A2IM: American Association of Independent Music

Posted in Education, Member Services, Members Only by A2IM

A2IM DMET Committee “Get Your Digital House In Order” White Paper

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A2IM’s Digital Media and Emerging Technologies Committee (DMETC) has just completed the most recent addition to the series of white papers. This paper provides the best practices for music labels of any size to best run their data and the digital side of their businesses.

“Get Your Digital House In Order” was authored by Peter Wright (Virtual Label) and Rob Weitzner (Consolidated Independent).

Peter Wright has spent his entire career in the music business in the independent sector starting out in post-punk Manchester in 1980 working for Buzzcocks’ management company and label New Hormones. In 1982 he moved to New York and worked in independent distribution at Dutch East India Trading and Caroline Distribution as well at Sonic Youth’s first label Neutral Records. In 1988 he set up Mute Records New York office and became its Label Manager and then VP of Operations. In 1996 he moved to Boston, MA as GM for Rykodisc and in 2000 returned to NYC where he became GM of Instinct Records (Moby’s first home).  In 2003 Peter took advantage of his years of independent music business experience to set up Virtual Label LLC – a service company for artists and indie labels offering access to physical and digital distribution, marketing and consulting services. Key clients include Grammy award winner Dan Zanes, blues artist Sonny Landreth, Sean Lennon’s Chimera label, Alexi Murdoch, Green Label Sound, ROIR, Pressure Sounds, Cumbancha and many more. Peter Wright is also chairman of A2IM’s Digital Media & Emerging Technologies Committee.

Rob Weitzner brings a rich strategic perspective gained during a career that has successfully traversed the traditional and digital dimensions of the music industry. As the North American Representative for Consolidated Independent (CI), Rob is charged with overseeing the expansion of the company’s business in the territory. Rob has served in key leadership roles prior to CI, including the VP, Global Business Development at IODA; the founding Head of Membership & Development for the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM); the VP, Business Development & Digital Strategy at TVT Records; the VP & GM, New York for eMusic.com, and the Founding Partner of boutique artist management firm, Monster Management. Rob holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA, with Distinction, in Economics from Stanford University.

If you missed any previous white papers, please visit this page on A2IM.org to find them all.

Posted in Member Services, News by A2IM

If you’ve been around the music business a while – or even if you haven’t – you’re sure to run into Counterpoint’s Maestro suite of software for music labels, production music libraries, and publishers. Setting the standard for catalog management and rights and royalties administration software for over 400 customers worldwide, Counterpoint Systems has been the leading provider in the music, entertainment, and brand licensing industries for over 23 years.

Although our business has expanded over the years, we remain committed to where we started, in the independent sector of the music industry. We are a proud associate member of A2IM – and have sponsored A2IM’s hugely successful cocktail parties at MIDEM for the past three years. This year promises to be just as deliciously successful! We encourage you to stop by our booth #R34.07.

Specifically, Counterpoint’s music industry clients use Maestro software to:

• Save time and money by replacing manual tasks with automation
• Reduce the risk of manual errors from using spreadsheets
• Improve your service to songwriters, composers and artists with tools like online statement delivery
• Have a single integrated system incorporating catalogue management, client administration and royalty processing
• Use industry-standard formats for sharing data with other companies such as societies, sub-publishers, digital stores…and much, much more!

RECORD MAESTRO
Counterpoint’s Record Maestro software, developed specifically with labels in mind, helps put independents on a level playing field with the majors, providing a complete solution for label administration at an affordable price and offering industry standard interfaces for label copy data, sales data and royalty transfers.

Record Maestro gives independent labels a solution that addresses the whole business. It is the only software package that will automate your royalty processing, digital sales imports, digital store distribution and society reporting requirements. Counterpoint spends time talking to independent labels to ensure Record Maestro gives you what you need across your entire business.

Royalties are a cost to any independent label’s business, but Record Maestro can reduce those costs. It can reduce the cost of your time, replacing manual tasks with automated processes. For example, Record Maestro provides online statement delivery – compare that to the time and cost of printing and mailing paper statements. Record Maestro also removes the risk of manual errors that comes with using spreadsheets, and because Record Maestro is a complete package and not just a royalty calculation tool, you’re not just calculating contract royalties for artist or distribution statements, Record Maestro does mechanical and society reporting as well.

Music Maestro allows publishers to manage their entire publishing process, from signing new songwriters/composers; registering with societies; licensing songs; through to calculating royalties and issuing statements. It also makes it easier to work with other publishers and labels and to integrate your publishing business with a label. More publishers around the world use Counterpoint than any other solution, so don’t take our word for it, ask our publishing partners!

Using Music Maestro, publishers can:

• Register songs with societies and automatically track registration history
• Manage your song catalog database
• Quickly identify what songs are earning and performing well
• Quickly and easily exchange catalog and copyright data with sub-publishers
• Manage the entire licensing process
• Automatically load statements and match income to songs
• Calculate royalties and produce statements

Most importantly, as the industry evolves and innovates, Counterpoint Systems’ remains on the cutting edge of emerging technologies and business models. Our solutions stay up to date with digital store formats, society compliant reporting, and new royalty calculation models (i.e. subscription based revenue pool calculations). All Maestro clients are entitled to free updates to the software, so you will always be in step with the changes in the industry.

For more information on any of our Maestro solutions, please visit the Counterpoint website, email lraileanu@us.counterp.com or call Lorie Raileanu on (424) 270 8520.

We’ll see you at Midem!

Posted in 2008 #23, 2008 #24, Advocacy, Newsletter by A2IM