Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I bought this book to fill out my music law library. Among the many books I have read are Passman's book "Everything You Need to Know About the Music Industry", "This Business of Music", and even Moses Avalon's more gritty book "Confessions of a Record Producer." While all of these books provide a great deal helpful information to understanding the music business, they are not really books that contain samples of what the actual contracts look like.
I bought The Musician's Business and Legal Guide a while back just because of the sample contracts. After sorting through the plentiful boilerplate contracts, I found that the information prefacing the agreements, i.e. that actual chapter contents, were even more invaluable than the contracts, which in themselves are pretty thorough. While I use my own hybrid, individualized contracts for the entertainment clients I represent through my law practice, I find myself constantly flipping back to this book as a reference since it covers such a wide range of information. In addition, the annotations in the sample contracts helps to illustrate the degrees of flexibility usually available to those contracts and what the terms actually mean.
This book is definitely not, as another reviewer stated, a book that you set out to read from cover to cover like Passman's book, but it works tremendously well as a reference to go to from time to time. My copy is highlighted and marked all up (and I'm one who normally writes in books).
The value of this book seriously exceeds its cost, and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to see how the concepts discussed in other music business books play out legally.
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Demystifies the music business and the indecipherable bodyof law which shapes it! Provides vital information about how the Internet is changing the way music is marketed and sold. Expanded/updated information on the impact of the Internet on legal and business issues. Appendix includes names; URL and mailing addresses of major industry associations and organizations, as well as a list of the important industry publications. Definitive in scope and written specifically for musicians and songwriters by top professionals currently working in the industry, this book provides substantive information on actual practices—with clause-by-clause commentaries on all major contracts in the industry, featuring extensive analyses, not just forms and casual commentary. Clarifies the language, shows actual practices, and offers advice on what to watch for. Requires no background in law or business; is written in plain English, not "legalese." Chapters are written by lawyers,managers, agents and business people working in the music industry in New York and Los Angeles.
