Arts Professional Story: Shawn Murphy
Musicians' Rights
Shawn Murphy
One of the first things I was told when I moved to town was that musicians here in Chicago don’t make “demos”. A demo is demonstration recording produced by a musician usually in an attempt to get a record deal. No, my friend told me, Chicago musicians make records. They make records which they will release themselves; records which they will attempt to sell enough of to pay their rent and feed themselves. It was a completely different mentality from what I was used to in New York where major label A&R reps were constantly combing the clubs for new talent. Most of the musicians I knew there were actively pursuing a record or publishing deal, and they created music which they thought might appeal to those A&R people.
Sadly, most of those musicians in New York never got record deals, and, of the ones who did, very few of them ever had any success or made any money beyond their initial advance. Many of them spent a lot of time trying to anticipate what someone at a record label might want to hear, so they stifled themselves artistically and didn’t even get the payoff from selling out.
One of the first bands I ran into in Chicago was Poi Dog Pondering, a band I hadn’t seen in years and honestly didn’t even think still existed. It turned out that they had flourished in Chicago in spite of the fact that they didn’t have a record deal. Other bands like Kill Hannah were packing clubs the size of the Metro and selling enough in merchandise and records to pay the bills. Indie labels like Touch and Go, Minty Fresh and Thrill Jockey were producing music that tested boundaries and pushed the art of music forward. It was amazing and refreshing to see that there was a whole world apart from the major label system that I had left in New York.
The one disturbing thing I did find was a relative disconnection from the business of music publishing. Many of the musicians I spoke with were pretty much unaware of how they could make money from their copyrights. Their primary focus was on making a living by playing shows and selling product, but they didn’t realize that they could make additional money from the songs that they were writing. By licensing their songs for video games, films, TV shows or advertisements they could make the extra money that would mean the difference between having to get a day job and being self-sufficient.
The nature of the music industry has changed almost completely over the last 10 years. We have moved from a major label dominated model that forced artists to comply with commercial radio standards and restricted independent artists’ access to promotional and retail outlets. The Internet has created a much more level playing field where artists who are working with a Chicago mentality are far better equipped to survive as compared to their peers on the coasts.
The biggest paradigm shift occurred when artists and songwriters who had been seeking deals with record and publishing companies suddenly realized that the strategy they had been told was the only way to go was not only no longer valid but that it had actually become counterproductive. For decades a record deal was almost an absolute necessity for an artist who wished to make a living from their music. Therefore, most artists followed a tried and true path which included creating a demo, shopping it via an attorney or other agent to the record labels, doing a series of showcases for interested A&R and then hopefully landing a decent deal at a reputable label. 90% of the time (literally) the deal would end catastrophically for the artist. Typically, their A&R person would be fired and they would spend months or even years drifting through a record label’s system without anyone to champion them and restricted from doing any business independently.
More recently artists have come to understand that retaining as many of their rights as possible actually makes it possible for them to pursue opportunities that a record or publishing deal would make impossible. As a part of a record deal, artists sign away ownership of their recordings. That means that if anyone approaches them and wants to use their music for anything the artists have to refer the potential music user to the record label. Some labels are better than others at responding to those requests, but, usually, they will prioritize requests based on the amount of money it will generate for the label. So, if you’re a baby artist on a label with a bunch of superstars, odds are that the $5000 license request from some video game company for one of your songs is going to be dealt with after the $100,000 license request for one of Mimi’s songs for the Super Bowl halftime show. It’s simple math and you really can’t fault the labels for operating in that way.
The same goes for publishing deals. Typically, when you sign a deal with a major publisher you assign the rights to your compositions to that publishing company. That means that even though you wrote your songs you do not have the right to license them out to a music user. Only your publisher can do that. So, if you have a record deal and a publishing deal with two different companies, it’s virtually impossible for you to do anything with your songs that isn’t initiated by those companies. Independent songwriters and artists can sign off on a license for a television show in no time at all. They can pursue opportunities with ad agencies and video game companies that major label artists cannot.
It’s wonderful to see this sea change take hold in the music community. As people begin to understand how these new sources of income work, they become better managers of their copyrights. They see how the world of music publishing operates, and they recognize that it is indeed a world. Every January many of Chicago’s artists and songwriters make their way to Cannes in the south of France to seek global licensing opportunities for their music with the understanding that if they can make some money in the US, some money in the UK, some money in Germany, in France, etc., then they might be able to make a decent living from their music.
For most of the songwriters and artists I know, all they want is to be able to wake up every day and create music without having to worry about how they’re going to pay their rent. It is a modest aspiration but one that eludes many people. It might be that art and commerce rarely collide without art suffering at least some minor damage. It might be that many artists simply lack the necessary hubris to declare themselves “professional” songwriters. Most can barely refer to themselves as “artists” without blushing.
Shawn Murphy has over a decade of experience in music journalism, live sound production and music publishing. Shawn has worked in music in London, New York and Chicago, and he is constantly searching the Midwest for artists to help expose them to the national music industry. Shawn was previously the Director of Membership for ASCAP in the Midwest.