What Artist Should Know About Their Rights!

The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office must have an example of a band's name and / or logo registered before any band can claim rights in that name. The Office regulates who can have what name and symbol, and under what circumstances likenesses to similar preexisting band or entertainment names might be allowed. Any group who performs, records, or sells their music for commercial gain would be wise to register their name in order to defend their rights to continue making a profit from that music.

Rarely, an individual artist will have enough power (money) or popularity to be able to make their own career and contractual decisions, usually because they own their own publishing company, merchandising, or even their own record company (i.e.: Madonna's Maverick Records, or Nine Inch Nails' Nothing Records).

However, most artists cannot afford, or do not have the contacts necessary, to run their own publishing company, and as a result about 50% of their profits are paid out for the right to publish their music. When certain publishers own the artists rights to a song, they can prevent further performances or inclusion of those songs on future albums, should the artist ever change publishing companies; or, they can prevent other bands from recording a cover of those songs, sometimes even if the original band has given their ok.

Additionally, artists who wish to gather royalties on their music broadcasts must join ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or some similar group who can obtain BDS (Broadcast Data Systems) information on how many times a song was played and award the artist accordingly. The first two are non-profit organizations: ASCAP allows a performing musician to register by paying dues, while prospective members of BMI must prove that they can become an "affiliate" (provide for their own financial needs).

SESAC is a for-profit organization that doesn't seem to have much benefit for a "new" artist, mostly because they pay out expected royalties up front; only the already big names would enjoy this system if their previous song went over very well, and the expected return on the new song is to be as high (that way, if it does not do as well commercially, the artist comes out on top with a substantial chunk of change, but their next payout will probably be low if they use SESAC again).

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