Pakistan has produced wonderful vocalists, musicians
and various artist. Their works sell in millions. The Greats have
created their own style and Pakistani music owe lot to them. A few
of these include:
— Madam Noor Jehan
— Mehdi Hassan
— Naseem Begum
— Ustad Amanat Ali Khan
— Fareeda Khanum
— Pathane Khan
— Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
— Abida Perveen
— Ghulam Ali
— Khawaja Khurshid Anwar
— Nisar Bazmi
— Sohail Rana
PakGlobal helps to register your music
work's and allow you country wide protection from infringement and
passing off.
Under the Copyright Laws of Pakistan the rights in musical works are
duly protected. These include the rights of songwriters as well as
of the artists. Copyright registration of a musical work is not mandatory.
However registration of a musical work can allow an author to statutory
remedies. The songwriters or artists are entitled to the following:
a) Protection of their work during lifetime and until fifty years
from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year
in which the author dies.
b) Exclusive right to a limited duration to exploit copyrights by
transferring, lending or even selling one or all of the exclusive
copyrights, subject to certain exceptions and limitations. In return
for these licenses, grants, assignments, and/or sales, the copyright
owner receives monetary compensation called "royalties".
Thus, "royalties" are monies earned from songs and/or
sound recordings from various sources.
c) A "music publishing agreement" Viz; a copyright contract
that a songwriter signs with a music publishing company. Per this
publishing agreement, a publisher is assigned certain designated
copyrights. In accordance with the terms of the publishing deal,
a music publisher basically "owns" or "rents"
some (or all) of your songs for a certain period time and in a certain
territory, administering and exploiting your musical product as
much as possible in order to generate more income for you and them.
A music publisher agreement seeks to either assign or license certain
songs to a music publisher to either own and/or administrate for
a designated time and in a specified territory. Thus, a music publishing
agreement is an agreement between a songwriter (who owns the copyright
in songs) and the music publisher (which seeks to own or administrate
the songs.) The seven (7) basic music publishing contracts are:
(1) Single Song Agreement
(2) Exclusive Song Writer Agreement
(3) Co-publishing Agreement
(4) Administration Agreement
(5) Collection Agreement
(6) Sub-publishing Agreement:
(7) Purchase Agreement
Issues concerning recording or producing CD
Following matters need special consideration while recording or producing
a CD:
(1) Copyrights: Extremely important thing is to ensure in all
arrangements that you retain your copyrights. Make it clear in the
studio or producer’s agreement that you are keeping your copyrights
to all your songs, even if the engineer or producers (if any) help
you write and arrange part of your material.
(2) Masters: Make sure you put in writing your ownership rights
to the "masters." Unless there is money owed to the studio,
engineer, or music producer, you should have them immediately "deliver"
the masters to you.
(3) Band member Agreements: If the musicians are part of a
band agreement, ensure compliance with that contract. There may be
a provision in the contract on that personally retains the "masters",
and the studio should know that in advance.
(4) Sidemen Agreements: If outside musicians ("sidemen")
are used to help record, there should be a written agreement indicating
this between the artist/band and the sidemen.
(5) Mechanical Licenses: If you plan to re-record "cover"
songs or somebody else’s copyrighted works, you need to obtain
a license to get the right to record other musicians’ compositions.
You do this by contacting either the writers of the songs and/or their
music publisher. Once you identify them, negotiate a "mechanical"
license, which gives you the right to record the song.
(6) Engineers: You will want to ensure you have a qualified
engineer on the boards.
(7) Producers: Unless your CD will be self-produced, equally
important is ensuring you or your studio has an experienced and
qualified producer. If a producer is contemplated, determine which
party will provide the producer (you or studio). All parties (artist,
studio and producer) should have written agreements between themselves
delineating their respective rights and responsibilities. If the
studio provides the producer, inquire about their experience and
track record, and expressly identify any extra producer fees.
(8) Duplication: As with the other possible separate services,
decide which facility will replicate your masters. It is usually economically
advantageous to go to an outside professional duplicating company
(e.g., Disc maker).
Issues in sampling
"Sampling" is the practice of digitally copying or transferring
snippets or portions of a preexisting (copyrighted) record to make
a new composition. An artist will take a piece of a pre-existing recording
and use that piece (i.e., "sample") to create a new recording.
Sampling exists mostly in rap, hip-hop, street, or dance records.
Samples are basically "derivative works" of a previous copyrighted
song. The right to prepare derivative works based on the copyrighted
work is one of the five bundles of rights of the copyright owner -
the song writer(s) or publisher(s). As such, the copyright owner must
grant permission (a mechanical license) before the copyrighted song(s)
can be used. Sampling of an original copyrighted song without permission
of the copyright’s owner is illegal copyright infringement.
Protecting your band name.
A "trademark" helps protect a band’s name and merchandising.
A trademark is any word, phrase, design, symbol, or other similar
marketing devices used by manufactures and merchants to identity and
distinguish them from products and services sold by others.
Musical acts generally provide services, not products. Since a band
initially provides a "service" and not a product per se,
a service mark is the proper method to protect the name of a band.
Once you start selling product commercially on a national scale, you
may then want to also register a trademark for your products and merchandise
(e.g. CD’s, tapes, T-shirts, stickers, caps, etc.).For copyright
of your musical works and drafting of musical and other agreements
Contact PakGlobal. |
