grantsupak
New Member
I am an independent artist and have been working on an album for about a year now. Besides being a musician and writing the songs, and also am the producer and audio engineer. I own my own studio equipment and have been using it to record the album. Originally, I intended to do everything on my own, but about three months ago drummer who is a good friend of my mine offered to perform some backing tracks and I decided that would be a great idea. I had been using electronic drums and I'm not a drummer myself. We have also been working on performing these songs live and have formed a band. I have not offered any compensation and he has not asked for any, but I do intend to share the profit from the album. As of now, no contracts have been written or even agreements made.
My main question is how much of the profit am I entitled to and how much is he entitled to? What do I actually own? It's definitely not a 50/50 partnership, the album is 12 songs and his drums appear on six of those with some additional percussion on three songs. I wrote the melodies, I wrote the lyrics, recorded the guitars, bass guitar, and vocals. I also am responsible for mixing/editing the tracks. This has not yet been discussed; it is touchy because I am younger than him and I don't know how he will react if I tell him that I should get a higher % of profit because I have done more work.
One other issue is we are sending it off to be mastered, duplicated, packaged, anything it needs to be a commercial product; this isn't cheap so we are splitting the cost. Does that mean we should each get half the profit even though I have done most of the work?
My last question is what I need to do before I "release" the album. I know I need to get it copyrighted, but how do I go about that? Is there anything else I should know? This is my first time doing so I am unfamiliar with the procedure. Thanks for any advice that can be offered
My main question is how much of the profit am I entitled to and how much is he entitled to? What do I actually own? It's definitely not a 50/50 partnership, the album is 12 songs and his drums appear on six of those with some additional percussion on three songs. I wrote the melodies, I wrote the lyrics, recorded the guitars, bass guitar, and vocals. I also am responsible for mixing/editing the tracks. This has not yet been discussed; it is touchy because I am younger than him and I don't know how he will react if I tell him that I should get a higher % of profit because I have done more work.
One other issue is we are sending it off to be mastered, duplicated, packaged, anything it needs to be a commercial product; this isn't cheap so we are splitting the cost. Does that mean we should each get half the profit even though I have done most of the work?
My last question is what I need to do before I "release" the album. I know I need to get it copyrighted, but how do I go about that? Is there anything else I should know? This is my first time doing so I am unfamiliar with the procedure. Thanks for any advice that can be offered