honored in Great Amercan Song Contest, but...

A

altcountry

New member
This may sound more like a question for 'Dear Abby' but I wanted to get some anonymous opinions before I told anyone else, so you guys get it first.
A good friend and musical associate of mine submitted a song I wrote to the GreatAmercanSongContest and it placed in the honor awards. Congrats, you may be thinking? Well, when I went to the GASC website and found my song in the honorary list, it had my pals name by it. Needless to say, I was somewhat dissapointed. I was feelinga little proud of myself but I can't send the link to any friends and family when the song appears to have been written by someone else! He told me he was going to submit the song and just today told me it placed in the honors, which strays me from the thought that he would be trying to pull some kind of song scam thing. He did say 'we' placed in the honors and I was thinking maybe he put us both down as the songwriters although I wrote the song myself with a few suggestions from him that I didn't use.

This friend has started a music publishing company and is kind of acting like an 'agent' (for lack of a better word), ie., providing me (and a select few others) with things like studio time, a nice Martin, other musical neccesories, etc. So when he said "we placed" I thought, OK, we, as in ???? Music Publising Co., but as far as song ownership goes, the songs I write for him are to be copyrighted in my name. It's probably too late to make a long question short but, what would YOU do?

If you have any suggestions, keep in mind that I consider this to be a good friend of over 10 years and also I believe this publishing thing to be legit since said friend has several successful businesses, business lawyers, lots of capital and good contacts in the music business. I would like to fix this without causing a rift in our relationship.
Thnx up front
 
I suspect this will be turn into an interesting (and hopefully informative) thread...

Reading your post, my first thought was the obvious:
Why didn't you just submit the tune on your own?

Reaching the end of your message, however, the reasons became clearer, and bring up an issue that plagues many musicians and writers: When do you walk away from the promise of *fill-in-the-blank*? It could be equipment, studio access, contacts, etc.

Any of these sound familiar:

"She sings good with the radio... I'm sure she'll get better - and her uncle knows Van Halen's tour manager!"

"He doesn't want to play out or anything, but he has a great job and just bought a multitrack recorder we can use..."

"I spend a lot of time recording his songs, but next he's going to sing on one of mine."

"He said we can practice at his house...anyway I have bass equipment I can lend him."

"I know she cancelled again, but she's so good..."

"No, we don't have anything recorded yet, but the guy who gets us into his brothers studio at night played in a band with a guy who worked with Bonnie Raitt." <repeat same thing for six months and then add> "I helped my producer's brother move his studio while his partners got high - he thanked me by handing me a bill for the time spent watching his brother 'the producer' try to learn how to operate his Mac."

I'm getting depressed thinking about those and other quotes from my musical experience, but it boils down to making the mistake of sticking with situations that you know are wrong and end in the following:

"..., but he has a studio!"
"..., but she has space!"
"..., but he has equipment!"
"..., but she has gigs!"
"..., but he has contacts!"
"..., but she's so talented!"

Hard to tell the full dynamic from your story, but it sounds like you've been hanging with a guy who offers things you are afraid to leave behind. Now that you have something he wants (your song) you are seeing a side of him that you probably always knew was there, but never wanted to face.

It's a lesson that gets easier with age and experience: 'There`s no such thing as a free lunch.'
 
If this person is truly a good friend maybe everything will workout.
Who submitted the song may not be as important as who wrote it, espically if you have some way of documenting your work. One way to do this is to place your work in an envelope with some type of proof as to the date the work was created ( a wittness ) and mail it to your self. Make sure the envelope is sealed with as "tamper proof" a seal as you can get and place it in a safe place to remain unopened. This should give you a very strong postion should there be any question as to "who" and "when"
a work was created.

I strongly second everything MRX said. I hope and pray all works out for you.

Keep the faith, Ozlee
 
Don't do the old 'Seal in an envelope and send it to yourself'. Doing that does'nt hold up in court as many people believe. The best thing to do is copyright your music with the Library Of Congress. That is the only sure way of protecting your rights. And do it before you submit it to contests or before you show it to friends. Even if they are good friends. Protect yourself.
 
Diplomacy.

Leaving aside the issue of copyright, you did copyright the song by doing the Library of Congress thing right? Because currently he's got a great claim to that song!

If this guy is a true friend, then I'd do this...

Tell him you want to go for a beer, coffee whatever, as you've something you wanna talk about with him (you'll explain later). Tell him how proud you were that the song you wrote got listed and that you're thankfull for all his efforts, without which the song wouldn't have been recognised.

However, you were a bit disapointed that your name isn't mentioned, as it would have been great to show it to family etc. So would he mind if you/both contacted them and tried to get them to amend the details on the web page to give you the song writing credit?

If he's a friend can he say 'No' ? if he does, then he's no real friend. Even if it gets listed as a joint composition it's better than you not being mentioned (McCartney had to put up with lennon getting part credit for his songs and vice versa!!!).

If he falls out with you over this, he ain't a friend.
 
