Publishing Rights for Music, Books, etc.?

What is publishing? Publishing rights allows a person to sell or do business with music, books, curriculums, etc. And when I say do business with it music or books, I mean partner with other companies or brands to put on maybe a concert, party, etc.

With publishing rights, there come contracts, collaborations, and deals that help promote a specific song, album, book, or movie.

When you are trying to publish a body of work, it takes multiple people to publish it. For example, you need a producer, artist, sound engineer and others to get a song ‘off the ground.’

And like any other project, there can be conflict that arises out of these projects. This is where having a good contract in place helps. I’ve worked with several groups of people to either help develop a contract or handle contract disputes. All in all, I’ve found that without having a contract, things can go haywire.

When it comes to artist, many either not business savvy or do not care about the business side of developing music. So contracts are either signed without anyone explaining the particulars of the contract. Most of the time, contracts are signed because someone wants to rush the project for completion. In which it’s understandable. But, you don’t know the risk you are taking without understanding the terms until something bad happens such as one party stops performing.

So my advice to artists, writers, and other creators of work; know the interworking of a contract before signing. If you don’t understand something, contact an attorney to get the details of it. And that attorney can reach out to the other party’s attorney to clear the details. Also, an attorney can rewrite (or reform) a contract.

You don't want to be one of those people who say I could just do this on my own. Then it turns out that you overlooked something. Or people change their mind or don't fulfill the contract. So you are left holding the bag of bad project.

Takeaways:

Always protect yourself! Contracts are an artist best friend. And a great lawyer creating and reformatting the contract is an even better friend.

~  Attorney Ronnie O’Brien Rice, Ph.D.

Podcast:  https://anchor.fm/successpays

YouTube (weekly post):  https://www.youtube.com/user/RonnieORice

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Website:  www.ronnieorice.com

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LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronnieorice

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Location: Alabama, USA

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