Episode 20
Dave Ratner - Part 2
We all have been warned about the importance of contracts in our careers as musicians and I’m going to guess most of us have suffered the consequences of not heeding those warnings more than once. And yet, I’m also going to guess, somehow, many of us STILL don’t get a contract for many gigs we play. Even a simple one, as todays guest states, could protect you from not getting paid or help you get your gear replaced when the drunk guy spills his beer and falls on it.
0:00:01.9 S1: Welcome to the show that explores the methods and strategies on Rockin the financial side of your music business with over 40 years combined experience. Here are your host.
0:00:12.9 S2: Chris Webb and Dave tank. Well, Comtesse talked about musicians and many today we're here to join Dave Ratner once more and finish our interview, I'm your host, Chris web joined Armco host the man who did not show up for this intro, Dave Danni, hope you are enjoying your week being productive. Having fun, living life to the fullest, being present, and not wasting time, speaking of not wasting time without further ado, let's head back and finish this riveting interview with entertainment lawyer, Dave Ratner, another term that I enjoy, I don't know why I just... As a beautiful image for me, it's onsite, not just musicians that we have in our audience, but musicians need to see something, even with management, and management needs to know this too, if a manager builds an artist for X amount of years, there's no... Just cut off a sense as is probably something that they should have to make sure that they can still continue to get paid for the hard work and then less as it goes on. So I guess if you can just talk about sunset clauses forbid, and same with musicians as far as exiting contracts...
0:01:35.1 S1: Yeah, sunset clause are most common in management agreements, so I... Crinoids on what you said there, the idea of a management relationship is the manager is going to promote and expand in the career of the artist, and the idea behind a sunset clause is to lay the ground work here, a management agreement is going to say, The manager gets paid a percentage of the artist revenue during the time that they're managing, so if I'm your manager and I help you make more money, I will make more money because I'm getting paid a percent, but the other thing about me being your manager is... We might not be your manager forever, but the work that I did well, one should continue to benefit you. The idea of a phonics is I was your manager for, let's say, five years... During those five years, I helped you sign record deals and publishing deals, you're selling more tickets, you're doing more gigs. Well, at the end of our five years, that doesn't just stop, you're gonna continue to sell more, to get to do more gigs, make more money because of the work that I did while we were together, so a sonata clause says, I will continue as your manager as you're a former manager, I will continue to get paid a percentage for the next...
0:02:54.5 S1: Through a certain amount of time, the percentage will get lower and lower, which is why we call it a sunset over time, it gets lower generally, and the rationale for that is, I've helped you make this money that you're now making, even though I'm done... You can say Sunset clauses are controversial because no artist likes them and no manager wants to live without them, but they're very important to understand, because I certainly have worked in a lot of ours who are quite surprised by the sunset clause, and it is quite...
0:03:26.4 S2: As an artist and someone who also does a lot of business in other areas, I would think the artists that don't appreciate a sunset clause are the 91s, honestly, because they should be grateful for the people that have helped the business and help them grow and you know maybe for certain circumstances, that class could be breached if they're not doing their job, but also have that in the contract, but I think it's a respectful way to do business for someone who is taking time out of their life to help build the dreams that they have. That their artists have as well happened manager right now that you're trying to get them all to love you, so that they all just becoming gravitating to rave at musicians. Tiara, you said we could do some war stories, and I think maybe we can leave that for another episode, 'cause I was gonna ask you about some red flags, but I think is... I want to be respectful of your time and thank you very much for this morning. It's again... Great to run into you. I think that one thing they made sure musicians know that they need someone to understand the language in the contract, and they need someone to understand what's gonna happen when they sign those papers, so...
0:04:46.4 S2: When would you say it's necessary for musicians to start looking for an entertainment lawyer?
0:04:50.8 S1: Well, you're asking a lawyer when you should get a lawyer, but I do know what the answer is gonna face with was a musician and he somehow... Thank you, I appreciate that. Now, I mean, here's the thing, it is certainly... I'm not gonna say the day you pick up a guitar, you need a lawyer, but I think that as you are getting out there, as you're interacting with other people and doing deals, a lawyer is gonna be helpful. The first thing you talked about, just a performance agreement, just you're going to play a gig, looking at that agreement is gonna be important, or if you start working with a manager or an agent, that agreement with your manager or agent is gonna be important. They're quite common. The first thing that we are dealing with is a banned agreement, so if you're a solo artist, not as much of an issue, but when we have multiple artists in a group together, having an agreement among that group is unnecessary or a very important early step because you're creating, as we talked about earlier, copyrights, and as I said, Whoever contributes the creation of a cop red work is a co-owner of that work, so if you're co-writing with folks, if you're recording, if you got four people in a studio making a sound recording, all four of you are co-owners of that sound record, or are you a...
