The Point Black Podcast Point Black Africa
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- Music
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Point Black is a Digital Agency and Label that makes dope art. This page hosts all our music, podcasts and interviews
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Jack Mashala On Artist Management And Brand Building
As part of The Music Industry Incubator workshop series, we invited artist manager Jack Mashala (Mas Musiq) to fly in from South Africa to have a 1 on 1 conversation with Phil Chard on how best to build a brand, what managers should be aware of and what artists can do to work with their management to build a revenue-generating brand.
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Understanding Copyright Law With Aurelia J Schultz
This week The Music Industry Incubator hosts Aurelia J. Schultz who is an international copyright expert with 15 years of experience in African Copyright.
She earned her BA in Religious Studies from Carroll College and her Juris Doctorate from Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville. She began her legal career at Creative Commons where she was the first Africa Regional Coordinator. Most recently, she served as Counsel for Policy and International Affairs at the U.S. Copyright Office. She has trained artists, industry professionals and government officials around the world and enjoys collaborating with others to improve our global creative industries.
What is A Music Copyright?
A copyright is the legal mechanism that gives you a property right indoor creation. It changes you from a creator into an owner and that's important because property rights are alienable, which means that you can buy them and sell them, lease them, and rent them and trade them.
Summary
00:51 Intro to Copyright
2:14 What is mechanical right
8:40 What is WIPO
10:15 Importance of treaties and how they affect you
16:00 As an artist who is collaborating how is copyright ownership determined
19:20 Who owns the sound recordings
24:00 How long does Copyright last
26:55 How to enforce your copyright
29:49 How to enforce your copyright
31:50 Protecting your copyright
35:00 How your copyright works across territories
40:15 How attribution works
45:01 How to protect your work
46:26 What do Public Domain and Fair Use mean
50:50 Copyrighting a sound using sheet music -
Coping With The Effects of The Pandemic with Game "Zeus" Bantsi
This week we had artist, event promoter and content creator Game “Zeus” Bantsi to talk to us about his creative journey and how artists can come out of the pandemic with their best foot forward while also putting safeguards in place to ensure their careers are not completely derailed by unforeseen circumstances
“It really breaks my heart that we have all these assets sitting in these institutions [banks] but it is not really accessible to us as creatives and other vulnerable communities”
Notes
1. Understand the business of music
2. Think of your career and yourself as an business
3. Getting business loans as an artist is difficult. Your collateral assets are your Intellectual Property
4. Understand how your brand can generate revenue and refine that process
5. Learn as much across as many skillsets as possible
Summary
* 7:50 How he overcome Botswana’s small population to cross over regionally
* 12:50 How Zeus used his education to further his career
* 16:50 Understanding the business of music
* 22:05 Can an artist access a business loan?
* 28:50 How Zeus kept his career going during the pandemic
* 38:12 Keeping the culture alive
* 50:50 The importance of learning multiple tools for the creative business -
Music Production With Mr Kamera
The first of The Music Industry Incubator workshops kicked off on June 9 with Zimbabwean-born superstar producer Mr Kamera. In our chat, we covered a lot of topics that would be incredibly helpful to Zimbabwean musicians of all kinds. An edit of the conversation can be played and downloaded below. We also have detailed timestamped notes and resources that cover the issues we discussed that is available here https://www.musicindindustryincubator.com/blog/music-production-with-mr-kamera
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Streams of Income with Mutsai Musa
Mutsai Musa has been running the creative incubator, Quiet Riot Media for 15 years. Quiet Riot Media has consulted for both international artists and large entertainment companies on intellectual property and copyright management, paying attention to protecting income streams and generating long-term revenue for creative projects. Recent clients include Apple Music Africa, Universal Music Publishing Group Africa, Sony Music Africa, Interscope Records (USA), Platoon Africa, LVRN Records (USA).
In our chat with Mutsai, we discussed the various ways Zimbabwean artists can earn revenue as artists and what they can do to increase their earning potential.
Summary of Earning Channels
1. Mechanical Royalties (Sales)
2. Publishing Royalties
3. Merchandise
4. Live Show Income
Workshop Summary
4:35 How artists can be considered for Digital Service Provider Playlists
Playlisting is the new radio and is a key part of getting your music discovered
Your distributor plays a key part in getting playlisting
Use UGC social media content platforms to promote your work
Make sure your song is on radio
10:04 How to pitch yourself and your music
Have an EPK and marketing plan ready before you release a song
That EPK should clearly state your DNA as an artist in 1 page
WHO you are. WHERE you are going. WHAT information and data about you is available.
13:25 How to pitch yourself to festivals
14:11 The types of revenue available to artists
Maximise show revenue when it is available
Look into publishing as early as possible
23:11 How revenue is generated
26:06 The importance of working with others and building a team
“Working alone is not beneficial. Would you rather have 100% of $10 or 50% of $100”
Learn the fundamentals of the business
34:10 How to approach brand endorsements
To get a brand endorsement you have to add value to the brand in question
Brand endorsements are not a viable source of long-term revenue because brands are in business to sell products and not support artists
37:32 How to prepare your brand to become one that earns revenue
Make yourself and your music easy to find. (Search Engine Optimisation)
Website, Biography and press pics
Market and promote yourself
41:30 The questions you need to ask a potential partner before you work with them
Who have you worked with before?
What do you know about the following;
Distribution
Publishing
Sync Licensing
Marketing
Artist Management
43:40 How to prepare marketing and promotion budgets
49:50 TikTok presents the biggest opportunity for artists
For reference here is the video from VOX that tracks the importance of TikTok -
Music Publishing With Munya Chanetsa
Munya Chanetsa is a well-known music executive and founder of M.O.T.I with more than 10 years of A&R and licensing experience. He has worked with mobile operators, CAPASSO and Sony Music Publishing amongst others. He has also been a featured presenter on music copyright at leading forums and conferences in South Africa, Angola, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
In this workshop, we cover the basics of publishing, how important it is for all songwriters and what avenues they can use to exploit their publishing to earn revenue.
Summary
Workshop Summary
1:15 The role of a publisher
Facilitate collaborations
Place/exploit existing songs
Sync mood music to movies, games, apps etc
6:30 What is a music library
8:40 How terms for Sync Licenses are used practically
9:01 Self Publishing versus signing with a publisher
Pros of self-publishing
You retain 100% of your rights
100% of the revenue
Cons of self-publishing
More administrative work
No help with A&R
Have to sell yourself to collaborators
14:30 The Collective Management Organisations available to Zimbabwean artists and how licensing worst
17:25 What artists need to get a licensing deal