You know the drill: fetch some coffee, answer the phones, kiss some butt, and hope it all goes somewhere.  It's the unpaid internship, a well-worn rite of passage in the music industry.  But does this make sense anymore, especially with so many established companies struggling and cutting back?  And remember: there's less guarantee than ever that you'll get a gig, so can you afford that risk?
 
That was a huge question over the weekend at a conference held by the Music & Entertainment Industry Educators Association (MEIEA) in Los Angeles, one heavily attended by soon-to-be-graduating college students.

Naturally, the question came up, and most executives supported the free internship as a perfect and often necessary shoe-in.  In fact, most felt it was critical.  Keith Hatschek, currently director of Music Management at University of the Pacific, said internships easily gave candidates a clear edge - and oftentimes made the hands-down difference.  "And if you have a letter of recommendation, then you're way ahead of the competition," Hatschek relayed.  "I was an employer for 23 years, and I never hired someone because they had a 4.0 grade point."

Others successfully climbed from the intern ranks themselves, and strongly backed the idea.  "I took an internship with ASCAP after I graduated, for no credit and no money," relayed Alisha Davis, currently Associate Membership Representative for Film & TV at the company.  "I was an outstanding intern, and they did everything they could to get me a job and get me hired.  So I moved out [to LA] on Sunday, and started working on Monday."

Sounds like an easy formula, but it is really that simple anymore?  For example, is your target company hiring when you need them to be hiring?  Will they still be around in a few years?  Or, can you parlay the internship into a real gig somewhere else when it matters, especially in a shrinking industry?

Maybe these questions are easier in California, where employers are required by law to either pay an employee or give college credit.  So there's less downside, but others face more difficult questions related to their financial situations and opportunity costs.  Yet even in situations where there's no money, no credit, and difficult prospects, most interns can still walk away with some experience, a recommendation or two, and a better working knowledge of the business.  But remember: this is still a heavy investment of time and money that assumes future rewards, and a decision worth weighing carefully.

Source: Digital Music News

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If you have read newspapers and blogs in the last few years, you know there's no money to be made in music. So why are billions being invested in music companies? Is there really that much dumb money going into the wrong industry instead of following the smart money elsewhere?

The record industry is a sinking ship, yet Warner Music Group attracted numerous bidders and EMI is likely to see similar interest. The publishing industry also faces uncertainty, but publishing assets are constantly bought and sold. Years have passed since the record label was supposed to have died, but new labels are sprouting up every week. There's a reason for this difference between popular sentiment and reality: the music business is not a monolithic entity.

Recorded music is just one segment of the industry. Live events, merchandise and publishing are also major parts of the industry. Beyond the more traditional areas of the business are artist services companies like Sonicbids, mobile app developers like Mobile Roadie, ticketing companies like Eventbrite and a slew of information-based startups like the Echo Nest that are helping build the next generation of music companies.

The truth is the music business is still a place where entrepreneurs and investors are willing to take risks. In fact, investment opportunities exist because some investors mistakenly believe all music companies face the same types of disruption. As Brad Svrluga of High Peaks Venture Partners concedes in a post at Forbes.com, music startups that require licenses to sell downloads or stream music definitely face some tough challenges. But he saw opportunity in Pump Audio, which helped transform music licensing and was sold to Getty Images less than 18 months after High Peaks invested in the company. "If we had let the broader challenges of consumer distribution of music obscure the opportunity inherent in providing a better solution for soundtrack music to an explosion of video content for rapidly proliferating cable networks and web video businesses, we would've missed a real winner," he writes.

Like licensing, ticketing is another area ripe for disruption. High Peaks took part in the fall 2009 first-round funding of ticketing startup Ticketfly. The company announced $12 million in second-round funding last week, and other ticketing startups have received tens of millions in venture capital over the last three years. "Their plan for this year forecasts greater than 100% growth over last year," writes Svrluga. "I'll be damned if they didn't beat their Q1 number by 25%."

Investors are not even dissuaded from the traditional record industry. Warner Music Group has received three bids of $3 billion or more. The company has also received a number of bids for just one of its two divisions. Live Nation is reported to have bid on Warner's recorded music division just over a year after its merger with Ticketmaster typified the upside seen in event-oriented business models. The key to investing in a record and publishing company is to not overpay.

You see, corporate valuation is both art and science. The science is the easier part. Put numbers in a spreadsheet and arrive at a number. The art is accurately estimating the future value of a company in an era of tremendous upheaval. The art is in knowing which assumptions to build into that spreadsheet. If you guess wrong, if you overestimate the cash flows to be generated by intangible assets in the next ten or 20 years, or if you're too optimistic about the positive impact the merger will have on revenues and expenses, you can pay too much and get bogged down in debt. This was the case of the 2007 acquisition of EMI. Terra Firma simply overpaid at a time when the credit markets made possible such a leveraged buyout. So Warner's bidders need to make sure they don't overpay. Warner is definitely a good investment at $1 billion. Even $2 billion. A $3 billion price tag offers less room for downside. But even at $3 billion, there are still a handful of bidders willing to buck conventional wisdom and risk money on a traditional music company.

