About the last thing musicians want to worry about in the first flush of creative ecstasy when a new group is formed is a bunch of legalistic and contractual crap. Unfortunately, these should be among the very first issues considered and resolved. As we have all heard many times before: a little planning now can prevent a whole lot of wasted time, effort and money later, not to mention heartache.
Music attorney Anthony Berman has written a very nice little primer on legal consideratons for musicians and bands:
- The most basic form of business comprised of two or more persons is a general partnership. For that reason, virtually all bands start out as general partnerships. The legal requirements for a general partnership are few. For one thing, the partnership must file a fictitious business name certificate with the county clerk where the business is located. In addition, a partnership usually must file an SS-4 with the IRS in order to receive a federal tax number.
However, even though it is not legally required, it is recommended that the partners enter into a written agreement dealing with issues such as: sharing of profit and loss, voting rights, adding new partners and departing partners, and ownership of intellectual property.
....First, it is important to understand the big picture. Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of "original, works of authorship" including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is "created" when it is fixed in a copy. "Copies" are material objects from which a work can be read or visually perceived either directly or with the aid of a machine or device, such as books, manuscripts, sheet music, film, videotape, or microfilm. If a work is prepared over a period of time, the part of the work that is fixed on a particular date constitutes the created work as of that date.
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