Erin Jacobson:
People in bands are business partners actually. And the other thing, when people tell me, "Well I feel weird, bringing it up," it's for everyone's protection, it shouldn't be an adversarial thing like I'm coming in with this contract that we have to sign. It's to benefit everyone so that everyone's clear on how the relationship works and what happens if you don't want to be in that relationship. But it is a business. It's a company, even if it's not legally designated that way.

Michael Walker:
It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician and it's only getting better. If you have high quality music but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month, without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution of today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

Michael Walker:
All right. I'm super excited to be here today with Erin Jacobson. She's known as the music industry lawyer and she protects musicians, songwriters and music publishers. She's worked with Grammy and Emmy award winners and today I thought it would be really valuable to dive into how to negotiate deals and make sure that you're protecting yourself and your rights and how to avoid the biggest mistakes that she sees come up as patterns in terms of understanding how a deal works to make sure that it's a win win for everyone rather than potentially being taken advantage of or making a mistake.

Michael Walker:
Erin, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

Erin Jacobson:
Sure. Thanks for having me.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. To start out with, I'd love to hear a little bit about your story and how you got started helping musicians negotiate their deals.

Erin Jacobson:
Sure. I've always been what I call a professional appreciator of music because I'm not a musician but I've always loved music and been really interested in it. And then when I was in college, I took a course on the music industry, which prior to that, I didn't know anything about working in the music business except for being a performing musician, which again, I'm not. In this class, I learned about managers and agents and copyrights and contracts and record deals and et cetera. And I thought that the copyrights and the contracts were just really interesting. I really understood them and started hearing all these stories about these musicians getting screwed, signing these contracts that were really unfair to them. And I thought, wow, I could be a lawyer representing musicians and helping them to not get screwed with these contracts. I could protect them from this.

Erin Jacobson:
And so that was it. I never looked back. I just got really involved in the music industry after that. I was a DJ at my campus radio station in college and took a bunch of different classes and did different internships and then went to law school for the purpose of becoming a music lawyer. And again, took all the relevant classes and I went to a law school that offered that because not all law schools offer entertainment or music courses and did more internships and networked and all that kind of stuff, formed relationships. Passed the bar and opened my own practice and here we are 11 years later.

Michael Walker:
Amazing. I want to say on behalf of musicians everywhere, thank you for looking out for us and helping avoid the sharks. Awesome. Having a ton of experience working with musicians and seeing a lot of different types of deals and seeing mistakes and whatnot, what are some of the biggest mistakes or what are some of the biggest things to avoid or look out for, for musicians who are listening to this right now?

Erin Jacobson:
Yeah, so I think the answer to that question depends on what stage you're at but the best place to start is by understanding what's going on as much as you can. Now, your job is to be a musician. You don't have to take over doing every other job and go to law school and do this and do that. But you should understand enough to know what's going on because at the end of the day, it's your career. And I'll just throw this in before I finish answering the question, just anything I say on the podcast, I have to give a disclaimer because I'm a lawyer. Anything I say on the podcast is not legal advice. Doesn't create an attorney client relationship with me, just all the information is general information, informational purposes, educational purposes, et cetera. Nothing I say is an advertisement directed at anyone specific.

Michael Walker:
You are a lawyer, aren't you?

Erin Jacobson:
You have to say all that stuff. It's the thing, every speaking event, we're saying that now. But the first thing to do is really just understand what's going on because at the end of the day, it's your career. Because that ties into other mistakes I see. People not understanding the importance of having a registered copyright for their works or people not registering for the royalty collection services that they need to register for because musicians typically want to get paid for the music that they make and when that's used and performed and different things like that. And without those proper registrations, you're not going to get paid. And then the next sort of mistake I see, especially at the indie level but also at the superstar level as well, is not doing agreements when you should. Not doing a split agreement when you're co-writing with somebody in the studio or not having a producer agreement upfront and thinking you'll just do it later.

Erin Jacobson:
And when these things happen later, it's much easier for there to be problems. For example, with songwriter split agreement, people can then all of a sudden disagree on the splits or maybe want more than they would've asked for at the session or producer agreement. The producer thought it was the terms were going to be one thing and the artist thought it was going to be something else and then all of a sudden you've got a disagreement but the record is done and needs to be released. But now you've got this hold up because you don't have the agreement done.