Toonsmith said:
Don't do the old 'Seal in an envelope and send it to yourself'. Doing that does'nt hold up in court as many people believe. The best thing to do is copyright your music with the Library Of Congress. That is the only sure way of protecting your rights. And do it before you submit it to contests or before you show it to friends. Even if they are good friends. Protect yourself.
Click to expand...

The "old seal in the envelope trick" is not for copyright purposes but it does go to the all important fact of establishing "a point in time" which is admissible to "who and when" a work was created and goes directly to the "preponderance" of the evidence. Which, if you have to fight for your creative rights beats the hell out of nothing at all. The other important point is that it does not cost anything or take as long (in comparison) and is a very good first step in establishing your rights to a creative work. I would think anyone struggling with their craft that time and money are very valuable and would be done a disservice to be lead to believe that anything short of a Library of Congress copyright they had no-way to try and protect their work.

Just a thought: To copyright lyrics is one thing; to copyright a song you have to have at least a lead sheet as well. Also, I do strongly agree with the Library of Congress copyright issue


IMHO, Ozlee:cool:
 
Seal in an envelope?

I don't see how this method would stand up in court against the arguments of a fancy lawyer backed by a music publisher for example.

Whats to stop me having sent myself a selfaddressed envelope through the post say 4 years ago, save it, then when a hit song comes out quickly write down the lyrics record a rough demo, seal it in the 4 year old envelope and say I wrote it then and can I have my royalites please!!

Maybe someone can point to a court case whereby this method has actualy won a case, but I doubt it.

Even if you leave the envelope with a lawyer in a safe, a service which might involve a cost, or some other notary person, it's still not conclusive proof (the lawyer might be bent and in on it with you).

Library of congress is the sure fire way so I'm told.
 
this sounds kinda crappy.

As you said your friend is sucessful in other ventures etc...

no offense to them, but it usually takes an opportunistic, (more than less) self-serving individual to achieve those sorts of things.

I would, in a non-aggressive, but assertive manner, inquire about the issue directly to your 'friend'

don't allow them to divert the conversation.

just make it clear that, you know you've been friends a long time, and this is important. 'can we please talk about this'

that sort of thing. maybe your friend doesn't realize how important the discussion is to you, maybe there is a misunderstanding, maybe you need to consider not trusting them so much.... may be may be may be.... tell us how it goes huh?
 
Your freind sounds alright. If he's doing all this stuff for you, it sounds like he wants to be a music publisher. Just keep in contact with him and stay on his good side til you get things resolved.

As to all the negativity, many members here seem to be the voice of gloom and doom when it comes to the music industry. And though the industry does have a bad reputation, whether earned or not, there are still some good people out there.

So don't let it get you down, with all the trepidation that you're hearing. I'm sure everything will work out.
 
Thanx guys/gals,
I'm just hanging in there and soaking up all the info for now. 'Friend' lives about 3 hours away now and it's not unusual to go a week or two with little or no contact which will give me time for a well thought out angle of attack (gosh, that sounds harsh). The 'go for a beer and have a talk' thing will happen soon, but for now, please keep the suggestions rolling. When 'friend' decided to pursue this line of work, he told the biz lawyer that the most important thing was for everybody to stay friends, so I'm sticking with that approach, for now.

However, yesterday I downloaded/printed the copyright forms, printed out song copies, burned them individually onto CD's wrote out some 30$ checks and mailed them to the Library of Congress. I feel better already! Thanks ya'll
I'll keep you updated.
 
I didn't see the key question asked above. Did you sign a publishing contract with him? If not, it is your song. PERIOD. Most publishing deals still include language that allows or even mandatest that the writer be given writing credit.

I hate to say it, but this smells. If he is above board, it appears he isn't acting in a professional manner as a publisher. I would try to determine which one of the above it is. If it is the latter and he has good intentions, roll with it, but talk to him about it. You should be getting writer credit for the song. Not him. Even if he is the publisher.

But really, it doesn't much matter (except for vanity) unless the song makes some money ;).

I'd go ahead and still brag it up to your friends and family. Why not? You are the writer after all.

Do you have records of your work on this song? I keep a file on each song I work on with every idea sheet, rough set of lyrics and sound file I create indexed and dated. If you have that kind of evidence, it helps if the need ever arises. Sure, it's not fool proof, but when you get into he "preponderence of the evidence" situation, it all adds up.

For this song, I would make sure you get those copyright registration forms in. Although I don't bother with that at this point, in this situation, I 'd cover myself if I were you. If you have any of the type of evidence I referred to above and the first registration of this song, you probably would have a pretty good case if it was needed.

Good luck.

(No, I'm not an attorney, I am just spouting off from what I have heard and what my understanding is :D).
 
Jagular said:
But really, it doesn't much matter (except for vanity) unless the song makes some money ;).
Click to expand...

On a more serious level, what's the deal with this 'contest'? I checked out the web site and from what I can tell it's basically just a front for Taxi.

(Kind of like those places that used to solicit drawings to see if you have enough 'real talent' to enroll in a high priced mail order 'Art Acadamy' - or the episode of the Munsters where Herman gets roped into dancing lessons...)
 
No publishing contract yet, this is a brand new venture. I'll make sure that issue is addressed at our next meeting.