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Meet Ramon Orion... drove all the way from Florida to come #werk with Mike Wilson at #thepatch!

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Patchwerk E-Store - LAUNCHING SOON!

Now-a-days among the population of indie artists trying to "get on", unfortunately for most of them the answer to this question is a big fat NO! But it's understandable. As an artist, I'm sure you'd love to only have to focus on your music but unless you have the budget to hire the right professionals to handle your business, you have to handle it yourself. With that said, here's 6 things you have to take care of before you're even adequately prepared for radio play and commercial distribution: 

1. ISRC
At Patchwerk, I swear, we get at least a handful of calls every day with artists that don't even know what an ISRC is, much less have one for their single. Why is this a problem....? Well particularly because you can ONLY encode an ISRC at the mastering stage of the recording/production process. That means you should technically have one to assign BEFORE you get your song mastered. So what's an ISRC? It stands for International Standard Recording Code. Every commercially released recording has one assigned to it for identification and tracking purposes. So if you don't have one, you won't be able to track your recordings. Get it? Now if you're fortunate enough to attract the interest of a radio DJ and they play your record on the radio, they will assign an ISRC for you but the problem is that it won't be associated with your name/company.

You can apply for an ISRC code at usisrc.org, but of course, they cost money. And because you will need multiple ISRCs (for each song you release) you may want to apply for a company account however that can be even more expensive. Lucky for you... a few companies, such as Patchwerk, offer to generate your ISRC codes for you. At #thepatch we only charge $15 to generate your own unique code and since we have your masters we go ahead and encode it during the mastering phase free of charge! Now, how's that for service?! :-)

To get PT. 2 of this entry subscribe with your email below.

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Ok so to recap, we told you about getting your ISRC codes in PT.1 so now you should be ready (with your masters in hand) to get out there and promote/sell your music. But before you do, here's the other 5 things you need to take care of:

2. UPC
Yes, another code! It's called a Universal Product Code and it's a lot more popular so you should have heard of it. Everything that is sold (music included) has a Universal Product Code assigned to it to differentiate it from everything else. We typically call it a "barcode". From personal experience I can tell you that it's a BAD IDEA not to have your music on sale before you get radio play. Back when I used to manage artists, I made this mistake and who knows how many lost sales it costed us! Don't be like me... get your upc well before you're even presented with the opportunity to get your song on the radio! The company that creates and distributes these codes is called GS1. Or, again, you can purchase one from us at Patchwerk for $25. One important note is that in terms of music, each individual release needs its own barcode. So if you release a single, then you release your album (including that single), you'll need two separate barcodes for each release.

3. COPYRIGHT
Of course you all know this one! It's pretty straight forward... protect your intellectual property from 'copy' cats by registering it with the US Copyright office. I don't think I need to go into detail on this one... if you don't know what a copyright is by now... well... let's just say you have some serious homewerk to do!

4. REGISTER WITH BDS & SOUNDSCAN
You've probably heard of these but do you really know what they are and why they're important? Well very simply put, in the U.S. and Canada BDS tracks and reports airplay spins, and Soundscan tracks and reports commercial sales (using your UPC codes). Labels, managers, and other organizations use this information to make a plethora of important marketing/distribution decisions. Furthermore, both of these information systems are the primary sources for Billboard's music charts. You can register for both through Nielsen.

5. REGISTER WITH MEDIABASE
Mediabase is also a mass-airplay tracking and reporting company... owned by the media giant Clear Channel Communications, they just do their tracking a little differently and track what music industry professionals like to call "specialty spins". Here nor there, you should register with both BDS and Mediabase to be on the safe side (they cover about 80% of the total U.S. radio market).

6. REGISTER WITH SOUND EXCHANGE
Sound Exchange collects your royalties from Satellite-radio spins. Simple as that.

So, yeah, you should have all of these things in place before you go and try to take over the world with your music... because when opportunity knocks... you better be ready! If not, you'll be spending valuable time playing catch up or worst yet... miss your opportunity all together! At Patchwerk, have a package that includes us doing all this FOR YOU plus Recording, mixing, and mastering your song, ANNND (wait there's more!) we also give you 200 CD duplications with your ISRC encoded for you to sell or give away. It's called the "Single Deal + Paperwerk" Ask about it next time you call or book.

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Patchwerk is teaming up with iStandard yet again! And guess who one of the judges will be?! That's right Patchwerk owner and COO, Curtis Daniel III... Check the flyer! Did I mention the winner of the iStandard Producers Showcase will WIN 3 HOURS of STUDIO TIME at Patchwerk?! Yea... really! Sign up here!

Visit istandardproducers.com for more details.
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