Wendy Day clarifies that uploading to Spotify doesn't protect your copyright; you need formal registration with the U.S. Copyright Office. She walks through sample clearance costs starting at $300 with DMG Sample Clearances, and lists paid analytics tools like Chartmetric and Soundcharts that indie artists can use to track their music's performance.
Chapters
Hi guys, so here is a little in-between session. Every Friday we've been sending out a newsletter that sort of is like a— it compiles all of the videos from the week. And if you're not on my mailing list, if you're not on my email list, you can go to my blog and sign up, which is industryreport.com. You can go to rap-resources.com and sign up. Um, and I think you can also go to my website, which is wendyday.com, and sign up. But every Friday we send out a mailing list, and this past Friday, um, Alicia, who sent it out, put in an Ask Me button, and she said that I would be answering questions that anybody sent in. And, um, a few of you, 4 of you actually caught it. Um, it wasn't easy to see, it wasn't very obvious, but I'm going to answer those questions now for you guys. So, um, question number 1 was, I watched the video on copyrighting your music and I was wondering if your music is protected under copyright law when you upload to Spotify or other digital distributors. Under my music it says it's copyrighted and published. Um, thank you in advance, Nandes. Um, I don't know the answer to that. That's really a question for your distributor. I would suggest you hit the support button, send them an email and ask them that. I do know that it would be time and date stamped, so it would prove that as of the date of upload that you uploaded it to your account, but I don't know that it would actually prove in a court of law that you own the words and the music. Um, I think it has to actually be registered with the Copyright Office. One of the reasons that you do a copyright isn't just so that you can prove that you own the words and music. It's so that if somebody steals it, you can sue them for damages because you want to be able to get your legal fees. You want to be able to— if you lost any money because they stole your song, you want to be able to recover, um, the money as damages. And my understanding from my attorney is that you can only do that if you've got an actual copyright filed with the Copyright Office, which is copyright.gov. Um, the second question is the best way to clear a sample. Um, we're going to actually cover that. I'm going to do a video, uh, 20/20 Vision on clearing samples. Also on my YouTube channel, there are two interviews with Deborah Manus Gardner, who runs DMG DMG Sample Clearances. Um, that's who I use to clear samples. Again, that's DMG Sample— um, DMGClearances.com, excuse me. And, um, you pay her to start the procedure to clear a sample. I think it's $300, and then she comes back and lets you know what the cost is going to be, and then you can decide whether you want to do it or not. And then you pay a second fee to her. I think it's another $300, and then whatever it costs to clear the sample. Um, but that's actually the way that I and most record labels clear samples. The great thing about having somebody do it for you is she knows who to call, she knows what the going rates are so somebody can't take advantage of you, and she negotiates the best deal for the sample clearance for you. Number 3, if you're an indie artist and paying or investing in everything yourself, how can you reach these companies to pay for the research? Um, there are many different companies that do research. The free ones are the ones on your platform. So you go into your dashboard at your distributor, you can see all your stats. If you want to go into any of your social media accounts, um, I think I have a video. It's not shot very well, but I have a video that shows me going into the data and research on my own Instagram account so you can see exactly where it is and kind of what you can find. But your best bet is to just get in there and play with it. Um, two other companies that are out there are soundcharts.com. They're based in Paris and they do research. There's also Chartmetric. Chartmetric is the one that I use the most. It's chartmetric.com and you can set up a free account and track your artist or artists that sound like your artist. I think you can track 5 artists for free, and then there's a fee and you get so much more research if you pay that monthly fee. For radio, there is Mediabase, BDS, and Digital Radio Tracker. Digital Radio Tracker tracks internet radio. Mediabase and BDS tracks, um, terrestrial radio like FM radio. So I hope that's what you're asking about in terms of research. And then the last question is, um, why am I doing this? The reason that I'm doing this is because I just believe that information should be free, and I'm giving you my opinion based on what works for me and for my clients. Um, most people cannot afford to hire me, so I just feel like because you can't afford to hire me, you should still be able to have the same access to information and the ability to succeed. I know how hard it is to do this without a budget. The truth is I cannot do this without a budget, so I really admire you guys who are doing this with no or limited money. Um, and I just feel like the knowledge should be accessible to everybody. Um, it's not like I'm taking on your— you as a client for free, but I'm sharing with you what I know so that you can do it for yourself. And I just think that that's the right thing to do, and I think that's how life should be. So, um, that's why I'm doing it. Okay guys, thanks for tuning in for this little extra, and I hope I answered all your questions. Um, if you want ask questions, please sign up for my newsletter, and I stated in the beginning where you can do that. Okay, bye.