Erin Jacobson:
Those are the things that really kind of set up for the other mistakes. And then once you get into contract world, then it's about having the right person on your team to make sure that you're not signing something that is detrimental to you because that's kind of the third level of mistake is that people sign things without reviewing them or without understanding what they mean or not having an attorney review it on their behalf to catch the things that they don't know to look for. Those are kind of the tiers of mistakes.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. That's super helpful. It sounds like what you're saying is that the biggest mistake in general is just not understanding the lay of the land because that makes it possible to even be taken advantage of is because you don't really understand how things are working. And some of the main ones, and maybe we can dig into each of them a little bit more, but sounds like one of the first ones that you mentioned was just in terms of understanding their royalties and their copyright and sometimes overlooking that and not realizing that they actually need to register these songs in order to get paid for them. Could you tell me a little bit more about that for anyone who's listening to this right now, what exactly do they need to do in order to make sure that their songs are registered and taken care of?

Erin Jacobson:
In the US at least where I'm based, so when something is created that's original enough to have copyright protection, once you, what the copyright law calls fix it in a tangible medium of expression, which means you put it in a physical medium, you write it down, you record it, something that's physical, that can be reproduced, technically it has copyright protection under the law. However, there's a whole bunch of benefits that come with registering with the US copyright office and the most important two of them being one, if there's an infringement or some issue with the ownership, you cannot sue in federal court unless you have a copyright registration. And two, the court will look to the copyright registration and the date of creation on that registration as the official information. Mailing it to yourself, posting it online, on YouTube or SoundCloud or whatever, registering it with a site that is not the copyright office, that just offers you a date stamp or something, those are not reliable methods and there's so much misinformation on the internet.

Erin Jacobson:
People are like, oh, I can register on this site for $4 and that's way cheaper than the copyright office. But what those people don't understand is that it's not giving you the protection that you need. And copyright registration is very important. And while the application fees are slightly more expensive than $4, they're really well worth it. And when you own a copyright, you have a list of rights that come along with that. Whoever's the owner of the copyright is in control of how that work is reproduced, distributed, performed. Whether people can make changes, how other people can use it and the right to collect the income from those uses. And that's where the royalties come in because every type of music royalty and probably your listeners would have heard some of these terms like performance, mechanical, things like that. Those are all tied to rights of copyright.

Erin Jacobson:
And so I go into this more in depth in my book, Don't Get Screwed! How to Protect Yourself as an Independent Musician, where I really break down the rights of copyright, the different royalty streams, how you get paid those royalties and how those royalties relate to the different rights of copyright. Going into the royalty part of it, there's like I said, these different royalty streams, like performance, mechanical, print, streaming mechanicals, there's sync fees. If your music is used in a film or a television show, and these all come with different royalties streams, different payment structures and they involve registering with organizations to collect those.

Erin Jacobson:
For example, performance royalties, you want to register with a performance rights organization. In the US the two most well known are ASCAP and BMI because those are available for anyone to register with. We have a couple others but those are the main ones, at least for independent musicians. And those are the organizations that when your music is publicly performed, which doesn't just mean in a concert, it means played if you will, in public for people that are not just your immediate family and friends. Maybe that's on the radio. Maybe it's on television. Maybe that's in a restaurant over the speakers, different things like that. Streaming is also a performance. ASCAP and BMI collect those royalties for performance and then pay you those royalties as a songwriter, as a publisher. There's ways in which to properly register with these organizations to make sure that you're getting paid what you should be getting paid and that these organizations know, okay, Michael wrote this song and now this song has just been streamed on Spotify and therefore Michael is owed a royal, things like that.

Erin Jacobson:
It can get very overwhelming, I think because there's a lot of information out there and there's a lot of blogs and websites and different things about it, but they often don't put everything together kind of in one package. And that was one of the reasons why I wrote the book, because instead of having all this piecemeal information, it's like here's one thing to put it together. This is what you need to know rather than going, okay, this site's talking about mechanicals. And how does that relate to performance? And does ASCAP and BMI collect the mechanicals for you? And no, they don't. That's Harry Fox. I think there's just a lot that floats around that then people come to me and go, "My friend told me such." I'm like, "Your friend is wrong," I'm like, "this is what you need to do."

