities of what
these companies are doing. Some of these are
fine companies. But people are so horny-for
lack of a better way to describe it-to get their
music out there, that when they sign up for a
service agreement with one of those entities,
and the agreement is a distribution agreement,
but there is also a very short paragraph and a
checkbox, " If you would you like us to help you
monetize your music by signing this publishing
deal, check here. " And there are varying types of
deals. It could be a non-exclusive with a 30-day
out clause on it, it could be exclusive, it could be
admin-only. Even if it's admin-only, which means
that they do the administrative work of tracking

Panelist (l to r) Erin Jacobson, Bob Mair, Pedro Costa, and Michael Eames (on Michael Laskow's laptop) enjoy a light moment during their panel at the TAXI Road Rally.

the money basically, you can't submit your music to
TAXI for a music library or publisher deal, because
you are already published. Michael, did I get that
right? How would you weigh in on that?
Michael Eames: I'm not going to question
ethics, but you've touched upon a very sensitive
soapbox for me, so I'm gonna go off on my soapbox a little bit.
Please do.
Michael: You know, certainly-and let's face it,
we're kind of picking on more of CD Baby and
TuneCore for the most part, where I think for the
most part is where the problem sort of lies the
most. And the beef that I have with it is that in the

presentation of the information, the information
may be accurate in the sense of, " Oh, would you
like to monetize your music on YouTube, or
would you like to collect your foreign income? "
Those are legitimate things. However, in my personal experience, I feel that those two companies
have presented it in a way where it doesn't necessarily say, " You can go to other companies and
have them perform the exact same service. This is
not a service that is unique to us. " But I think so
many independent artists who don't really know
their business-which is something they need to
fix-feel like when they get to that part in the
uploading thing, and you get the, " Oh, would you
like to do this, or... "
Continued on page 64
RECORDING January 2021

Recording - January 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - January 2021