I’ve seen some artists sign some fucked up contacts in my day. Whether it was with a record company, management, or production company. These contracts were almost always signed without a lawyer involved. Most of the time artists only seek counsel when they’re trying to get out of a bad agreement. Bad agreements can stagnate and ruin any chances you have of living out your dream of having a career in music.  Music attorney Ed Fair in this video clip expresses the importance of knowing when seek legal help.

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This is a post from my entertainment attorney, Hillel. He’s been protecting the rights of artists for years, given me a wealth of knowledge and is one of the main reasons I’ve been able to generate income doing something I love. His services aren’t cheap but if you don’t have your ass covered in this biz, you’ll pay for it one way or another.
www.copyright.gov/eco/
Copyright Your Songs
by Hillel Frankel

Songwriters need to protect their work. You would not pitch your billion-dollar reality show to MTV without protecting it would you? Well maybe you would, but remember, when you record and send out samples of your songs they can be spread all over the world in the amount of time it takes to upload an MP3. That dude in Russia who wants that American pop sound can re-record your song and get his US partner (that he pays in petrodollars) to pay the $35 filing fee and register the song first with the US Copyright Office, and you are shit out of luck and out of a hit song. Sure you could try and sue some day when the song is a hit for Sergey Putin. Just try and get a lawyer to represent you in a copyright claim using the CD of the song you mailed to yourself via U.S. post as evidence. If you came to me I would charge you a $10,000 retainer just to get started. That’s a bit more than the $35 filing fee, isn’t it? Read the rest of this entry »

Attorney Kendall Minter, gives an in depth interview about what an entertainment attorney does and talks about the ever changing landscape of the music industry.

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