Erin Jacobson:
Those are just some of the kind of really basic things that really trip people up a lot, actually. But it's really important because again, you don't get paid if you don't do these things or you don't have somebody that's correctly doing them on your behalf. Because even if you have a manager or somebody doing something for you, that doesn't mean that it's correct either because I've had artists and writers come to me and say, "I have this new song out and I know it's been getting airplay and I'm really not getting paid what I think I'm supposed to be getting paid." And I'll look at their performance registration and I'll go, "Well yeah, that's because it's not registered right." There's that aspect too. It gets pretty detailed with the data. Nowadays, the data that's associated with your music, the metadata we call it, is almost as important or sometimes as important as the ownership. Because again, if that's not right, you're not getting paid.

Michael Walker:
Oh, what's up guys? Quick intermission from the podcast so I could tell you about an awesome free gift that I have for you. I wanted to share something that's not normally available to the public, that I normally reserve for our $5,000 clients that we work with personally. This is a presentation called Six Steps to Explode Your Fanbase and Make a Profit With Your Music Online. And specifically, we're going to walk through how to build a paid traffic and automated funnel that's going to allow you to grow your fanbase online and the system's designed to get you to your first $5,000 a month with your music. We've invested over a $130,000 in the past year to test out different traffic sources and different offers and really see what's working best right now for musicians. And so I think it's going to be hugely valuable for you. And so if that's something you're interested in, in the description, there should be a little link that you can click on to go get that.

Michael Walker:
And the other thing I wanted to mention is, if you want to do us a huge favor, one thing that really makes a big difference early on when you're creating a new podcast is if people click subscribe, then it basically lets the algorithm know that this is something that's new and noteworthy and that people actually want to hear and so that'll help us reach a lot more people. If you're getting value from this and you get value from the free trainings, then if you want to do us a favor, I'd really appreciate you clicking the subscribe button. All right, let's get back to the podcast.

Michael Walker:
That's really good stuff. And I think you're right that a lot of this is the kind of stuff that could feel a little bit overwhelming at first but is also really important. The first thing that you mentioned about copyright is it actually really interests me because I feel like I personally was misinformed because I have always thought that oh yeah, copyrights and because as soon as something is copyrighted, as long as you can prove that you created it, that you're kind of protected by copyright law but it sounds like it's a lot more important than I realized to actually get copyrights registered. That's one thing I wanted to dig a little bit deeper on is just fully understanding that. Because you said that there is something that happens when it's actually created but that doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot. Could you share a little bit more about what does that actually do? What does it mean that you're supposed to have copyright when you first create it and why does that not work?

Erin Jacobson:
It's more of kind of a basic protection, not to go into a law school class, but you have federal law, which is US and then you have state laws and we have something called common law, which is sort of more state based, lesser level of protection. And so what the copyright law says is, yes, you have this kind of basic level of protection when you put it in this physical form. But if something happens like an infringement or something, you can't Sue in federal court, unless you have already registered it with the US copyright office. And when there is the suit in federal court, the copyright office is going to look to the information on the registration as that definitive information that they should rely on.

Erin Jacobson:
There's other benefits as well when you register, it goes in the online database so somebody can look up the work and see that you own it. There's something called statutory damages, which means in lawsuits, there's a certain amount of money that you're eligible to get by virtue of being able to sue in this federal court situation, which is not as much that you would get necessarily if you were not able to sue in federal court. There's all these different benefits. There's a presumption of ownership that you are the real owner when you have a registration. It's kind of a basic level and then the official higher level.

Michael Walker:
Got you. Okay, that makes sense. Sounds like, so without having it properly registered, there's some basic protection but it doesn't necessarily give you a lot of the benefits that you would get from actually having it officially registered.

Erin Jacobson:
Yeah. And if you don't have those benefits, again, like suing in federal court, if somebody infringes on your work, you're going to have a hard time really pursuing it, especially because also copyright laws, federal laws, you want that ability to be able to sue in federal court to defend the ownership of your work, if you need to. And the copyright office does have rush registration in advance of litigation but it's way more expensive than if you would've just done it originally.

Michael Walker:
Yeah. Got you. What you're saying is that it might be possible to get it properly registered. Let's say that someone here records a smash banger of a hit and it's just incredible but they didn't get it registered as a copyright and it goes on to become a really successful song. And then Kimoshi, Joe Kimoshi comes around and he says, "Hey, you know what?"

Erin Jacobson:
No one's going to deal with someone named Joe Kimoshi.

