Different Genres for Different Times
We have a bit of everything, but I’ve noticed that the music of the time is where the firm takes its flavor. In the late ‘90s and early 2000s, rap was the number one music, so I had a lot of rap. Now, the number one music is electronic, so I have a lot of electronic artists. People who are successful can hire lawyers, and when you’re successful you have business. When you have business, you have contracts. When you have contracts, you need someone to review them. So I see my client base change with the tides of the industry.
Collaborating
I’m a big collaborator. Too many lawyers over-lawyer their agreements and, if they don’t kill the deal, they leave a bad taste in everybody’s mouth. Either one is malpractice. Your job is to do a good deal. I focus on parts of the agreement that help create an artist’s career, rather than those parts that mean nothing unless a career has been created. Why am I going to spend two days negotiating the audit provision? It means nothing unless you’re making money. And by the way, if you’re making money and become successful, you can always renegotiate. So I stick to those parts of the agreement that are going to move the ball down the playing field.
Changing the Law
Right now, we don’t have the moral rights of authors in America, but we have the derivative use under section 106 in the Copyright Act. Any time your music is substantially modified, they have to get your permission. There was a movement a couple years ago to relax that approval. That’d be terrible for creators. Steven Tyler and I got involved in that. We filed a comment paper. We met with Congress people. We educated them as to why this would upset the creative community. I was shocked to see I could change opinions just by explaining the issue. I’ve since hired a lawyer who works on legislative stuff with me and I’ve filed numerous comment papers stating opinions of what we think would be good.
There’s legislation pending in Congress, the Songwriter Equity Act; I was helpful in getting that going. The Fair Play Fair Pay Act is a recent bill sponsored by Congress members Jerrold Nadler and Marsha Blackburn to get artists paid royalties for terrestrial radio. In America, we don’t recognize terrestrial performance rights for sound recordings. We only pay songwriters and publishers for songs played over terrestrial radio, not record companies or recording artists.
I work closely with the Grammy people in advocating for the rights of creators. I’ve been to the Department of Justice and met with them recently, because there are consent decrees enacted in 1941 that govern the behaviors of BMI and ASCAP. They’re very outdated.
Behind Closed Doors
I think everybody’s coming to the realization that when you leave things to the legislature or rate courts, they don’t get done, so they started getting together behind closed doors to make deals. A good example is the deal the labels made with Sirius XM Radio recently. Under the United States Copyright Act, we didn’t recognize copyright in sound recordings until 1972, so all recordings created prior to 1972 are not getting paid on. We debuted a bill called the Respect Act last year, trying to get this loophole closed. As that was happening, the labels secretly met with Sirius and made a deal. I think Sirius XM saw the writing on the wall, as if they did a cross benefit analysis—look, we’re not going to get what we want if the Respect Act passed, so let’s compromise.
Ignorance is No Excuse
Get educated. There is so much available. You can go to artistshousemusic.org and get videos of people like Don Passman and Irving Azoff. Even if you’re not in college, you can take one class on copyright, on music marketing, on management. Berklee College of Music now has online classes. There are so many resources for creative people that it’s inexcusable to not be educated.
Dina LaPolt
Owner / President, LaPolt Law, P.C.
Years with Company: 14
Web: lapoltlaw.com
