Pro Soul Alliance is a unique, artist focused
independent record label for the 21st century.
We’re a team of professionals of varying skills ready to help you develop your career. We consult with the top leaders and futurists in the new music business to assist you effectively release your music the way music lovers want to get it, build a growing audience, and earn income, making sure you keep the rights to your music, and save money on expenses. And best of all, we don’t take any of your profits!
Pro Soul is music business, done better.
Here’s a short video to help explain more about what is happening and what we do:
Learn more on our Why Us and FAQ pages.
Latest blog post:
How to present yourself, your music and your career.
Planning then crafting a clear strategy before promoting yourself is the first step in a successful music marketing campaign. It’s an exciting and enthusiastic time, but be careful, the internet is a bottomless database pit. Once posted, once said, and twice repeated, bytes of data remain infinitely embedded in the pages of the world wide web. What might be cute, cool or “bad ass” today, could bite you in your bad ass years from now and might not be so cute, cool or earn you any props.
Presenting yourself in a truthful and professional manner is key to developing and packaging your image. “Pretending to be more than you are - Lying in marketing” - is a great article written by Loren Weisman of the Music Think Tank. We may not agree with Mr. Weisman’s “play it safe” underlying theory, but do agree with keeping it real always. Always have confidence and faith in your talent. Accept and honor where you’re at in this journey. Never “Pretend” to possess unsubstantiated “Bling” or to have accomplished the money and the fame before you make it - don’t lie about your assets, if you’re a starving artist, you’re a starving artist, let your fans share with you, your climb to the top. Take charge of all the wonders of technology that’s available to you. Entertain your fans with your charming personality - let them into your career. Human nature gravitates toward the humble, and when the time comes for you to show your edge, your fans will welcome your success with open arms. Mr. Weisman when he states: “A strong professional package and promotional presence goes a very long way while a fake or weak presence will hurt you more than you know.” We’re not even discussing the business aspect - that’s another posting!
The story of a young man known as Souljaboy tellem comes to mind - his “do-it-yourself” marketing campaign built his fan base, his recognition, and he rose to the top by using an honest portrayal of his talent, personality and character. When asked what was the secret of his success, he’s reported as saying he was having fun, and he kept it real. Watch this sample of how this young master continues to reach out to his fans!
Honesty, hard work, taking a few risks, and fine tuning your art, is how to present yourself, your music and your career.
The 10 Commandments of Music 2.0
According to Hypebot.com there are 10 Commandments of Music 2.0:
The first Commandment “Thou Shalt Not Worship False Prophets - Neither a record deal or auto-tune are your saviors.”
Coming in at a very, very close second “Thou Shalt Worship Only One God - He (or she) is called The Fan.”
Following the first two (which, I might add, should be your daily mantra) are Commandments 5 and 6 respectively - “Thou Shalt Blog - Your flock wants to know what you’re doing, and Thou Shalt Create Profiles - Wherever your flock may go, you must be there.”
Closing out the “Holy Grail” with Commandment 9 “Thou Shalt Share Thy Bounty. Share gigs. Share ideas. Share with your fans.”
And let us not forget the final Commandment 10, “Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You - You meet the same people on the way down that you did on the way up.”
Hypebot.com asks for an eleventh Commandment? “Thou shalt Twitter - tweet like you’ve never tweeted before.” Twitter is the ultimate tool in the world today which allows you to reach out and given 140 characters per tweet, you speak to your fans as though they were in the studio with you. Bonding and building your personal relationships creates a loyal fan base. Thus honoring Commandments 1 through 9 - number 10, that’s between you and your conscience.
Because it is daunting to accomplish all these tasks while trying to be creative, Pro Soul works with artists of all genres, helping them develop their music careers in a changing industry to meet the needs of the modern music lover without taking any rights or profits.
Timbaland sued for infringement over Furtados ‘Do It’
It’s amazing a guy like Timbaland wouldn’t make sure that samples are cleared before releasing an artists album, especially considering their record label would do it for them!
http://www.exclaim.ca/articles/generalarticlesynopsfullart.aspx?csid1=133&csid2=844&fid1=39275
Here’s video proof from the original songwriters/copyright owners:
If your going to use samples, have them professionally cleared before releasing music if you don’t want to be sued and forced to pull the music from the market!
This can be an extremely challenging, time consuming, and expensive process if your an indie or Do It Yourself artist. Get the assistance of professionals like Pro Soul Alliance, or a sample clearing company to do it if you aren’t signed to a label.
Earning Income from Music in TV, Film, Ads and Video Games
Over the weekend, we heard from some music supervisors from NBC Universal and other independent ‘placement’ companies that help TV, Ad and Film producers source music for their productions. Here’s a bit of what they said:
- Most music for TV is licensed from independant artists due to the affordability and simplicity of negotiating with them legally (major label contract negotiation and licensing is a nightmare made in hell that takes way too long).
- Licensing companies won’t even consider talking to artists not represented by Performing Rights Agencies (ASCAP)
- Average fee paid is around $1500 flat rate, plus public performance royalties from broadcast (Our artists get 100% of both!)