Michael Walker:
Joe Kimoshi, I'm going to get angry emails from Joe Kimoshi. He's like, "Michael, the jig is up." Joe Kimoshi comes around and decides to take the song and kind of rip it off. And so at that point, would the person who wrote the original song, would they be able to register the song after the fact and say "Hey, I've proven documentation that I wrote this song beforehand." And then that they came in afterwards and they wrote it and then get it properly registered so they could sue in federal court. Or are they just kind of out of luck now?

Erin Jacobson:
No, the first part. You can then submit a registration and then you have to submit it with rush handling because of pending litigation. You have to pay a lot more money to move it to the front of the line and then get it registered. It's at the time that we're talking about this right now, if you wrote a song today and you registered it, it's 45 to $65 for the application. It's not that really expensive but if we're in the litigation rushing it scenario, there's an extra $800 fee. Plus you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on litigation anyway. The whole thing becomes a lot more expensive and it's just much better to do it upfront.

Michael Walker:
The other thing that you brought up was in terms of royalty collection and I super appreciate the fact that you've taken all of these concepts and all these ideas and turned them into a cohesive, simple, streamlined option for people. I would highly recommend anyone who's interested in this stuff to go check out the book. But one thing that came to mind as you were talking about that was a conversation that I had recently on the podcast with Anna Bond who works at Songtrust. And it seems they have like a pretty awesome platform that deals a lot with the conversation we're having today around royalties. I was curious just on your thoughts about Songtrust and how that kind of plugs into royalty collection and are there any gaps that you still want to be aware of if you do work with Songtrust and what are your general thoughts?

Erin Jacobson:
Yeah. Songtrust is what we call basically an administration company. Because there are all these different royalty streams and all these different places to register, Songtrust is kind of a one place. You still have to be registered, like a performance rights organization, at least as a writer. But for independent artists that are not signed with a music publishing company, which would be a company that handles kind of all the management of the compositions that a songwriter writes, Songtrust is a company that kind of takes over that role for people that sign up online and don't have a direct contractual relationship with another company. Songtrust makes sure that everything is around the world is being collected. And then they take a percentage for their service and doing that and then pay you the royalties as well. For people that are registered with Songtrust, if you go on ASCAP or BMI to look up a particular song, it'll say whoever is the writer, Joe Kamachi or whatever his name is.

Michael Walker:
Kimoshi, Erin.

Erin Jacobson:
Kimoshi, sorry. He's the writer. And the publisher would be care of Songtrust. If somebody wants to use that song for something they would contact Songtrust and Songtrust would say, "Hey, Joe wants to use your song," different things like that. They kind of do all the paperwork, the royalty collection.

Michael Walker:
Got you. It's like an umbrella branch that can help with some of the royalty collection and we the publishing share and whatnot. Awesome. One of the things that you had brought up was one of the biggest mistakes that you see is artists not being upfront and clear with each other in terms of agreements that they're creating, especially during co-write sessions and just getting clear agreements upfront and then thinking, oh yeah, we'll just figure this out later. And that turning into a lot of issues on the backend where it's people are trying to decide who had the actual percentages and then afterwards it can kind of become a big issue. I think that's a really important thing for anyone that's listening right now. Not just with musicians and co-writing sessions, whatnot, but just for a lot of business agreements or partnerships.

Michael Walker:
For example, there's with Modern Musician, I have a business partner that I've been working with for about a year and a half and upfront I think one of the things I'm super, super grateful that we did was we wrote out a contract and just got really, not for even the sake of wanting to have a legal agreement for each other to sue each other or anything, but just to get on the same page and understand exactly how things are working out and to figure out the end in mind for when we do eventually part ways, what does that look like? And putting that into place.

Michael Walker:
And it's something that right now with Modern Musician, he is about a month ago he told me that he wants to take a step back to go fully into his music and to really record and release new songs, which is amazing. But right now, gosh, if we hadn't done the upfront work of just putting in writing and clarifying and recording a video of us talking through the agreement, it would be a lot more messy. It would be a much more stressful situation. I just wanted to speak to what you said about upfront having the clarity and to get one of those agreements and getting on the same page so that later on that doesn't create extra issues.

