Andrée Greenwell: negotiating production contracts

Andrée  Greenwell is a highly-regarded composer, performance maker and music educator and is artistic director of Green Room Music. Andrée approached Arts Law with a query about a production for which she was music producer, composer and artistic director.

The production was recorded and broadcast on radio to much acclaim, and afterwards was the subject of negotiations for an independent CD release, by her production company, Green Room Music.

Andrée sought advice on the process of negotiating contracts for broadcast of the production and for CD release by the broadcaster. In particular, she sought advice about artist credits, production credits, the wording of by-lines, contracts with individual artists and use of recordings.

Arts Law secured the help of media and entertainment lawyer Stephen Boyle, who has worked closely with the Centre for a number of years.

Andrée says: “Negotiating a contract as an independent artist, with a major radio broadcaster is daunting. Stephen brought clear advice and a calm perspective. In total negotiation took two years and I believe that without his assistance, that this would have been longer. Stephen made invaluable suggestions as how to cut through the ‘red tape’ and achieve agreeable terms. I do not believe I would have achieved the license agreement without the assistance of Stephen and Arts Law.”

Artist credits are vital for recognition of the artist, but also vital for promotion of their work so that they can secure future employment in other projects and productions. It’s important to distinguish between artist credits and the credits given to the broadcaster and its employees who are recording the production. Artists negotiating broadcasting and distribution contracts should take care to ensure that by-lines describing the production should be agreed upon by both the production company and the broadcaster.  It’s also important to clarify what will be permissible uses of the recording by the artist under the contract, such as promotion on social media and other websites, and whether the uses include advertising purposes.

Andrée ’s work can be seen on https://vimeo.com/user9381601, and http://soundcloud.com/andr-e-greenwell/sets/the-villainelles-1/