Music Business/Law Tips - "Playlist Promotion (Playola?)"

Playlists on the major streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music have become an important new form of "charts", as this is where fans and music supervisors are starting to gravitate to discover music as well as where traditional radio stations are looking for which songs are popular enough to add. As such, record labels now actively try to get their newly released singles to appear on such playlists. This is known in the industry as "playlist promotion". Essentially, the old-school "legal" promotional methods that were once (and still are) used by labels to get songs added to radio have now carried over to this new medium. Therefore, it appears that if a label or artist can afford to pay a middlemen digital marketing firm (similar to indie radio promoter) who will - via their relationships with curators of the various playlists - influence song placements and chart positions on the playlists, then the true indie artists will again be squeezed out of the mass exposure picture just as they always were before and will have to rely on grassroots to break. ("Meet the new boss/same as the old boss." [lyric by P. Townshend]) Ben McLane Esq benmclane.com

Music Business/Law Tips - "7 Year Statute"

Recently, Rita Ora filed a lawsuit against her label Roc Nation to get out of her record deal based on the so called "7 Year Statute". In California, this Labor Code stipulates a court cannot enforce a personal service contract after seven calendar years from when the deal began. Ora signed the contract in 2008. Her underlying gripe is that she claims the label has neglected and failed to properly promote her. Of course, Roc Nation disputes this and argues they have spent millions on branding her. The problem with invoking this statute is that there a lack of solid case precedents in music. Although Olivia Newton-John successfully sued MCA Records for violating the law in the late Seventies, thereafter the recording industry lobbied the California legislature to establish rules allowing labels to sue artists for "lost profits" if they didn't fulfill album commitments or other components of their contract, so such a claim can backfire. As such, most record industry disputes involving the "seven-year rule" have ended in a settlement or a renegotiated deal. Well have to stay tuned to see what happens. Ben McLane Esq benmclane.com