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ritch: we�re very happy to welcome my friendand music attorney ben mclane. �ben, great to see you. thanks so much for doing this. �the first question i want to ask is, youas a music attorney today, you have so much change. we�ve been talking so much about the changesthat have gone on the music business. can you talk about what you feel are the mostimportant things form a legal standpoint that a band or an artist starting out their careershould be aware of foundationally? ben: i don�t think it has changed that muchjust because of the new technology its still

the basic things like if you if you have aband there is four or five people in it, so its a partnership situation. �sometimes everyone is equal and sometimesthey are not. �so i certainly encourage any band to havesome internal band agreement or bad partnership agreement. �they don�t have to necessarily form acorporation or an llc because that is an additional expense. � ben: but some people do that, but somethingin writing just so its clear, like who owns

the name, how do you split the profits? �are the expenses split equally? �what happens if somebody leaves the band,which is common with newer bands. issues like that, is everybody going to sharethe songwriting equally, the copyrights equally, because in some situations not everybody writsin a band, or else they write on different levels. ben: and there has been some misunderstandingthat i have noticed between artistic people about really what a copyright is and whattheir share of things are. �i know some famous bands i�ve heard likeu2 and rem will split everything equally regardless

of who did what, van halen too. �which i think if you look at the longevityof those groups from a group harmony level that is smart, because everybody feels likethey are vested. �if you are a professional i would assumeyou can work as hard as you can and not just be lazy. but i have had a lot of situations where youhave a bandleader who kind of feels like they carry more of the weight. �they always want to split everything equallybut if that is going to be the case it needs to somehow be solidified in writing so thereis no misunderstanding.

ben: and then things like filing for the trademarkjust to protect the name because thats the brand. �pre and post internet the brand the nameis very valuable and still is. �so people should take care of that andmake sure they have that protected and search. �with the internet now its a lot easierto do a search. �it never use to be to find out if thereis some conflicting ban name out there because thats another common problem with bands. �they just think there is a cool name andthey don�t really care if anybody else has it they just want to take it and then theyfind out later, well i have to change it.

i go through that probably more than anythingbelieve it or not. ritch: really? ben: ya, band names, a serious problem. �you would think you know there�s allthese cool, unique ways of phrases, names, even foreign names. �but for some reason people grab the obvioussometimes. �so you know, copyrighted material, allthese things are important regardless of the new technologies and the new media. �so those are the basic things.

then a lot of the things that are not legalrelated i get involved with is just encouraging people to use all these new technologies toget more exposure for themselves. so hopefully they�ll be in a good positionto have an opportunity to profit from their names. �there is a reason they did all these legalthings in the first place. �so they had a long career and when issuescome up they are already protected. ben: before hand, when we got into the businessit was really pre internet and it was just a lot of going down and hand shaking, passingout fliers, whatever now, you do that on the internet.

�but the global audience is pretty cool. ritch: �right, but at the same time i wouldthink because everybody can do it the challenge is getting peoples attention, thats the challengebecause so many people are doing that on the internet we�re all overwhelmed with thattoday. �where people are sending songs, i meanevery morning when you get into your office you must have hundreds of emails, legitimateemails from people like you know listen to my music, where it must get overwhelming. ben: ya, i am not even an a&r person so ican�t even imagine what its like for them. �although sometimes we feel like we arebecause of a lot of youth in an a&r person

you look to agents, managers, lawyers, andsort of filter things out. so i feel sometimes i am an a&r person ina strange way. a lot of times its the way the artist presentsthemselves whether its on the internet or in person its just having a great subjectline or having that great elevator pitch or in 10 seconds you could get out there andits something thats going to hook somebody into wanting to really investigate the musicand the image and whether its something to check out. so there is an art to that i think you knowsome artist are smarter than others obviously and some work harder than others.

�but anything less is more, really for anybody. �just hey, i got one song, check it out. �here is a photo here is a link if you likeit there is more information opposed to writing a book, which some people do, to verbose. ben: and most people, don�t have time rightnow. i�ll get to it later and then they neverdo because everybody is busy. ritch: right, do you get more and more materialsubmitted to you over the internet vs. actual packages to your office? ben: yeah, i get very few, i�ve been noticingthat, very few cds, physical cds these days.

�it is mostly links or mp3s, some kind ofstreaming site, which i prefer the streaming sites, actually i prefer a cd because i amin the car a lot. �if you are stuck in traffic it is kindof nice to slip in a cd in and out a couple seconds to see if it is good, investigate. �but i hate downloading and attached files. �it takes up space and time. �you know these soundcloud sites that isone click and it plays, its very simple. ritch: let me ask you something, you knowyou have worked with a lot of artists in different stages of their careers, and i am curiousat what point do you feel an artist needs

to get legal representation or needs to havean attorney? �is it at the beginning when they�re doingthe foundational elements that you are talking about? �is it later when representation is goingto come in the form of a recording offer or contract with sony? �at what point do they need an attorneyto be involved in their business affairs? ben: �well because its such an indie typeof business and you may never get a recording agreement i obviously encourage most actsact as if you are never going to get one because if you are going to be serious about yourcareer and its a business, you have formed

a real business, and act like its a real business,and if you are going to be a serious artist i think early on you should do the basics,the partnership agreement, the trademark, the copyrights, whatever other things arenecessary. �and obviously if somebody does offer yousome kind of exclusive long-term piece of paper. yes, you should have lawyers take a look atthat. �whether you�re new or old or whateverthats just never, i certainly encourage people never to sign anything legal without somekind of experienced counsel before. its definitely worth it because you can justbuy an hour of an attorney�s time have them

take a look and at least get an opinion onit if you don�t have much money. ben: you don�t have to spend thousands ofdollars necessarily. �i think thats a misconception about, people�think lawyers are just too expensive and i�m not saying that they are cheap, obviouslybecause they have gone to school forever, they have paid their dues so they can makemoney. �but you necessarily always have to buta lot of attorney time just kind of get an idea with this, is it bad or good, you know. ritch: so never signing before you�re agreementis checked out? ben: i think so, i can�t tell you how manymesses i have to clean up because people after-the-fact

find out they signed paperwork of course wantto get out of the deal, which isn't always easy. ritch: did they sign an agreement withoutany kind of advice? ben: a lot of times, still today you�d think,i mean there�s especially with the internet, you can find a lawyer or music business consultantor whatever which i don�t encourage that so much. �i really think you should have a entertainmentexperienced lawyer, not just a lawyer, you know what i mean? ritch: yes, absolutely.

ben: because we don�t do bankruptcy or divorce,we don�t do that because we don�t have any experience in that. �but i think because of the internet, peoplehave access to legal contacts than they probably ever did before. it doesn't have to be la, it could be newyork, nashville, could be europe. but there is a lot of lawyers out there.