- It’s best to find out what shows supervisors work with [through show credits or IMDB], then pitch them music that would work well for those shows specifically, and mention that.
- If you send an email to them saying ‘I’ve got lots of music, let me know what your looking for’ They’ll delete your email. They are too busy, they get 1000 emails or so a week. Also, never send MP3’s via email. To anyone in the business. EVER. Use Dropio or similar.
- If you want a long term relationship with a music supervisor, your music should be ONE STOP licensing, in other words, you own all of the rights, and therefore can legally clear usage of the song. If there are any other musicians involved you haven’t signed a release with, that is not One Stop and can complicate the licensing process.
- Your songs need to be professionally produced and mastered, and available in 320 kB MP3 at minimum quality before music supervisors will want to use them! If it was all done by the guy at the studio who was engineering, it probably doesn’t count. Get it produced properly if your serious.
- It can take a lot of work to find the right music supervisor to work with, and get them to listen to your material, and earn some income, but the odds are much better than getting on a radio station, or getting a publishing deal. And you can get great exposure.
Youtube still unplugged in the UK
The Google owned video sharing site YouTube is blocking the UK from accessing music videos on their site after negotiations with the country’s Performing Right Society (PRS) for Music failed. A statement from the owners of YouTube reads:
“Our previous license from PRS for Music has expired, and we’ve been unable so far to come to an agreement to renew it on terms that are economically sustainable for us. There are two obstacles in these negotiations: prohibitive licensing fees and lack of transparency. We value the creativity of musicians and songwriters and have worked hard with rights-holders to generate significant online revenue for them and to respect copyright. But PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our license than before.”
The YouTube statement continued: “The costs are simply prohibitive for us–under PRS’ proposed terms we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback. In addition, PRS is unwilling to tell us what songs are included in the license they can provide so that we can identify those works on YouTube–that’s like asking a consumer to buy a blank CD without knowing what musicians are on it.”
PRS is claiming that the owners of Google are not willing to pay enough for licensing fees. In fact, PRS is outraged that the owners of Google would “neglect” artists and songwriters in this way. A report from the BBC states the changes were to take effect March 9, 2009.
YouTube pays a licence to the PRS which covers the streaming of music videos from three of the four major music labels and many independent labels.
Last week, PRS music, likely realising how many millions of dollars they are losing due to their stubborness, agreed to half their royalty rates from youtube. Smart move considering the site contributed 40 percent of PRS members’ plays!
I wonder if anyone will ever come up with an accurate analysis of just how much money artists with major representation are losing due to the lack of foresight the big music corporations have regarding the internet? It’s no wonder major artists managers are telling artists to go out on their own.
Farshid Samandari joins Pro Soul!
We are pleased to welcome Farshid Samandari, the latest artist to join the diverse talent represented by Pro Soul Alliance.
Iranian-born composer and pianist Farshid Samandari aspires to bridge the gap between Persian, Western and Asian music. Immigrating to Canada, Farshid called Vancouver home in 2001, and began to make his life in this new community.
Studying music at UBC, he began work on his dream composition - its theme, an operatic treatment of the past 100 years of Iranian history.
As part of its Olympic commissioning program, the VSO has performed his symphonic work, Towards Unity. An accomplished and classically trained performer, Farshid has expanded his musical talents to include electroacoustic music and is working on a series of scores for piano, oboe, with the Max/MSP computer program. He is also completing a diverse multi genre album details of which will be revealed soon on his upcoming website, farshidsamandari.com
Farshid also developed the groundbreaking Persian classical music ensemble, Parto, also playing piano in the diverse group of renowned musicians.
With the assistance of Pro Soul for a new web presence and licensing of his original music for film and television amongst other things, Farshid can spend more time on creative things in his career rather than the day to day business of active promotion and marketing.
$7,000 Settlement for a 4-Year Piracy Lawsuit
Record Companies have finally agreed to accept a settlement of $7,000 from a suburban family in a law suit that spanned over 4 years. Talk about relief! Four record companies accused Patricia Stantangelo of illegally downloading and distributing copyright music. This mother of five from Wappingers New York, claimed she couldn’t have downloaded all that music from the internet because she had no idea how to download music from the internet! She also refused to settle with the RIAA.
The lawsuit against her was dropped. However, they then turned around and sued two of her kids! Michelle, 20, and Robert, 16, were accused of downloading and distributing more than 1,000 songs. Michelle and Robert denied the allegations. The music industry claims a loss of millions of dollars due to illegal downloading, and the companies claimed that Michelle had admitted to the piracy and Robert had been implicated by a family friend.
Jordan Glass, Ms. Stantangelo’s lawyer, is reported as saying that the music industry had no idea that Ms. Stantangelo would fight back against billions of Corporate dollars.
Some relief can be felt knowing a settlement of $7,000, which can be paid in instalments, was perhaps only a fraction of what the RIAA spent on advancing their claims. Though they wouldn’t reveal their actual costs, it’s pretty clear more than $7,000 was incurred in legal expenses in this case of 4 years!
