Co-writing agreement question

[mazz]

Nov 22, 2009, 7:06am, simonparker wrote:Hi Casey/Mojo....Agree with your premise but it can get very complicated in a hurry. Especially when you're the producer (and "record label") and you own the masters. Anyone up for a 10 person collab? (LOL)Keeping the ownership of the song and the ownership of the masters separate would probably be the best policy. In other words, have an agreement between all 10 collaborators regarding the ownership, splits, POA, etc. Then deal with the masters under a different agreement. Since licensing deals with a master license and a sync license, every writer needs to be clear on what that means and someone needs to be the single point of contact with the publishers, etc., when it comes time to do a licensing deal. If I was a publisher and saw a 10 person collab., you better bet that I'd be more than a little bit wary and it had better be a fantastic song and the paperwork would be airtight before I'd touch it. Talk about herding cats!An extreme example, to be sure, but the lesson is: make sure your co-writers understand the business aspects before you write. Touchy-feely artists hate doing this stuff, but it's amazing how a flaky artist can turn into a bulldog when significant money is at stake.My suggestion: Pretend that every song has the potential to get cut and to become a hit. What would you do then? It's called preparing for success by pretending you're already there. It's working for me so far. Mazz

[mojobone]

Nov 21, 2009, 4:38pm, hurowitz wrote:Hey MojoMazz and I are saying the same thing in our posts. There are other things that a copyright doesn't cover like POA to sign deals if the other person can't be reached. I'm assuming you read my absolute masterpiece of a post which covered a lot of that from the big BUT on... CaseyHence the "look at the post above" arrows (^^^^) in my post. I was jes' elaborating. (or maybe belaboring is a better word)

[Casey H]

Nov 22, 2009, 1:20pm, mojobone wrote:Nov 21, 2009, 4:38pm, hurowitz wrote:Hey MojoMazz and I are saying the same thing in our posts. There are other things that a copyright doesn't cover like POA to sign deals if the other person can't be reached. I'm assuming you read my absolute masterpiece of a post which covered a lot of that from the big BUT on... CaseyHence the "look at the post above" arrows (^^^^) in my post. I was jes' elaborating. (or maybe belaboring is a better word) ^^^^