The Guardian - Lindvall, H. (2009, January 29). Why Artists Should Retain Ownership of their Recordings. Retrieved November 27, 2014, from http://www.theguarudian.com/msic/musicblog/2009/jan/29/recording-copyright-ownership A main problem in modern music is the record companies' ownership of the music that their artist makes. When a artist signs a record deal they no longer own the songs that they make. This is a problem because the only way artist can retake their songs is if the record business went out of business. Artist have had meetings to try and make laws for the ownership of their songs. One law option would be after a certain amount of time the record label would no longer own the song. IMPORTANT QUOTES

What is being proposed is that all deals should be licensing deals, which means that the artists retain ultimate ownership of their recordings, and the label only has control of them for a set amount of time.

Traditionally, when an artist signs a record deal (particularly with a major label), they assign the copyright of their recordings to the label. This means they no longer own them and only have a right to royalties. In fact, the only way artists might get them back would be if the label went bust.

The "use it or lose it" approach is already becoming more common when it comes to publishing. If the publisher fails to get a song "cut" by an artist, after a certain amount of time, then instead of it gathering dust the songwriter has a chance to get it "cut".

I think with the converging world of media today and the all mighty and powerful internet artists are more capable of retaining ownership of their music. As mentioned in previous posts on my blog the internet is almost completely putting record companies out of business. This whole article is what started the controversy over ownership of music. Through the years and the development of the internet its been made possible for artists to actually retain ownership completely independent of record companies. Its articles like these that sparked the fire under the asses of musicians to seek elsewhere besides record companies that just want to use them to make money.

Surviving in the Music Industry Today

Tunecore - Price, J. (n.d.). Music Industry Survival Guide. Retrieved November 26, 2014, from http://www.tunecore.com/guides/promote_introduction `In many ways technology has changed the music industry. The way music is distributed and sold and how music is discovered today are the two main ways technology has affected the music industry. The article basically explains how the music industry used to be and how it was changed. Before a record label would contact you if they were legitimately interested in your music. They would then help you mass produce your music, market your music and finally sell your music. However, it is not like this anymore. Now anyone has the opportunity to do this while keeping their rights. In todays world the internet and technology are a musicians best friend. Through mp3 blogs and such its very easy to get your name out there. MP3 blogs are very effective in communicating your music with the world. It's fairly simple, one person anywhere can like your music and put a link in their blog then their friend clicks on it and loves it and bam! you've single handed-ly made your music famous just through our little friend called the internet, while at the same time keeping your rights that the record labels would have stripped you of. IMPORTANT QUOTES "In the old model, most people primarily discovered music in one of three ways: Radio Print magazines like Rolling Stone Viacom owned properties like MTV, VH1, BET etc These three outlets would choose what songs they played, what videos they showed or what bands they wrote about from a limited pool of artists pushed to them by the labels. If you were not on a label, you were not in the pool, and therefore you had virtually no opportunity to get exposure from any of these outlets." "You cause the music to sell and they take money from these sales while controlling your rights." "The music industry is about distribution. Record labels make the "thing" to give to the distributor. The distributor puts the "thing" in the store. The record label then markets the "thing" to create demand." I love this article. This is the future. The main argument presented in the article is that musicians can market, promote, and make money while still keeping there rights. Have you ever heard the term sell-out? Record companies gave birth to that term. Before the internet music revolution you would basically have to sell your soul to these record companies just to get your music out there and sold. Lets say now that your music isn't as big of a hit as they originally thought, your fucked! So your in a hole your music wasn't as good as they expected, and you've just sold your soul to sell the music that didn't sell. The Internet fixes all these problems. Musicians nowadays are blessed to be able to easily promote their music through blogs and to actually be able to keep their rights.