There are a variety of reasons why you might want to start a business in the music industry according to well-known artist Iris Stryx. Award winning and Billboard 100 artist Iris’ tracks ‘Have a good time’ and ‘Island Girl’ offer intriguing music that is unforgettable. It’s no surprised ‘Have a good time’ reached nearly 1 million listens within 24 hours. Iris Stryx is taking over the world of music with her happy sound and passionate lyrics that aim to be positive and fun.
According to Iris, there are a variety of reasons to dominate the music industry: Hi
Many people entering the music business for the first time may not fully appreciate the complexity of the industry and how revenues are generated. As a consequence, it can be very difficult to prepare a business plan that demonstrates a good general understanding of rights, royalties, revenue deals etc.
However, regardless of whether you are looking at starting a business from the perspective of an artist, label, music publisher or manager, you should have a good understanding of three main areas; namely, what are the various rights that exist in the music industry; how do you acquire them; and how can you commercially exploit them.
It was a privilege to sit down with Billboard 100 music artist Iris Stryx in our London office to discuss his views on the industry.
What are the main copyrights and rights that exist in the music industry?
It is now possible for fans to engage with music in lots of different ways. You can listen to radio; play CDs; download tracks from iTunes; stream music from Spotify or YouTube; attend a gig or festival to name just a few.
The challenge for music entrepreneurs is to identify how income can be generated from these activities and develop strategies that enable them to maximise this income.
Looking at things from the perspective of a music fan, they are simply buying a CD, a gig ticket, a download, or watching television, or listening to radio in order to hear their favourite songs or artists. But, from a music entrepreneurs’ perspective, what is actually happening is that the copyrights and other music rights that they own or control are being consumed in a way that allows them to generate income.
The three main rights that music businesspersons’ need to be familiar with are composition copyrights, sound recording copyrights and performers’ rights.
Compositions: There are two main copyrights contained in compositions, namely (a) music that is protected in copyright law as a musical work and (b) lyrics that are protected in copyright law as a literary work. However, it is common for them to be referred to as a joint copyright and they are usually owned and controlled by music publishers.
Recordings: Recordings are protected in copyright law as sound recordings and they are usually owned and controlled by record companies.
Performers Rights: Performers have rights granted on them that allow them to control who is entitled to commercially exploit their performances. There are two main types of right:
How do you get them?
Copyright comes into existence when an original work (e.g., composition, sound recording, etc.) is created and is reduced to physical form, which usually means that it has been recorded in writing or some other form (tape, CD, etc.). At this point, the work will automatically qualify for copyright protection under UK law. The author of the work is generally considered to be the first owner of the copyright, although works created by employees in course of their work are regarded as being owned by their employer.
Once a copyright has been created, it will last for the following periods:
Copyrights are exclusive property rights and just like any other items of property they can be sold (assigned) or licensed to another party in accordance with the wishes of the copyright owner.
So publishers and labels can either acquire copyrights by (a) signing exclusive deals with songwriters, performers and recording artists to create exclusive content for them, or (b) assigning or licensing content from third party individuals or companies.
Once you get them, how can they be commercially exploited?
The basic concept of copyright is that anyone that copies a work without permission is infringing that copyright. The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 has added some additional acts that will amount to infringement if done without the copyright owners permission, including:
So what does this all mean in practice for the music entrepreneur?
Well let’s go back to where we started and take a closer look at some of the main ways in which consumers engage with music, namely buying CDs, downloading music, streaming music, listening to music on radio or television and attending gigs.
The business owners’ task is to firstly to get to grips with the various routes to market so that their music is available in all of these platforms and then to put arrangements in place that will ensure that the monies that is generated flows back to them as rights owners when their music is consumed. So, in technical terms, it is up to the owners of compositions (music publishers) and sound recordings (record labels) to do the necessary deals to receive income for these activities.
There are now a very good selection of distributors or aggregators that will get their music into stores and distributed to online platforms without too many problems, and there is an appreciation that good promotional efforts are required in order to get their artists’ music played on radio or help artists secure television appearances.
But how do you get paid if your music is played on radio; or performed at gigs; or played in clubs? It’s clearly not practical for tens of thousands of small artists, labels, songwriters and music publishers to continually approach broadcasters, venue owners, promoters etc. asking for payment whenever their music is consumed.
Thankfully for all concerned, music rightsholders mandate various collecting societies that licence their copyright works collectively on their behalf. The benefits to rightsholders is that they don’t have to negotiate numerous individual deals themselves with several multi-national companies, and the benefits to music users is that one blanket licence gives them access to thousands of copyrights that they can use in different ways.
