Just as driving a school bus, flying an airplane, and operating heavy machinery (legally!) require the appropriate credentials, specific licenses are required to legally distribute, adapt, and publicly perform music. Knowing which licenses exist and how to obtain them can save headaches, aggravation, and most importantly – legal fees incurred from copyright violations (money that we’d all rather spend on cool instruments and better recording gear!) Read the rest of this entry »

The latest issue from ‘Music & Copyright’  included the following item regarding RightsFlow’s recent agreement with Rhapsody.

“Mechanical-licensing-and-accounting firm RightsFlow is set to provide the online music-subscription service Rhapsody with bulk mechanical-licensing-and-administration and reporting support. Rhapsody offers subscribers unlimited on-demand access to more than 9 million songs via the Internet and mobile for US$9.99 and US$14.99 a month, depending on the tier.”

Scott Sellwood is the Sr. VP and General Counsel of RightsFlow, Inc.  Prior to being at RightsFlow Scott was practicing law part time and playing in a band called “Saturday Looks Good to Me” who released albums on both Polyvinyl and K Records.  I wanted to speak to Scott because of his unique career and because of RightsFlow’s new product Limelight. Read the rest of this entry »

RightsFlow will provide bulk mechanical licensing and administration and reporting support for online music subscription service Rhapsody.

“This partnership further enhances our ability to efficiently clear the mechanical rights for our catalog, ensuring that the complete spectrum of songwriters and publishers are properly licensed and paid for the use of their compositions on the Rhapsody service,” Rhapsody’s director of music licensing Adam Parness said in a statement. Read the rest of this entry »

RightsFlow Providing Full Mechanical Licensing and Administration For Rhapsody’s Digital Music Subscription Service

New York, NY, July 6, 2010 – RightsFlow, a leading provider of licensing and royalty services, announced today an agreement to provide bulk mechanical licensing and administration and reporting support for Rhapsody, the leading online music subscription service.  The deal will provide Rhapsody with additional tools and solutions for mechanical licensing and content management services for publishing rights in the United States.

Rhapsody offers subscribers unlimited on-demand access to more than nine million songs, whether they’re listening on a PC, laptop, internet connected home stereo or TV, MP3 player or mobile phone (including the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Android-powered headsets).  Rhapsody subscribers can access their music through more touch-points than any other digital music service. Read the rest of this entry »

Click here to watch a YouTube video of Scott Sellwood introducing RightsFlow at the Caribbean Cultural Conference.

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TORRANCE, Calif., June 14 /PRNewswire/ — Scion’s Music(Less) Music Conference will be held on June 17-18 at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel to bring together aspiring artists and industry luminaries for a two-day immersion of music fueled conversation. Top players in disparate musical genres will drive debates, panels and workshops as influential members of the music community provide up-and-coming artists with valuable industry insights and resources.

“Scion’s goal is to continually support influential and emerging artists with the opportunities and resources that otherwise might be unavailable,” says Jeri Yoshizu, Scion sales promotions manager. “Much like our audiovisual initiatives, we hope this conference will serve as a stepping stone for musicians to gain crucial industry experience and exposure while spotlighting industry insiders who don’t often get mentioned alongside new talent.”

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Location: Brooklyn, NY
When: Friday, June 18th, 2010
Time: 3:00-4:10
Where: Medgar Evers College
1650 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

The Caribbean Cultural Conference is an annual event designed to bring together entertainment industry stakeholders to explore, examine the obstacles confronting the advancement of the Caribbean entertainment industry. Through dialogue among industry players, the CCC seeks to bring to the fore, strategies that will positively affect issues related to production, management, intellectual property, distribution and marketing of the Caribbean entertainment product.
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Limelight, the simplest way to clear cover songs, put together this mix in the spirit of the World Cup.  Not all countries are represented, but we tried our hardest to bring some of the most off-beat, interesting covers we could find.  The Limelight team comes from all corners of the world and we love to show pride in our diversity and passion for music!

Click here to check out the iMix on Itunes!

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There is a wealth of public domain Christmas music available, so if you want to avoid the hassle of tracking and paying royalties, you shouldn’t have any problems. I start by looking at the Public Domain website’s list of Christmas songs. Many Christmas hymns and spirituals are public domain, along with old traditional carols. A lot of times these melodies were written years before the lyrics were added and the tune became associated with Christmas (ie. Greensleeves).

Hymns and spirituals are great for instrumental albums, but won’t always work for vocalists. After all, many of the vocal standards recorded by Harry Connick, Jr. or Nat King Cole are secular pieces written by tin pan alley era composers or later. If you’re interested in recording songs that are not in the public domain, you will have to pay royalties. The easiest way to do this is by using Limelight, an online service that collects royalties and administers them to the copyright holders for you. For further reading, see my article on releasing cover songs. Read the rest of this entry »