Read this as a crash course on how you can get screwed if you do not know what you are doing. That's all I can offer for now.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

Maybe just make a bunch of copies, put them in a box, and walk around the city with a discman asking people to listen...

Thanks Schizojames for the link, but I already know every word of mr. Albini's excellent article "The Problem With Music". But the problem with this article :D is that it is not up to date. My question is not "me and my friends are the next nirvana so what to do", but: like many musicians these days I do everything (except mastering) by myself. I do soundtracks for TV, for living, and I also work with different singers on songs that I write. Now I find myself with a good one (I mean, I think it's got a chance to make it here, in Italy). What would you do?

the up-to-date question should be: "I am the next Pharrell (in my dreams...) so what to do?"

Keep on dreaming, you might suggest... :roll:

Hi Barakby!
I'm a producer and a singer and I come from Milan! If u want u can contact me by MSN messenger. See you!

Byee

Fabio

A friend of mine had a bad experience a couple of years ago. He had written, produced and recorded songs for a female artist, and everything was set up for a pretty big record deal. They even flew to London to sign, but there the singer got cold feet and backed out. He lost much work (and money) there!

If you can arrange some kind of contract, do it.

thanks Jonas. I would really like to avoid a situation like this. and especially since what I'm trying here is to sell myself and not the singer (I am not intending to be a manager by no means!). My biggest wish is that they (record companies) would say:" that's a great song, we want it". How do you sell a song (with or without the productionsinger) to a record company?

I'm not sure about the law in Italy but in the States the way to protect yourself would be to have the singer sign off on the project as a "hired for pay" situation.

It would be best to have a lawyer draw an agreement up for you. You will have to remunerate the singer in an equitable fashion or the contract could come under challenge if anything good should happen. Contracts usually have to be fair to all parties involved or they can be disputed.

Copyright the song (PA form) and the sound recording (SR form) separately.

Market the song to the record companies as a project by: (insert a band or fictitious name). Be sure you have filed any appropriate DBAs (doing business as) for those names and register them with the appropriate government agencies.

Always mark any CDs or tapes disseminated as © and (p) by "your name" and the date of copyright / publishing claim.

yeah, as kurt mentioned, an agreement drafted by a qualified and experienced music industry lawyer is your best bet. it would be a "producer - artist agreement." usually, producers take "points" (percentage of cd sales) from the artist points, given to them from the record company. have that set up before the artist signs anything with a record company. that way, you make money from cd sales for the production, as well as the mechanical royalties - money from being the songwriter (currently 8.5 cents per song on an album, for every album sold), AND the performance royalties - money paid for public performances of a song you wrote.

this might be kind of confusing. ask if you have any questions.

signed an agreement... now what?

once the producer finishes the production of the demo and signs the artist to a producer - artist agreement, how should the producer go about getting that artist a deal with a label if they have little or no contacts?

On a related note... what is to keep the artist from cutting off communication with producer as they sign a label deal - even if a producer - artist agreement was signed, and how should a producer deal with such a situation?