Erin Jacobson:
Yeah. No, that's a perfect example. And I think you explained it really well because that's what the purpose of a contract is so that everyone can be on the same page, because if you didn't have that and then your partner is saying, "I want to take a step back." It's like, okay well, what do we do now? And what does that look like? And maybe he has a different view of what that looks like than what you do. And so this comes up actually a lot with bands. One of the agreements I talk about in the book is a band agreement and so it's like, okay, you guys are in a band together. How are the writing royalties being split for publishing? How are the record royalties being split? Who can use the band name? Who owns the band name? What happens if you want to bring a new member into the band? What happens if somebody wants to leave the band?

Erin Jacobson:
And there's more issues too, but those are some of the basic ones. And what I tell people, it's like getting married that you're entering into this relationship with people and you're kind of, like you said with your business partner, laid it all out. What happens if we don't want to be business partners anymore? And people in bands are business partners actually. And the other thing, when people tell me, "Well I feel weird, bringing it up," it's for everyone's protection, not just it shouldn't be an adversarial thing like I'm coming in with this contract that we have to sign. It's to benefit everyone so that everyone's clear on how the relationship works and what happens if you don't want to be in that relationship.

Erin Jacobson:
And if the people are going to be really difficult about it upfront, then you might want to think twice about being in a business with them. Whether it's what you think of is more of an actual business or whether it's a band because of band, people don't like to think of it as a business really, but it is a business. It's a company, even if it's not legally designated that way, it is what it is. You're putting out music, which is your product. You have to market and promote it and manage the income that comes in from it and so it has a lot of the same elements and there is that aspect to it that you have to think of it that way, not just the creative part of it.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, absolutely. That's so important to frame and think about it not necessarily as a divisive thing but more just we want to get on the same page. It's about transparency and about making this a win for everyone. But just having clarity right now before things potentially get messy. If there is a breakup that's not necessarily a good breakup, which happens, it's important to just clarify things so that you understand how to handle things if that does happen.

Michael Walker:
The last point that you had brought up in terms of some of the three biggest mistakes or challenges that you see was when lo and behold Joe Kimoshi finds out that he actually has a big opportunity to sign to a major record label or to some other opportunity that maybe he reads through and it's like, I don't really understand this or he's talking with the other party and basically signs an agreement without really fully understanding what the terms are. It sounds like what you'd recommend is really making sure that you have proper representation for if you are going to sign a deal like that. I guess one question for you in terms of that process, do you think it's possible to over complicate or over worry about, obviously you're reading through a website's terms and conditions, agree, do not agree, but then there are serious deals and negotiations that you should get third party help with. When do you think is the right time for someone, they absolutely should seek out some third party help and not just try to handle it themselves?

Erin Jacobson:
Whenever you're presented with an agreement, especially if you don't understand everything in that agreement but really even if you think you understand what's in the agreement, because I've had people come to me and say, "Yeah, well last year I signed this deal with company and I read it over and it looked fine. But they're telling me things that don't look right or don't sound right." And so I said, "Let me see this agreement." And then I read it and I'm like, "Oh, did you know that they're doing this and this?" And they're saying, "No." I'm like, "Yeah, this is why you should have had an attorney review it because I'm trained to look for stuff like that." Because everybody's seen some sort of legal language in documents or whatever. It's like a different language and it's not always easy to understand and so having somebody trained that knows how to interpret that language and knows what it means and what it means when paragraph over here is affecting the other paragraph over here and can kind of translate that into practical reality of okay, this is what it means for you. That's super important.

Erin Jacobson:
What I was just speaking about is actually a real example that I had a client come to me at one point that had signed something previously thought it was fine and it turned out that one income stream was funneling into another income stream to trigger a threshold that then allowed the company to have copyright ownership over that person's work. You couldn't tell that just by a surface level read. And then I had to inform him that this is what he had signed. These things do happen.

Erin Jacobson:
Now you could even go earlier with an attorney. I get people all the time that are like, "I really just want to understand more about copyright or am I set up properly to collect my royalties?" Or, "This is kind of where I want to go and am I set up right to do that?" Or, "I just have questions because I want to understand these concepts better." I do appointments like that all the time to explain these things to people and help them understand it in the context of their own career. It's never really too early, but I would say definitely if you're presented with a contract to sign or if you need a contract for somebody that you're working with are all good times to do that.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Cool. It sounds like what you're saying is that it's not really ever a risk of doing it too early. It's always good to seek out, if you can prevent something bad from happening, it's almost always going to be a lot cheaper and easier to do it than to try to fix it after you're kind of in the middle of it. But absolutely where you need to find representation is if you're signing any sort of deal or agreement, then it's especially important to get third party help. Even if you might think that you understand the deal, there's sometimes there's language or there's things that are kind of misleading or difficult to fully understand.

