Week two is titled “Who Controls What?”…
…and runs through the same basic structure as week one with plenty of reading, videos to watch, three mini tests — to make sure what you are learning is actually beginning to sink in — and the weekly assignment. In week two, the content continues on from the previous week this time touching on copyright, copyright enforcement, MCPS, PRS, and how they all join up. We also took a look at what the record companies own, and how you would go about approaching splitting monies earned from record sales and performances (including how bands divvy-up) and more.
All of the material covered, both text and video, starts to get much more interesting as we progress through the course. If you’re anything like us, and think you already know everything, you need to know that you may be in for a surprise or two. Some of what we thought we knew turned out to be slightly, but commonly, misunderstood information while other bits that we didn’t think affected us actually turned out to be quite the opposite.
When you’re making your music, it’s easy to think none of this involves you, especially if you never want to sell your music or don’t mind people using your music to make money. But, if you’re just starting out as a producer, singer, song-writer or even a sample supplier, and want to earn money from your music, then this course provides some essential information. If you want to earn money from music, but you’re thinking to yourself that something like this isn’t really of interest to you for what ever reason — then you’d be wrong. In fact, even if you’re none of the above, and simply just want to manage a band then we’d still advise to consider this course as investment in your future.
For instance generally speaking many of the guys reading this at bangthedj.com will be solo artists, and probably think they won’t really benefit or be interested in information involving such things as song splits, but it’s all still good information to know in case your future involves you collaborating with other artists, writing for someone else, or engineering. In fact, any little thing you might do with, or for, another artist… it’s always good to know, or at least be aware of, ways that money should or could be worked out — and hopefully help you get paid for your time and effort.
Of course, once you know all the above, then knowing which agencies you rely on to collect moneys for radio plays, live performances, TV shows, Movies and such would be the next logical step. Week two covers much of what you need to know about the way in which MCPS, PRS work as well as the role the publisher and the two copyrights (mechanical and performance) involved with every recording. We felt that the second week of the course proved to be a very interesting week, and although there is a lot of information to take in — even with our busy schedule — we still managed it.
As a positive aside, despite nearly every post, on just about every music forum, suggesting that you can’t make a living from music these days, this Pointblank course will show you that despite the major changes in the industry over the last ten years, there is still a living to be made from a career in music. Maybe not just on record sales alone, but hey times change and you have to be able to adapt to survive.
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