0:06:13.1 S1: What if you brought in, if you just run a horn player on one track, should that horn player be an owner... No, he should probably just be a work-for hire, so getting those rights figured out is a really important first step or early step, and I think that it can be intimidating because this stuff is confusing and because as a bad name for a good reason. And so you do wanna be careful. I'm not saying everyone just go run to a lawyer and dying down their doors, but those rights and those issues do pop up early.
0:06:46.0 S2: And it's one of those things where you get it done right early... Right, it becomes a lot. It's less of an Italian.
0:06:52.8 S1: Exactly right. Yeah, good, we can... You know how they say good fences make good neighbors, good contracts make for good deals, and it doesn't have to be contentious. I will also say that what we learn from from movies and television is it, lawyers are all about going to court and fighting and yelling, objection and all this stuff, and that's not what it's about. I mean, yes, that is one thing that lawyers do, there's a lot more layers can be much more about making deals, not breaking deals, and helping a business be successful from the start, we talk a lot about budgeting, and it's come up where someone will say, I can't afford a lawyer, you really can't afford to not have one... Well, here's the thing, it can be really expensive. There's a lot of different ways that you can work with a lawyer. And the other thing I will say, certainly for our listeners that are in Colorado, we have something called Colorado attorneys to the Arts, which provides pro-bono legal services to artists who can't afford lawyers... Pro bono means free. So free lawyers for artists who can't afford a lawyer. At Colorado attorneys for the arts and other states have these similar...
0:08:09.2 S1: We call Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts organizations, they're all over the country, and if you live in a state or a city that has a volunteer Larson, the arts organization, and you're at a stage in your career where you can't afford a lawyer, that organization may be able to help you find a way.
0:08:24.2 S2: Those are great to put those in the links.
0:08:27.3 S1: Please do, absolutely. And the other thing is, I think that at least in our firm. We never turn anyone away. We'll talk to anybody. We do a free consultation, we would never expect anyone to hire us and pay us without first meeting us and deciding if we're a fit, and so when looking for a... You're hiring someone to provide a service, just like any other service you pay for, and you have, I think I'm a right to interview that person and decide if they're the right fit.
0:08:54.6 S2: And thank you for making people less afraid of lawyers is not a... If we do nothing else in this episode, we're gonna take away the stigma that you see, sunshine and bunnies and Daisies and lawyers, and Chris, I had one of the questions, what are some qualities to look for in hiring an entertainment lawyer? And I think we just found a bunch of those qualities of the last arneson about that.
0:09:17.8 S1: Well, I think here's the other things, it's really important that any attorney you're hiring knows what they're working on, attorneys... We're just very specialized. There's no one attorney that knows every area of the law, and so just like you wouldn't go to a foot doctor if you have a problem with your eye, you don't go to a bankruptcy lawyer if you have a music contract, nothing against bankruptcy lawyers or foot doctors it's just that we all have our specialties. And if someone comes to me and says, I've got a bankruptcy issue, I'm not gonna try and figure out bankruptcy law, I'm gonna call a friend of mine and say, Hey, here's the back of seawater. So I think that it's just important to understand that lawyers don't know everything, shocking, I know we don't know everything, but make sure you're working with attorney who knows the area of law you need help with, and I will say yes, having in the road as a tour manager, I did learn a few things you don't learn in law school that is just not a pre-requisite for logical to have been... To drive a 43-foot bus.
0:10:26.9 S1: I just happened to know how to drive a 43-foot question.
0:10:31.3 S2: I should have put that in the intro notes...
0:10:34.0 S1: Well, you said it was too long to begin with, so I could... I can sell merch too, but you don't need to know that I have good... I'm not a good job tech though, I'm not a good drunk tank.
0:10:45.8 S2: And so, by the way, I wanted to say that I think that the first word every independent musician learns out of the womb is pro bono, so I think that's all positions are familiar with... If you wanna contact Dave or learn more about what he does, you can go to his website, a creative Law Network dot com, or reach him directly at Dave at Creative law network dot com. You can also find him on our guest list page at musicians tip jar dot com. Dave Rader, thank you so much for being here on musicians tip jar, we really appreciate your expertise in the fun conversation, we also appreciate your passion for the arts and artists that make it...
0:11:23.2 S1: My pleasure, thanks for having me. Let's do it again sometime. Absolutely.
0:11:27.2 S2: Thanks so much, Dave. Well, that was a great interview. I don't know how I could edit any of that out, and I was listening back, I just got so much rich content... Well, rich content for sure, 'cause normally it would cost quite a bit... That's true. Have... Please don't cut out perpetuity, 'cause I wish we could have just said it a few more times, but it was very interesting how he... I was speaking from the artist side, to watch out for that in contracts because it would be new Amon for quite a while, and he definitely took both sides of the argument and said It depends on what side of the contract or on a... Well, I've got you, Dave, do you got any interesting stories of a bad contract fail? I don't think... I can think of plenty of times where there wasn't a contract, and I wish I had one, but I can't think of any one. I did have a contract, and in sideways, it was pretty clear cut and something that you can go back to, so I have appreciated those in my career, and now with the live stream performances and especially working with Sontag studios, it was Dave Ratner did the contract for that for all the artists that worked with Soho studios, and it was an awesome contract, I went through that and I didn't read line anything because it was something that was fair for both parties, and that's something you have to really pay attention to, especially if someone live streams you...
