Songwriting

More Discussion about Film & TV Licensing

Licensing

Alexandra Patsavas, probably the most influential music supervisor working today, took some time to answer questions at the Billboard/Hollywood Reporter Film & TV Music Conference, along with estate manager Jeffrey Jampol. It’s interesting to see how that discussion played out. Jampol, whose job is to protect the heritage of his legacy rock estates, cautioned acts [...]

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What does the American Idol Songwriter contest winner tell us about professional songwriting?

Featured Article

USAToday profiles Regie Hamm, the winner of the second American Idol Songwriter competition. Last year, our boards were pretty heated up, with folks so excited about the opportunity to get their songs discovered. Unfortunately, nothing in the rules specifically stated that an amateur songwriter would win the contest — just that they couldn’t submit a [...]

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Bebo Sale Spotlights Online Music Licensing Controversy

Licensing

Two years ago, as Billy Bragg tells it, the founder of British social networking site Bebo came to him for advice about avoiding the same music licensing pitfalls that Bragg had railed about during the evolution of MySpace. As I wrote previously, Bragg’s lobbying resulted in MySpace clarifying its terms of service so artists could [...]

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American Idol Songwriting Competition Back for 2008

Songwriting

This week’s sponsor: With not a whole lot of rumor or speculation, the fate of the American Idol Songwriter contest for 2008 was up in the air until this week, when officials reopened the contest site to the public. By all accounts, this year’s contest is just like last year’s contest. Key points: You have [...]

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Songwriting Contest Secrets: Who’s Really Judging? (Part 2)

Songwriting

Earlier today, I asked if it was “fair” that many songwriting contests use interns to screen entries. It all comes down to what is promised in a contest’s terms and conditions. Unfortunately, many songwriting contests use vague terminology in their terms and conditions that often allows them to screen entries any way they want. On [...]

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Songwriting Contest Secrets: Who’s Really Judging? (part 1)

Songwriting

So far in this special series, I’ve written about some of the myths and realities of songwriting contests, the reasonableness of entry fees, and the real involvement of contest sponsors. Today, I’m tacking one of the most subjective elements of any songwriting contest — the judging. The fact that many songwriting contests are really song [...]

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Songwriting Contest Secrets: Check Out Your Sponsors

Songwriting

It used to be that, to rip off musicians, you had to take out an ad in Rolling Stone and open up a post office box. At least then, a disgruntled contest entrant could sit outside the post office at wait for someone to come and collect the mail. Today, all it takes is a [...]

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American Idol Songwriting Contest Discussion Continues…

Fun

Our discussion about your entries into American Idol’s songwriting contest rolls on. For newcomers, we’ve been splitting comments into new threads every 100 comments or so to keep our server from melting. Beyond that, there’s a lot of fun, positive discussion going on between some industry veterans and some newbie songwriters about everything from whether [...]

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American Idol Songwriting Contest Raises Great Questions

Fun

The discussion among American Idol Songwriter entrants is still going strong. We have opened up a new thread just about every day to accommodate the comments without bogging down the server or creating huge page downloads. If you’re new to our site, welcome! Later this week, I hope to pull together a list of links [...]

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Legal Song Lyrics Coming to the Web

Songwriting

It’s been covered in a few tech journals today, but the news that Gracenote will soon distribute song lyrics online is great news for songwriters and for working musicians alike. Although the web seems like a perfect place for song lyrics, copyright and trade association rules about distributing sheet music has made it pretty hard [...]

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