Should I sign This Contract?

[Woodward]

Anyone ever get forwarded a contract/agreement from the Independent Music Awards?
We’ve receive two, one recently and one last year. Both were concerning our song that was nominated in Pop/Rock for 2009.
The first contract was lengthy and signed away on about 50% ownership of mechanical and other royalties. We had an Entertainment lawyer review it, and he advised us to pass.
The new one we recently received is specific in that it is an agreement for IMA to represent our Master to AMI Digital Jukebox; essentially IMA would collect royalty fees from AMI and pay us a % of that. Any other royalty generating from these jukebox plays paid for by venue owners and the like would pay us via our PRO (BMI).
Now I know people pay lots of money to the worthy opinion of legal counsel, and I don’t want to get any advice of that quality for free, but I thought I’d see if anyone was familiar with either the IMAs or the AMI digital jukebox and if anyone has been involved with contracts between either party.

Thanks for the help!!

-WW

[mojobone]

All I can find so far on IMA/ digital jukebox is a thread on LinkedIn that's "no longer available", but there are a few other resources I can check....

Lessee, working with SonicBids, Musicati is a startup selling promotional tools/packages, yet not even offering a way to locate AMI jukeboxes (coming soon?) $300/yr buys three songs and three hundred ten-second spots? on which jukes at which hours? and 300 is less than one a day. IMAs have a thirty dollar submission fee....I jes' don't see much value to your band in any of this, particularly when you're paying upfront and then they want a piece of your royalties? Add to that, I've seen Rowe and Rockola jukeboxes, but can't recall seeing any web-enabled ones in my neck of the woods; I'm looking into getting my band's music on TouchTunes, but only because our 'home base' bar has one. (it would be nice to have a virtual presence there for our fans when we can't be) I had no trouble locating over a dozen more TT jukes in local clubs, more than half are in venues where we've actually played, and could expect to get some traction. I suppose it could all depend on your geographic location, though.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-20014425-2.html

[Woodward]

Hey thanks a lot for replying mojobone; we really appreciate the advice!

They're not asking for any upfront fees, just agreeing that we agree to license our Master and related materials to IMA (or parent co. Music resource group) for the sole and limited purpose of MRG to authorize AMI to use the master in connection with their digital jukeboxes.

It actually seems pretty straight forward, but I always triple check before signing anything concerning our copyrights.

I guess the TT ones are the way to go, it's just that this was simply forwarded to us as an opportunity....

Thanks again for the help.


Peace,

WW