I agree with the vanity comment, to a certain extent, but I feel I deserve the recognition for my creative efforts-as opposed to him getting the recognition for taking the initiative to send it in to the contest and paying the 20$ entry fee.

No records of work for any song. Just jotted down on paper, etc. then typed into Word for Mac. Indexing/dating sounds interesting.

I'm looking at it like this---This guys wife is an artist, but I wouldn't put my name in place of hers on her painting before I entered it into an art show for her. People just don't do that kind of thing, do they?!?!?!? Even if I was gumped-up enough to do that, I can imagine feeling like the biggest idiot loser in all of history with a severely warped sense of desperation once the truth came out. I know other people who would be way more prone to do this than 'the friend'.

BUT- if I entered her art into a contest and wanted the contest people to correspond with me (such as 'friend' did with my song, which was fine) and had to give them my name as the person who submitted the artwork and my contact info, I can see things getting muddied up about who actually did what.

Just trying to stay optimistic. I've probably made this a little more dramatic than it actually is.

Thx,
AC
 
But he's my friend......

Lots of good advice on this thread. I would like to cut this down to size for you.

1) Was there any money awarded?

2) If yes, did you get some ?

If the answer to 1) is no, then what we have is most likely a bureaucratic screwup and nothing more. If the answer to 2) is NO then what we have is not a friend but a nickle-slick hustler and my advice is to ram that "nice Martin guitar " up his ass and have no future contact. Remember "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!"

chazba
 
Oh and one more thing to considre altcountry. If he does offer you a publishing contract you have to decide something. Does he have the connections necessary in the industry to successfully pitch your songs? If not, it may not be in your best interest to sign it. Unless he's a real go getter. But you have to watch out for them too. They can get a real bad name in the industry quickly if they are too pushy. They call that gherming here in Nashville. No quicker way to end your career ;).

If he offers you single song contracts, and you think he might be able to accomplish something with your songs, DO have an entertainment lawyer look it over. Not some friend who is a lawyer. Not a divorce lawyer. Not a bankruptcy lawyer. A lawyer who SPECIALIZES in music/entertainment law. And do insist on a reversion clause. They are typicaly 18 mo. to 3 years in duration, with 2 years being most common. If he doesnt' get the song cut by a label (at whatever level you define in the contract) you get the publishing back. Two years is a good number because it gives the publisher a fair amount of time to work the song.

Good luck
 
No chazba, no money, just a small pride issue.

Thnx for the input Jagular, that's what I'm looking for--advice.

Publishing contract--- is in the works (meaning one is being put together, last I heard) As far as contract details, I nothing about that yet. I've been advised to have my Uncle who is a business lawyer look at the contract when it becomes available. I'll ask him if he can refer me to an ent. lawyer (or maybe you can?)

Connections in the industry --- I believe are pretty solid. He was a sound engineer from late 60's to '81 for a company that ran sound for gobs of well known acts ( Eagles, Jackson Browne, J. Buffett, CSNY, Yes, Chicago, Dylan, ELVIS to name a few ) and made alot of friends in the biz. (lotsa cool pics and stories about being on the road, too)

As far as 'career' in the songwriting industry-- I've had no real desire to be a singer/songwriter. I don't have a band, rarley play out live and if I do, it's usually just sitting in w/someone else's band (I do the home recording thing). However, I apparently have a knack for writing songs (as do most members here, I'm sure) that some people find highly marketable. But I'm happy with my job as a graphic artist and enjoy creating great looking resortwear for most of the western hemisphere. So this songwriting/music publishing thing, I just kind of fell into it and I'm just mildly excited by it at this point. No 'pipe dreams' here, just gonna roll with it and see what happens.

Glad to hear about that reversion clause thing. This is all new to me and I know next to nothing about it. That's the kind of info I can use. I should probably do some research on this stuff. If you or anyone else can offer suggestions on books/websites, etc., my ears are wide open.
Thnx,
AC
 
it's so easy to respond to this thread.........

You wrote a song...
along with your pal..........
He entered it in a competition (he paid the money...very important)
It placed well...
you worry that mutt Lange is gonna steal it.............


no worries man...write some more tunes with your friend..you guys did good so far....now make the next step..........





trust your friends until they prove you wrong man...don't doubt him....go with it........

Joe
 
altcountry

Jagular, Joro, And Chazba I think cover the issue pretty well imho. I do urge you to establish your rights, while creative pride might be the most important now, the loss of possible future income (while however small a chance at present) is still a possibility. I know people who, in the past, recieved small checks yearly for the use of their work.

Again, I hope this all works out for you and if He is truly your freind it will.

Keep the faith, Ozlee

PS> If mrx is right, this whole thing could be nothing more than revenue engineering or data mining. Protect your work!!
 
Yea, I've come to the conclusion that there's really nothing here to be terribly upset about, just a wake-up call to the things that can happen, intentional or not.

Funny how something can set you afire initially, then fizzle out to almost nothing a week or 2 later. I'm learning alot from this, though. Keep'em coming.

thnx,
AC
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top