0:13:07.7 S2: And then the goal there was to start a Spotify playlist and go through distribution, so all of a sudden the audio recording of your live stream is now worth something to you, so it definitely protect both the artist and sometime studios. Well, I just have one quick story from my high school years of playing in my hippie band that I was in back then were... We played at a pretty good high side high school, so there was a lot of students with nothing to do that, they all came to our show, so we felt pretty cool, and in the middle of winter in the Midwest and where it's freezing out, we decided to have a show, and we rented a barn, a horse pond, and we set everything up in the horse part, we had this big space either trying to keep every word because you gotta keep money, it was like five degrees, and as we were playing the show, something happened with the circuits, the power... And it literally electrocuted me more than I've ever been elected, where my lips got stuck to the microphone, and then I turned around and the mixing board was just smoking, and then the power went out and everything was fried, and so that was maybe five songs into our set and we couldn't play anymore, so we were like, We're gonna refund everybody their money and we're not gonna pay the venue because that...
0:14:28.1 S2: You know that happened. Well, I've learned a big lesson out of this is that you don't mess with farmers in the Midwest, apparently, because they literally locked the barn doors and wouldn't let our equipment or vehicles that were actually pulled in the barn as well out until we paid them. And there was no contract. And I've always thought about that one ever talking about contracts because I had no way out of that one, I had no defense because I had literally nothing written down, we had fried equipment refunded tickets and we couldn't pay them because we had no money, and that was a rough situation for high school students to be in... It's unbelievable. Yeah, it was a massive... But it's a learning experience too, you know, I haven't been in a barn sent... Anyways, so we're gonna talk about a couple of does and do not, the first one, don't agree to events and shows without a basic written and signed agreement. Second one is, I do call a lawyer to find out if you need a lawyer, especially if you want a lawyer to say, Yes, you need a lawyer, or number one, but I'll get...
0:15:38.0 S2: You say they're not all out to get to... Right. A, they'll give you... Most of them, we'll give you a free consultation. To even see if there's an issue that you need help with, or even at a discounted rate, 'cause I've been there myself, I a lawyer, and they're like, Okay, we'll come in for this amount, let's see if you have something here and use your community of fellow musicians or musicians, tip jar as well as part of your community to find out how others approach contracts that you might be needing in your particular area and the music business, there's contracts for everything, right? It's not just show is obviously, it's... Every part of the music business needs protection, so protect your fanny. That's right, it comes back around to the back end, so we've got a couple of actions for you here, I like to make sure that you got something to leave with, Go to our website and download our free basic performance contract. If you don't already have one, it's not fancy, but it doesn't need to be to cover the basics. Number to look through your current book gigs and placement deals for sync areas where you need to update the contract, make sure you're protected, things like the perpetuity and other great points that he brought up.
0:16:49.7 S2: I mean, honestly, any time you have the opportunity to say perpetuity, I think that's when you have to pay attention to or the sunset clause, it's another valid one to make sure what things might be coming down the pipeline that you need to revisit your contract for, it does it say Sunset? Just bring you some peace. It does, it's just like, Oh, I know we ended things well, we're gonna make sure things worked out for everybody who worked or ask us off together.
0:17:18.0 S1: I'm gonna ride off into the sunset.
0:17:19.7 S2: I know it's like the cortisol and number three, use the free resource. Colorado attorneys for the arch is the best one to go to for Colorado residents. What was Colorado tourney For The Arts dot com. And almost every state has one... Well, the main thing there is, don't wing it, you have resources that they don't all have to be about money, this is about protecting your content and your assets to a... Just don't neglect to look for help when you need it, not looking for help is the worst solution you can come up with, and we know your time is valuable, so we do appreciate you spending this time with us and being a part of this community. It is our hope that you feel that sense of community here at musicians to turn... Are willing to get involved. You can check us out at musicians tip chart dot com, or send us an email at musicians to are at gmail. And as always, thank you for joining us, remember there's already enough for everyone, you just need to know how to get it, to write it into your contract. Until next time, I'm beating Dave to nourish web.
0:18:28.8 S2: Please stay healthy. Take care of each other as Stevie Wonder never said as the contract is signed, sealed liver. This is musicians data, nothing on this show should be considered a specific personal or professional advice, please consult and appropriate legal business or financial professional for individualized advice, individual results and not care, she and all this got strategies that we... Teleprompter.