“Transparency”. A catch-word in politics now-a-days, to be sure, but something that should be considered with signing or agreeing to anything when your property is involved. This is more true today than ever before, with artists, writers, and musicians using the power of the internet to get “discovered”.
So what do I mean about ‘transparency’. Well, as you can imagine, placing your works on the internet with a distributor comes with contracts and terms of services (TOS). You know, those long explanations of things we all just “agree to” without reading?!
Let’s relive the last song you recorded:
Here it is, you’ve worked months on creating the perfect song. You’ve mastered and re-mastered it. You’ve cleaned up all of the clicks and added all of the effects. Now, let’s get it out there! So you burn through the distribution site and click the “I Agree” button without reading or, potentially, understanding the TOS agreement.
Is this dangerous? Well not in all circumstances, but wouldn’t you like to know what risks you are taking?
Now I may be painting a bleak picture here, but I am often asked by bands and small labels, “why do I have to sign a contract to place my songs on bandwith.org?… I didn’t have to with (fill in the blank) company”.
Sorry to burst bubbles here, but the majority of sites that allow/encourage uploading songs, art, etc. include a contract. Now before I get a bunch of hate-mail, explaining that ‘I’ve never had to sign a contract!’ – go back to the site(s) of interest and read the TOS agreement. Somewhere in there is language that pertains to your music… i.e. a contract. If you clicked the “I Agree” you’ve essentially signed it.
This isn’t a bad thing. Contracts are meant to protect the artist as well as the company running the site. But you still should know what you’ve agreed to. I mean, it just makes sense, doesn’t it?
When we here at BandwithRadio, LLC wrote our contract, we had discussions about “hiding” the contract in the TOS so that bands would click “I Agree” without reading. We decided however that this would be against the reason we built the site… to help musicians in an open and transparent manner. We hope you agree.
Thanks for reading this long rebuttal to artists that have dinged us for asking them sign a contract. We didn’t mean to scare anyone off, we just wanted to be up front about what we are doing. Oh, and by-the-way, our site allows all band members to sign the contract, thus giving equal rights to all members with regards to joining the site. Again, to protect the artists involved.