Recording - June 2010 - 56

Before releasing your recordings there are some additional steps that you’ll want to take to make sure everything is in order.

Additional Registrations for Masters
Aside from filing a copyright application for your masters (please read Bruce’s article in the March 2010 issue), you will need to obtain a bar code for your album (if you plan on releasing your recordings in a physical format) and an ISRC Code for each master on your album. Bar Codes and SoundScan. The use of bar coding has grown dramatically over the last quarter century. With the adoption of the Uniform Product Code (“UPC”) as the standard for retail grocery stores in the late 1970s, bar codes are now used by all types of retailers, including record stores. SoundScan is an online service run by Nielsen Corporation (yes, the same company that reports what you watch on TV) that tracks the sale of music and video releases. Any vinyl LP, compact disc, DVD or cassette tape that has a barcode is eligible to be tracked by SoundScan, provided the particular retailer has decided to report their sales to SoundScan. The majority of the major independent record stores, as well as the chains and big-box retailers like Walmart, Best Buy and Target, report their sales to SoundScan. While far from perfect, SoundScan did, and does, provide a relatively good estimation of record sales. Please note that SoundScan is not necessarily limited to the sale of physical product retail sales of physical product. You can also report sales for your live performances by faxing the reporting documentation to SoundScan. ISRC Codes. With the shift from physical to the digital distribution of music, you will need to also obtain an ISRC Code for each master on your album. The ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) is the international identification system for sound recordings and music videos. Each ISRC is a unique and permanent identifier for a specific recording which can be permanently encoded into a product as its “digital fingerprint”. By having an ISRC Code for your masters, you will be in a better position to track digital downloads and streams. More importantly, the majority of digital retailers like iTunes require an ISRC Code for all masters you submit for sale. For the self-releasing artist, a bar code is relatively easy to come by, as long as you don’t try to get it on your own, and you purchase one at a time, as needed, from a barcode reseller. As of April 3, 2010, as it turns out, if you go to the source (https://barcodes.gs1us.org), for 1 to 100 bar codes, the “Initial Fee” is $760 and the “Expected Annual Renewal Fee” is $158, for a grand total of $918! Unless you are running your own label and plan on releasing a number of albums by various artists and bands, you may want to get a bar code from your compact disc manufacturer as registration with GS1 may result in large quantities of unused bar codes. Don’t worry, though—most CD replicators and now even some digital distributors offer barcodes for very reasonable prices (around $20 per title), so when you decide on how you plan to distribute your product, the chances are good that the distributor you choose will either have bar codes to sell you, or recommendations for where to purchase them at a reasonable price. As Todd has indicated, obtaining ISRC codes and properly attaching them to your data (in mastering) is imperative, if you want to maximize your earning potential through tracking downloads and streaming. To obtain ISRC codes, you must register with ISRC (the International Standard Recording Code), the internationally recognized identification tool for sound and music video recordings. Go to https://usisrc.org. Once you’ve set up an account (as of April 3, 2010, a one-time $75 processing fee is required),

Aside from this type of sample, there are two others that I should point out. First, there is a “musical interpolation” when a person plays a small portion of a pre-existing song, often with the intent of having it sound exactly like the original recording. The sample that must be cleared in this scenario is that portion of the song that was recorded. The other type of sample is called a “lyrical interpolation”. This type of sample occurs when an artist sings the lyrics of a portion of a pre-existing song. Similar to the musical interpolation discussed above, you must get permission of the song’s publisher in order to release that sample on your master song (listen to 2Pac’s “Until the End of Time” and its lyrical interpolation of Mr. Mister’s “Broken Wings”). Clearing samples can take a great deal of time and money. Unfortunately, there is no truth to the phrase “four bars for free”. Depending upon the work being sampled, a few seconds will require permission from the owner of the song and pre-existing master. For example, NWA was sued for the use of a three-note guitar chord in their classic “100 Miles and Runnin’”. To make matters worse, this recording was subsequently licensed for use in the Master P film I Got the Hook-Up. Master P’s production company, No Limit Films LLC, was successfully sued for using “100 Miles and Runnin’” and its uncleared sample in his film. Therefore, it’s best to start early so that you will not delay the release of your recordings due to an uncleared sample. Bruce here: I’ve never been on a project that needed to clear samples, so I can’t cite personal experience with this. However, I’ve worked with people who’ve had their work sampled, and been substantially rewarded for it. I’ve also worked with people who didn’t seem to understand that someone else’s intellectual property is actually their real property, and that using it without their permission is a form of stealing, which is not just anti-social in the USA, it’s against the law. Infringement of someone else’s intellectual property can result in serious lawsuits and possibly even imprisonment. Once again, the prudent thing to do is to make sure you abide by the law by getting permission before you commit to using a sample for which you don’t own the license. One excuse I’ve heard frequently is that people don’t think they’ll get caught because they don’t necessarily expect to have enough exposure that the owner will ever notice. But isn’t that betting against your own success? Isn’t the idea of trying to market your music that you hope everyone on the planet will hear your music? It’s kind of funny, but so many people are insensitive to this set of issues. I’ve had many friends and colleagues casually tell me that they’ve “ripped” my music and given it to other people, or sampled something I’ve done and incorporated it into their recordings. I’ve even caught a fairly well-known artist doing this in a major venue with some out-takes for a project on which I recorded for him. I try to tactfully tell this type of person that it’s really not okay to do this, but unless someone is profiting heavily from this kind of activity, I’m not going to risk friendships. It’s irksome, though. If obeying the law isn’t a good enough reason to not pirate other people’s intellectual property, then try to put yourself in their shoes. Is it really fair to take something that belongs to someone else, without their permission?
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RECORDING JUNE 2010

https://barcodes.gs1us.org https://usisrc.org

Recording - June 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - June 2010