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Tag: Berklee Music Business (Page 1 of 3)

Berklee Music Business

The 29th Annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture Series with David Israelite

The Music Business/Management Department hosted its 29th Annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture Series and featured one of the music industry’s most influential advocates for equity in the music business, David Israelite. As President and CEO of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), Israelite has dedicated his career to advocating for publishers and songwriters. He fights to protect and advance their interests in the music industry, specifically relating to their domestic and global protection of music copyrights. He played an integral role in raising the CRB rate for songwriters, as well as modernizing copyright laws. He visited Berklee and joined Professor Tonya Butler, Chair of the Music Business/Management Department, to talk more about his career and work in the industry.

From a young age, Israelite always had a passion for music, but he had an equal love for debate, politics, history, and government. His collegiate and professional careers were spent pursuing law and government where he collected many experiences working for the government in Washington D.C. During this time, Israelite noticed a lack of government protection on intellectual property which inspired him to create a task force dedicated to raising awareness and changing protection laws on intellectual property. His initiatives led him to land his current position as President and CEO of the NMPA, which is a trade association that represents all publishers and their songwriters in the music industry. As a member of the NMPA board, he participates in a trial every 5 years in which he litigates with streaming services to decide on how much money streaming services should pay their songwriters. Just recently, he championed the largest CRB rate increase in history, meaning songwriters will now receive even more royalties for their music. 

As for other ways songwriters can monetize their music, David Israelite had lots of advice for songwriters. Israelite dove into the complicated calculations of streaming royalties and explained how artists really get paid from top streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. He stressed the importance of signing up for a Performing Rights Organization (PRO) and the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) in order to collect all applicable royalties. Both organizations are extremely crucial for songwriters to get paid for their work. There are also other ways to monetize your music aside from streaming, such as public performance (radio) and synchronization placements (TV/Film). Additionally, songwriters should join songwriter advocacy groups like Nashville Songwriters Association International and Grammy Advocacy. 

In the Q&A session, Israelite shared his favorite piece of advice, “Grit is the most important quality of success. You can be born with it but you can also develop it.” He encouraged aspiring songwriters to always keep going in their careers, pushing through any rejection and advocating for themselves in any way possible. For the full-length recording of the lecture, click here. We recommend watching if you’re interested in how songwriters get paid!

Yellow Dog Music Fest Goes Big With Cody Simpson

In coordination with the Office of Experiential Learning,  a crew of Berklee students helped produce the inaugural Yellow Dog Music Fest. The following post was written by Noah Gopen, one of the festival organizers. Read a post by fellow organizer Selina Meuross.

By Noah Gopen   YDMFSmall Poster 2016

When I was asked to join the Yellow Dog team I had no idea what to expect. I had heard about the festival before—it was some type of beach concert in Cape Cod that featured seven Berklee bands. This was all I knew. When I decided to commit to the position as digital media lead, I thought I would just be setting up Facebook posts and making sure everything ran smoothly. Turns out that Yellow Dog is developing itself similar to any startup business out there, and booking Cody Simpson only made the job even more time intensive.

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Music Business Seminar – Leo Nascimento: Brazil Music Market Ambassador

Students Aimee Jagou and Gabrielle Mella from the global entertainment and music business master’s program reflect upon the twelfth of the Music Business Seminars, where they had the chance to to learn more about the Brazilian music industry with guest speaker Leo Nascimento.

Leo-Nascimento-Berklee-ValenciaLeo-Nascimento-Berklee-Valencia-2

 

Last week we had Leo Nascimento as our guest in the music business seminar, currently director of Deezer in Spain, he’s been in the digital music industry in Latin America and Europe for quite a while. He has work in companies like Universal Music Group, Reader’s Digest, Volkswagen and other influential companies. With an opening to Samba music by great Berklee musicians from Brazil, we humbly received this incredible speaker to introduce us to the Brazil music market.

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Music Business Seminar – Why do Music Stores Have Mirrors? (And Other Musings of Music and the Market)

Students Megan Himel and Louis Pratt from the global entertainment and music business master’s program reflect upon the eleventh of the Music Business Seminars, where they had the chance to listen to George Howard talk about his experience in the music industry.

George Howard1

During the week of February 6th, 2015, the students at Berklee Valencia were honored to host George Howard, a seasoned music industry veteran, as a guest lecturer. George found remarkable success over the years, running record labels (Rykodisc, Essex River Work and Slow River Records) as well as co-­‐founding TuneCore and other respected names in the music industry. With his latest venture, George Howard Advising, George hopes to draw on his years of experience in the industry (and running previous advisement firms) in order to help artists and brands fulfill their potential to work smarter, not harder.

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Music Business Seminar – How to manage, develop and prolong an artist’s career

Students Janay James and Alejandro Morales from the global entertainment and music business master’s program reflect upon the tenth of the Music Business Seminars, where they were able to listen to Rosa Lagarrigue talk to them about managing artist’s careers.

Rosa Lagarrigue, the head of the largest artist management company in Spain, RLM, came to share what it takes to manage, develop, and prolong an artist’s career with the Global Entertainment and Music Business students here at Berklee Valencia. As our multi-lingual speaker explained, the key to being a successful artist manager is that one must be “able to successfully help develop the artist’s career both short term and long term. You have to see the bigger picture not just here and now.” Rosa’s resume of artists and the longevity of their careers proves that she has been persistent in making artists work for the long term while building global strategies around their stardom.

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