NASHVILLE |DATE: MAY 4, 2015
BOSCHAN CORP.
–EXPERTS IN ROYALTIES, FORENSIC ACCOUNTING AND AUDITS IN MUSIC AND INTERACTIVE–
ANNOUNCES FOUNDER CEDAR BOSCHAN TO APPEAR AT:
“MUSIC IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM”
–THE LEGAL LANDSCAPE FOR COMPENSATING CONTENT CREATORS–
TUESDAY, MAY 5
AT THE GRAMMY MUSEUM(7:00pm)
AND
MORE INDUSTRY EVENTS THROUGHOUT 2015
BOSCHAN CORP.–the worldwide experts in music industry forensic accounting and audits–has announced that founder CEDAR BOSCHAN will speak at several upcoming events that offer MCLE credits to attorneys, starting with “MUSIC IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM: The Legal Landscape for Compensating Content Creators.” This panel discussion will take place tomorrow, Tuesday, May 5 at the Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles (800 W. Olympic Blvd. LA, CA 90015, start time: 7:00pm). BOSCHAN will also speak at a music valuation discussion on Thursday, June 25 at the Association of Independent Music Publishers and on Saturday, October 17 she will be a featured panelist at the University of Southern California’s Entertainment Law Institute. Limited media passes are available, RSVP here.
BOSCHAN’s trend-setting audits cover billions in recorded music dollars and her work supports several high-profile royalty litigation matters, including most recently, the Estate of Selena Quintanilla’s current lawsuit against Universal Music Group. With a longtime GRAMMY-winning, A-list clientele, BOSCHAN will bring over 20 years of music industry experience to the “MUSIC IN THE NEW MILLENIUM” panel discussion joining other experts including Jay Cooper, Esq. (Greenberg Trauig), Dina LaPolt, Esq. (LaPolt Law) and Edwin McPherson, Esq. (McPherson Rane), Keith L. Cooper, Esq. (de la Pea & Holiday) will moderate. The all-star panel presented by California Lawyers For The Arts and The Recording Academy will focus on the underlying reasons why with music accessibility and consumption at all-time highs, music royalties are at all-time lows. The history of music distribution—from retail outlets, to the inception of Napster, to the present digital environment–will be covered as well as how musicians and content creators are paid as well as the applicable laws and current legislation and the future landscape for creating and selling music.
Royalties and the necessary forensic accounting and audits for their discovery are consistent issues that can play out in the courts and deeply affect musicians and artists’ opportunities as well as their bottom line on a daily basis.
Below CEDAR BOSCHAN offers key advice accountants and attorneys re royalties and emerging trends in the music industry. To hear more, RSVP to attend the May 5 “Music In The New Millennium” event.
If you could give attorneys and business managers in music a few key pieces of advice to optimize their clients’ royalties, what would they be?
First, employ a practice of the most successful attorneys I know: teamwork; consult a royalty auditor early on, during the negotiation or complaint-drafting process. Missing this opportunity, if available, is an oversight that costs clients millions. For example, your auditor can suggest drafting tips to improve the likelihood of compliance in the first place as well as to optimize future audit recoveries.
Second and applicable to everyone: time is of the essence; by the time most musicians and their representatives reach out about issues with royalty payments, the timeframe to object has already legally expired or their leverage is greatly diminished.
Third, it is the attorney’s role to exercise timely audit and other contractual rights as part of a client’s overall legal and business strategy, but at least half of all attorneys assume the business manager will be in charge of prescribing audits, which is rarely the case. This unassigned legal vs. financial purview is what I call “the audit blind spot” and it is how years of statements go unaudited for major artists with great professional representation.
Finally, while audits can be costly and take years to settle, there are varied degrees of auditing. For instance, a desk audit is not a full audit, but simply a review of the information available to our clients (e.g. agreement and statement copies). Other audits take years and cost into the six figures, or more, if they result in litigation. All attorneys with rights holder clientele should procure a trusted auditor’s recommendation on the best approach to meet a particular client’s audit, litigation and royalty needs, which includes advising if an audit is likely to be cost-effective.
In terms of artist royalties, what are some new or emerging music industry trends?
We are busy advising attorneys on a recent UMG class action settlement offer. Although the media is reporting an $11.58 million past relief settlement, less than $8 million will be left after litigation costs in the distributable fund to compensate claimants. Most clients cannot expect to make a lot of money from this past relief settlement offer. If an artist’s digital tracks earned UMG $1 million in revenue during the January 2008 to June 2011 period, his or her share of the distributable fund would amount to well-under $15,000.
Strides towards a new Copyright Act and lifting the consent decree under which performance rights agents operate seem to be gaining traction. The upshot of lifting the consent decree and striking statutory royalty rates would be to give publishers the ability to negotiate fees in a free market, which is likely to increase publishing revenues.
Another trend on which we focus is YouTube. Viacom conducted a study that showed nine of ten active music consumers listened or watched a video on YouTube prior to purchasing music. In this way, YouTube is truly the gateway on the modern music artists’ road to financial success. Also, our clients are making money on YouTube, especially through brand integrations. However, some of the risks posed by YouTube are cannibalized sales, lost sponsorship opportunities and uncollected revenue, so a sophisticated strategy and better execution of that strategy (e.g. investing metadata) are key. We hope that as marketing spending in mobile and interactive advertising balloons, YouTube becomes a significant income stream for more and more content creators.
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Tuesday, May 5 event link: http://calawyersforthearts.org/event-1904617
MSO Press Assets & Photos for Boschan Corp.:
http://www.msopr.com/n/client-roster/boschan-corp/?cmd=downloads
About Cedar Boschan – President, Boschan Corp.:
With over 20 years of music industry experience, accountant Cedar Boschan is well-known for her innovative audits of major entertainment companies on behalf of rightsholders including recording artists, composers, publishers and their heirs. She also consults on community property and estate matters concerning music rights, values damages and gives expert testimony in litigation matters. Boschan serves the Association of Independent Music Publishers as its national treasurer, for New York, Nashville and Los Angeles. She earned a B.S. in Music Industry from The University Of Southern California (USC) in 1999 and has been a featured speaker at the California Copyright Conference, the Beverly Hills Bar Association, SXSW, Loyola Law School and USC. Boschan is a frequently called upon to comment on cases in the media. Interviews with Cedar have been featured in Accounting Today, The Daily Journal and KTLA News (Los Angeles), among others.
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For more information or to arrange an interview with CEDAR BOSCHAN of BOSCHAN CORP. or if you’d like to attend one or more of the speaking engagements, contact:
Libby Coffey / MSO PR
818.380.0400 x224, LCoffey@msopr.com