Michael Walker:
I guess one thing I'd be kind of curious about is what are some of those things that people, examples that people have overlooked in your experience or things that are especially important to consider when it comes to negotiating a deal? Let's say that someone that's listening to this is seriously considering signing a deal with a record label, whether it's a major record label or a smaller record label, what are some of the big decisions that they should be looking at and considering on these deal points?

Erin Jacobson:
Yeah. I think just from a big picture be what is that label going to for you? Are you going to be just another name on the roster and the label is not really going to do anything for you more than what you're doing for yourself? Which I've had that happen to clients that the label ended up not doing really more for them. They really wanted to sign with the label but the label really wasn't doing more for them that they could do for themselves. Or is the label really going to be a benefit to you? That's a big picture thing I think to consider. And do they really get you and understand you and are excited about your music and that kind of stuff.

Erin Jacobson:
But from a deal perspective, one thing to consider is the advance that you're getting because an advance is an advanced payment of royalties that the record label has to make back before they pay you royalties. Is it going to be a really high advance that you're basically in debt to the label for. Which if they drop you, you usually don't have to pay it back but at the same time, it's are you going to not see royalties for the next 15 years because you got this advance? Or are the recording costs going to be super high? We can tell stories of back in the day where it's private jets and a drug budget in a studio, they don't say that. Nobody get mad at me because I said that.

Michael Walker:
Moshi, another angry mail from Joe.

Erin Jacobson:
No, but obviously they're not going to put that as a line item, but oh, we need to fly in this orchestra from wherever and these recording costs would be so big that the band would never recoup that money and so then they wouldn't see royalties. That kind of thing where you have to weigh what are the upfront costs versus whether you actually want to be receiving royalties or you're fine with just getting this upfront payment or if it's an all in payment, which means that whatever's in excess of the recording cost kind of goes in your pocket for living expenses or whatever. Are you spending so much on the recording that you're not going to have anything left over? But that's a little bit later because you're not getting the advance till you signed the deal, but these are kind of things to consider when you're thinking about what the advance amount is that's being offered to you.

Erin Jacobson:
Another thing is the royalties. Record labels are notorious for taking a lot of deductions on what money is going towards those royalties. If a dollar comes in, but then there's 67 cents of deduction. And then you're getting 18% of what's left over, that's not really the same as 18% on the dollar that you thought you were getting. And that's one of the, sometimes a little bit less now, but it's the royalties and the deductions are one of the most heavily negotiated parts of a recording agreement because traditionally, like I said, record labels take a lot of deductions on things that aren't necessarily always things that should be there. There are other considerations, again, it's what's being spent on marketing or promotion or videos or are you getting tour support?

Erin Jacobson:
The last 10, 15 years have been, there was a big period of 360 deals where labels were going into not just records but all these other areas of publishing and merchandise and touring and sponsorships and all these things. And depending on the deal, it would vary as far as whether the label was actually doing these things for you or if they were just participating in the income. Looking at that, well are you just with this label for records? Are they participating in these other areas? And how does that impact your income? And also how long you're in this deal for. Term is a big consideration because if you're in a deal that's going to be seven years or something, you hopefully are going to be happy in that time and you're not going to be stuck in this deal for years, that was kind of stalling your career because the labels and you don't have a good relationship anymore.

Erin Jacobson:
It's kind of thinking about the short term and the long term at the same time. I always look at when I'm doing a deal, I'm not only looking at what the actual contract says, but I'm looking at how this affects my client long term and does this align with my client's goals and things like that because you sign something now, you think oh, it's not that big of a deal that I gave up ownership of this thing or that, that it's a seven year deal or whatever. And then later that can become a big issue.

Michael Walker:
That's so good. And what that reminds me of is I think this is a really good philosophy for anything, for any sort of partnership or collaboration or deal or something. If you're about to make a major decision, is the idea of dating before you get married. And I also think it takes a lot of the pressure off if you're going to try out something new, just knowing you're going to date before you get married, and kind of structuring that so that you have a trial period. You have a trial period to basically know how's this is going to work because it's something like a major, a seven year deal is getting married. And if you haven't really been working with this record label for so long, how do you know if you guys are compatible and you're really going to get along? Maybe it would be possible for a shorter one leading into a longer one?

