Music & Entertainment Law · NYC

Worried About Getting Screwed Over in the Music Industry?

A good music lawyer is essential to your success in the music and entertainment business. Having an entertainment lawyer experienced with the inner workings of the music industry could be the difference between either a long and successful career in the music industry or a “could have been” status.

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The basics

What is a music lawyer? Is it the same as an entertainment lawyer?

Music lawyers are a subset of entertainment lawyers. Specifically, a music lawyer is an entertainment attorney that has a level of understanding greater than general knowledge with respect to the music industry.

What does a music lawyer do?

One of the key functions of a music lawyer (and entertainment lawyer) is that of a deal maker. The entertainment industry, and specifically the music industry, can be very contract-heavy. An entertainment attorney that works as a music lawyer will review and, often, draft contracts to protect the interests of his or her clients. Additionally, these agreements usually need to be heavily negotiated. A music attorney will negotiate these deals for his or her clients while taking into account both legal and business considerations impacting the deal.

Who do music lawyers work with?

One of the key differences between an entertainment lawyer and a music lawyer is the clients that they take on. Music lawyers work with clients all over the spectrum of the music business. With respect to music creators, this includes music artists, songwriters, and producers. On the business side of things, a music attorney will also work with independent record companies, major record companies, music managers, personal managers, music publishers, and publishing companies. In short, anytime music is being used commercially, there's going to be a lawyer on both sides of the transaction trying to protect the party's interest.

Your attorney

Julian Cordero

Managing Attorney

Meet Your Attorney

What we do

Legal Services for Musicians

A music attorney can help with a wide range of legal services. While this list is by no means exhaustive, here are the three most common types of services that we handle for our clients.

Contract Drafting, Review & Negotiations

These three legal services typically go together in that they are, collectively, the number one type of services that we provide to our clients when they retain us to be their music lawyer.

A contract is defined as a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties. Making sure that you have a good music attorney representing your interests in a contract with another party could make the difference between a long and successful career in the music industry vs. never-have-been status.

Types of contracts we deal with most often

Recording Agreements
Traditional Recording Agreements
360 Deals
Producer Agreements
Artist Management Agreements
Music Distribution Agreements
Digital Distribution Agreements
Music Publishing Agreements
Co-Publishing Agreements
Publishing Administration Agreements
Songwriter Agreements

Advisor

While this might be the most over-looked service that a music attorney can offer, it is one of the most important. Music lawyers are entertainment lawyers that have a general knowledge of the inner workings of the music industry (if the attorney is good at least).

A good music lawyer has a level of understanding of how things work in the music business. This has an immense value. To put things as blatantly as possible — we see a lot of deals. We know what is a good opportunity and what is a bad opportunity. We know what is a good contract and what is a bad contract. We know when you are going to be happy with a deal a few years down the line and when you are going to regret getting into a bad one.

Having one of these lawyers become a part of your team is a luxury you cannot afford to not have.

Business Needs & Intellectual Property Rights

In addition to simply making sure your contracts are in order, a music attorney that also works as a business lawyer can help with your overall business structure and value.

Regardless of whether you are a music artist, producer, manager, or anything else, you are a business. Thus, your role in the music industry should be treated like a business. This means ensuring your business interests are protected and you get the most value for those same interests.

So what does this mean? Well — it can mean a lot of things. Every business is a little bit different and the needs of that particular business will vary.

Examples of some things we can help with

Business Entity Formations / Loan Out Companies / Holding Companies
Corporations
Limited Liability Companies (LLC's)
Partnerships / Joint Ventures
Business Planning / Strategizing
Trademarks
Copyrights
SoundExchange Registration
Performance Rights Organization Registration
ASCAP
BMI
SESAC
GMR
Music Distribution

Book a Consultation Tell us about your project · we'll see if we're a fit

Flexible billing

Fee Options for Our Music Clients

Different clients have different needs. Depending on where you are in your music career, having different fee options to choose from could be very beneficial in making sure that you get quality legal service for a price you can afford.

Fixed Fee

You pay a set price no matter how long we spend working on your project. As long as we can estimate how much time we will have to spend on a project, we will highly recommend a fixed price option. Because we have handled numerous projects on a regular basis, we can generally estimate a fixed fee most of the time.

Hourly

This is the traditional way lawyers and law firms typically bill. Time spent working on a project is billed depending on how long the project takes. The lawyer and law firm will quote you either a flat hourly rate or an hourly rate that varies based on the complexity of the issue. If support staff is used by the lawyer, the law firm will also give you the rates used by the support staff.

Percentage of Earnings / Income

This is a method of payment entertainment attorneys (specifically music attorneys) use quite often. The entertainment lawyer you hire will get a percentage of the deals that we prepare and negotiate on your behalf. The benefit to clients is that if the deal falls through, the client is not on the hook for a legal bill. Because the music attorney is taking a risk that he or she won't get paid, the percentages can equate to a value larger than what the lawyer would have received on a fixed or hourly basis. Sometimes, adding a percentage of earnings to a fee arrangement will be done in order to lower the fixed or hourly rate.

Bottom line — Cordero Law offers many different options for payment of legal services. We do this so that we can give our clients the options they need in order to get competent legal representation.

How to become a music client

Ready To Protect Your Music Career?

As a general matter, the first step is to book a consultation so that we can evaluate your legal needs and determine if you are a good fit to become a part of the Cordero Law family.

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