Twitter: A Potential Platform for Music Distribution?

At the end of April social media platform Twitter began offering a new service called #music which utilizes tweets and artist accounts to assist users in discovering new music. They did this in partnership with iTunes, which delivers the few second preview of a song and a link to purchase it. Twitter also paired up with streaming sites Spotify and Rdio so users can listen to the full track before purchasing it via iTunes. There is also a free Twitter #music iPhone app.

For nearly two months now the #music service has been available to users in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Tech junkies and avid Twitter users had high hopes for the new service, but unfortunately thus far it hasn’t been so successful.

According to Cyber PR, #music falls short in two major areas:

“The first is that its charts fail to offer anything unique by way of popular music or emerging music. Artists show up on these charts by being the most talked about on Twitter… In essence, Twitter is shining the spotlight on the cool kids table.”

“The second is that even though the platform has an ‘emerging’ tab, it still does absolutely nothing to better the marketing opportunities for the majority of independent musicians. This chart is an automated platform that doesn’t actually function as a tool for musicians to utilize. It just exists.”

Thus, it seems as though Twitter will have to work to readjust their service so that it can cater not only to the Billboard giants, but also more importantly to artists who could truly benefit from this form of marketing and distribution. We all know the name of the game with Twitter: the more popular you are, the more followers you have. But how can this social media king aid indie musicians the way other sites such as Facebook and MySpace have? It is most likely an attainable feat, but as with most emerging technologies, the kinks will need to be worked out first.

Interview: Music Publishing & Distribution

Recently I was introduced to Travis McFetridge, the CEO and President of Great South Bay Music Group, Inc., an independent music publishing and royalty collection company located in Patchogue, New York. McFetridge was kind enough to allow me to interview him on the wonderful world of media publishing and distribution. He started GSB in October 2010 after working almost six years as Senior Director of A&R at Ultra International Music Publishing in New York. He felt that after signing many Grammy award winning and Platinum-selling artists, songwriters and producers to publishing deals at Ultra, it was time to expand on his own and develop his own catalog and roster.

McFetridge graduated from Fordham University, Lincoln Center in New York with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications. While in school he utilized their internship program to do work for major labels including A&M Records, Capitol Records, Epic Records, Warner Bros, and Virgin Records. Through the relationships he built he was able to get his first job as a Coordinator of Publicity at Elektra Records during his last semester in college. He said it wasn’t until six years later when he was working in artist management that he began to gain hands on experience with music publishing

I asked McFetridge to explain music publishing and what agencies like GSB do in his own words for those individuals who may not be as well-versed on the subject.

“Music publishers protect and exploit musical compositions of songwriters. It is a music publisher’s role to license songwriters compositions with record companies who are releasing masters containing music compositions of songwriters in order to collect mechanical royalties for songwriters. It is a music publisher’s role to register compositions with ASCAP, BMI and SESAC so the writer can receive performance royalty income. It is a music publisher’s role to pitch compositions of songwriters to recording artists for inclusion on recording artist albums, and to pitch compositions to music supervisors at film companies, video game companies, television production companies for synchronization placements in film, TV shows, video games, ad campaigns, etc. It is the role of a music publisher to protect songwriters’ compositions from copyright infringement and to copyright songwriters compositions with the U.S. Library of Congress.”

We then discussed his passion for music publishing and I questioned what the most rewarding part of his line of work is.

“Being directly responsible for getting a song by one of my songwriters placed with a major artist on their album and seeing the album released with the song embodied on it and hearing it on the radio. To know you were responsible for placing a song for your client and knowing that song saw the light of day due to your efforts,” he said.

I then wondered, in McFetridge’s mind, just how important it is for artists, producers and songwriters to enlist the services and assistance from a firm such as GSB while building their career.

“[I believe it to be] extremely important. GSB offers songwriters the chance to get their songs heard by major label A&Rs, major recording artists and their managers, music supervisors at film, video game, and television companies. Most importantly GSB Music protects publishing rights for songwriters and ensures they will receive the proper publishing rights in all deals that materialize. All too often songwriters sign bogus contracts without the guidance of a music publisher like GSB and end up loosing their publishing rights. This can result in huge financial losses of a song becomes a Billboard Hot 100 top ten hit. GSB makes sure situations like that will never arise for its clients.”

Entertainment Law in Regards to Your Business Plan

One of the first and most important aspects of starting a business plan is brushing up on the legalities one might face and employing a stellar lawyer who is savvy in the prospective line of work. Entertainment law is truly its own breed and has been a constantly changing beast as the industry has progressed and technologies have become more and more relevant. As an individual who strives to one day open their own live concert venue, a licensed entertainment attorney will be one of the first and most important additions to my team.  

Recently I was lucky enough to get the chance to interview Cecelia Lai, a solo practitioner and licensed entertainment attorney located in Plano, Texas who works out of her office, Cecilia Lai Law Office, PLLC. Lai attended Florida Coastal School of Law and works mainly in entertainment advising and negotiating. Her specialties include music and film legal issues that involve copyright laws.

Lai said that her interest was sparked in entertainment law when she began to work in the areas of media and copyright law in her previous journalism background and decided to pursue it as a full time career.

She said of her practice, “Whether it may be setting up their business entity, protecting and helping with the exploitation of their IP rights, and other licensing issues, artists need to thoroughly understand what those deals mean to them and I assist them in getting a fair and reasonable deal.”

I asked Lai, in her mind, how important she felt it was to seek legal council specifically related to entertainment business or events. She explained, “[It is] extremely [important]. Most individuals in the entertainment business seek legal advice when it is too late. Be sure you understand what rights you have and the reasoning behind why someone wants those rights. Otherwise it becomes an issue of why is he getting paid and I am not?”

Following up, I asked her what her advice would be for someone attempting to break into the entertainment business. She replied, “Thoroughly evaluate your prospective business and clients and whether your goals and expectations are realistic and attainable. And always enlist the help of a licensed entertainment attorney if you have any doubts.”