Erin Jacobson:
Well, so sometimes we just try and do a shorter one and if the parties still want to work together, then they can do another deal after. But sometimes you just, you got to go into the marriage, the seven year marriage or whatever it is and maybe we're able to build some things into the contract. This happens, then you can get out of the contract or if the label doesn't release the album, then you can get out of the contract. Or there's kind of different parameters that we work with. But sometimes you got to enter into it on faith and hope it goes well and we'll hopefully have some things built in to be able to get out if things get bad. But you can't always account for every single thing that might happen.

Michael Walker:
Right. It sounds like what you're saying is that sometimes it can be tricky. Sometimes you do have to get married but if you do that, you can still do it in a safe way where you have some things built in so if you do part ways that you can do that and in a reasonable way and to avoid risk as much as possible.

Erin Jacobson:
A lot of it really depends on your bargaining power too. If you're a brand new artist signing with a major label, you're having a good team can definitely help with that in giving you that extra leverage that you need. But unfortunately, sometimes when you're just starting out, you're not going to get the best deal because you're not superstar yet. And then when you're a superstar, you can get the best deal. But at least what my job is to make the contract as good as I can make it for my client. But that's also sometimes relative to what that company will allow for someone in big company is going to have a lot more power than an artist just signing their first deal. But you can still work within the parameters of that deal, make it as good as you can for someone that's signing their first deal.

Erin Jacobson:
It's kind of all relative, but you do the best you can in this situation that you're in and then hopefully everything goes well and then the next deal is better and the next deal is better and the next deal's better. And sometimes you get a good deal. And a lot of times you get a good deal. I don't want to make it sound like everybody that's signing their first deal is going to be bad but I certainly make them the best that they can be. But just as is the nature of it, the more successful you are, the more opportunities are available and the better deals are available to you to the point where you're like Taylor Swift and you get to own all your masters and your new deal and that kind of stuff.

Michael Walker:
That makes a lot of sense. And so to recap, it sounds like what you're saying is just that, the nature of deals and negotiation is with leverage, the more that you have to offer, then the better deal that they can get. And so if you're just starting out and you haven't built up a successful business or have an audience and you're trying to negotiate a deal, you don't really have a lot of leverage and so you might not be able to as good of a deal as if you've already built up a lot of buzz and a successful business on your own first.

Erin Jacobson:
Exactly. You summed it all up.

Michael Walker:
I'm a perpetual summer upper.

Erin Jacobson:
I know. I'm like, awesome. I'm just going to bring you with me.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Erin, it's been a lot of fun. We've gone places with this week. I think we've taken a topic that for some people can be really challenging and complicated and we've infused some life and fun into it, which I think is in essence, what you do with a lot of, your book, everything is you take these concepts that can be difficult to grasp and it sounds like you really streamline them. Thank you so much for taking the time. And just ignore any emails you get from Joe. If there's anyone listening to this right now named Joe Kimoshi, please do me a favor and reach out just because I want to know. I want to know you and I want to have that moment. But Erin, thank you again. This has been really awesome.

Erin Jacobson:
Yeah. You're welcome.

Michael Walker:
Sorry, I forgot. Last thing, this is important. For anyone who's listening to this right now and is interested in learning more from you or are checking out your book or your website or even reaching out to you personally, what would be the best place for them to reach out?

Erin Jacobson:
My website is themusicindustrylawyer.com and there's also a contact page on that website. That's the best way to get in touch with me. I have another website called indieartistresource.com where I have contract templates for the most needed contracts that independent musicians need. And also a bunch of educational resources on there. Both of them link to the book as well. Again, it's called, Don't Get Screwed! How to Protect Yourself as an Independent Musician. It's available on Amazon and I'm on social media and all that stuff. All those links are on the websites as well, themusicindustrylawyer.com, indieartistresource.com and then the book's at Amazon.

Michael Walker:
All right, fantastic. And we'll also put all the links for all this into the show notes as well to make it as easy as possible.

Erin Jacobson:
Awesome.

Michael Walker:
Cool. All right, Erin, thank you again so much.

Erin Jacobson:
Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you.

Michael Walker:
Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today and if you want to support the podcast, then there's few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe then that'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends or on your social media, tag us, that really helps us out. And third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you who want to take their music careers to the next level. The time to be a modern musician is now and I'll look forward to seeing you on our next episode.