All to fight something that is inevitable, the freedom of music; music lovers getting what they want, when they want it. It is far less expensive to come up with new ways to monetize music instead of fighting to keep old ones that no longer work.
Is Music for free really a good idea?
Last week we blogged about giving away music as a promotional tool for artists.
We’re further writing about this because it’s becoming common practice. What is all this talk about just giving it away? Well, typically, artists who give away their music generally generate more income than those who don’t. Why? Simple, the general population loves free stuff! Once given a free CD, the consumer listens to it, likes it, and tells a friend. That friend then tells another friend, and so on and so forth. Exposure.
It’s all a part of the number one rule of music business, one that the record industry has forgotten: Hear, Like, Buy. In that order exactly.
Circulating free CDs allows the artist to reach a broader audience, creating a fan base, eventually resulting in sales and popularity! But it isn’t just the music industry that utilizes the “freebie” marketing strategy. Television can be live streamed on the Internet. Movies, music, video games; you name it, the Internet has it. A man by the name of Chris Anderson of the Wall Street Journal is convinced that people will pay to listen to live streamed music from their iPhones. Why? Well, if there is an application for the iPhone a consumer must purchase to listen to live streamed music, most consumers will do it. A growing number of people depend on their iPhones for all sorts of things, including the Internet. So, what does this mean for the general artist? What exactly are your rights? How do you protect your slice of the apple pie?
At Pro Soul, We help our artists build a growing audience, earn income even when giving music away, and avoid costly mistakes without giving up any of the rights to their music.
The Free Thinkers
In search for insights on “Free” digital music, the music industry’s Kevin Arnold was asked his perspective on the value and future of free music. The CEO of digital distributor The Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA) had this to say:
” We definitely believe Free has value in a number of ways for music. First and foremost, in the way it has almost always been used in music and in many many other consumer businesses: as a free sample to introduce a product to new users. Just like the handouts at Costco, tasting at a winery, or swag bags at conventions and parties, labels and artists have long given away music in the form of samplers and promo CDs, free performances, and outlets like radio and MTV. In the digital world this act has value in ways that we’re still learning and consistently surprise us. Who would have thought that the free giveaway of Nine Inch Nails’ last record would end up with it being the top selling album at AmazonMP3 last year? The important thing with this type of (promotional) Free is that it is done on the artist/content owner’s terms, and that they can control the process to manage the value of the effort and get what they want out of it.
Beyond the promotional Free are the more recent attempts at commercial offerings that “feel like free”. This covers pretty much everything from the massively popular streaming sites like MySpace, Playlist, and imeem to ideas like ISP-endorsed free file-sharing or newer models like PlayAnywhere from Catch Media. The key difference is that these platforms aim to offer not a few sample tracks but rather full releases and catalogs. In exchange, content owners expect to get paid for the use of the music. These models still have a long way to go towards providing monetization levels that most content owners are comfortable with, and many unanswered questions as to whether these services help or hurt other online sales models remain.
Good old-fashioned free P2P file sharing can also be valuable in some cases, generally for the developing artist in accordance with the “give-it-away-until-you-can-charge-for-it” theory. But this should be done at the discretion and control of the artist or label, ideally with some measurable results, be they emails from new fans around the world or more people coming to your shows. In any case, only the content owner can decide if any of these flavors of Free work for them or not.”
Kevin Arnold tells us that although free is a good way to go, its important to manage this practice with discretion and control by the artist or label. Monitor and measure the results of the give-a-way, by new fan e-mails or an increase in attendance at your shows.
Giving free music is a way for the artist to create a fan base, and creating good music is every reason for a person to be a fan. This is definitely a good place to start.
Metric Reaps Their Success Independantly
Metric has finally released their first album in four years! Not only did they release it without a record label, but their new release named “Fantasies” rose to the middle of the U.S. pop chart. Metric managed to rake in an enormous amount on iTunes, also tapping into Canadian arts funding grants.
Since its release on March 31st, the new album has sold 9,000 digital downloads in the U.S. In the music industry these sales may not seem like much, but take into account the 15,000 downloads the band’s co-manager said was sold internationally, these numbers indicate the success of this album. Thanks to iTunes, and sales on the bands own website, Metric has already grossed more than it did on the band’s 2005’s “Live It Out”, which sold more than 45,000 copies.
Metric is learning from Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead. The members of Metric, and their co-manager, figure they could never offer their fans an album at 13-15 dollars per unit if they had released it while being backed by a record label. If they had produced their album through a record label, they would have made 22 cents per dollar, rather than seeing the 77 cent per dollar profit they see now.
Metric’s album release was handled by Redeye Distribution. The firm’s director of marketing, Josh Wittman, said the band sold somewhere around 3,000 physical CDs in the US the first day! Metric is a band with a fire in it’s belly, and definitely is paving the way for other Canadian artists much like them by showing how with dedication and the right assistane, you don’t need to be tied down to big corporations to turn a profit.
www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-music16-2009apr16,0,7581416.story