Glossary

A&R – The artist and repertoire department at a label responsible for developing and producing a recorded music project by an artist.

Advance – This is an amount of money given to the songwriter by a publisher or given to an artist by a record company as a recoupable inducement to sign a contract with the company.

All-in – This is a single royalty rate paid to the recording artist by the company which includes both the royalty for the artist and for the producer of the recording.

Arbitration – Using a third party, not a court, to assist in the resolution of a dispute.

Arbitron – This is a subscription audience measurement service used by radio to measure the size of listenership.

Barkeep – The person responsible for the operation and management of a barroom; sometimes this term is used as a reference to a bartender.

Billboard – The oldest American trade magazine serving the music business and the radio industry.

Bottom line – This is a euphemism referring to whether a company makes or loses money resulting from its business operations.

Cartage – The service of a company that transports musical instruments, typically in small trucks, from one location in a town to another.

CMJ – An industry magazine and website focusing on college radio programming.

Commission – Commission is a percentage of an artist’s income paid to a manager.

Compulsory license – The required license issued by a song publisher to permit an artist to record a song that has previously been recorded and released commercially is called a compulsory license.

Conflicts of interest – Conflicts of interest are those business relationships someone has that may cause their decisions to be made on their own behalf rather than for the benefit of the person or company they represent.

Controlled composition – This is a song that an artist both writes and performs on an album.

Cross collateralization – When a label does not recoup from an artist’s first album, royalties due the artist from the second album are used to repay, or cross collateralize, the first.

Cut and Paste – The practice of copying text or graphics and inserting them into electronic documents.

Demographics – Determining characteristics of populations of people.

EPK – An electronic press kit is a video that includes brief biographical information, an interview, and often segments of music videos.

Estate – Assets of someone who is deceased.

Firewall – From a technology standpoint, a firewall is software that restricts access by another computer to an individual computer or a network of computers.

Gatekeeper – Someone who has the ability to say yes or no regarding providing access to key career resources.

Gates – A slang term referring to the total ticket sales at a concert.

Generational attributes – The differences between generations of people and the qualities that make them different.

House sound and lights – These are sound and lighting systems that are a permanent part of a performance venue, and are owned and often operated by the venue.

Hub – A touring industry term meaning an artist leaves the town where a tour is based, travels to the performance, and returns to the base. The tour travel map resembles a wheel with the trips out creating spokes attached to a wheel hub.

Major label – This is one of the large labels such as Warner Bros. or Universal Vivendi.

Mechanical license – This is the permission given by the publisher of a song for someone to be the first to record it and sell it. The mechanical license includes a provision for payment for the use of the song, usually on a per-unit sold basis.

Milestone – A point within a strategy that checks the progress of reaching a goal. When the milestone is reached, question whether it shows progress and is on time. If it is, celebrate it and keep moving toward the goal.

Minor – Someone who is under eighteen years old.

Nontraditional revenue sharing – This is giving a percentage of music publishing royalties, ticket sales, and merchandise sales to a record company as an incentive to agree to sign a recording contract, especially with a new artist. Traditional revenue for a record company is money earned from the sale of recordings.

Overage – Overage is the amount of excess earnings from a performance that is due entirely to the artist.

PDA – A personal digital assistant is a hand-held computer commonly found with brands such as Palm Pilot, Treo, Axim, and Blackberry.

Pollstar – A weekly industry trade magazine that reports the sale of tickets to performances by music artists.

Pop culture – A contemporary lifestyle, and the things and ideas that are currently valued by those living in that manner.

Power of Attorney – A legal document that gives someone the legal right to sign another’s name to a document on their behalf, typically within limits that are prescribed by the person awarding the authority. In the music business, an artist manager often signs concert performance contracts and licensing agreements on behalf of an artist.

Price and positioning – A label uses price and positioning when it offers a recording at a retail store for a discounted price and also has it placed for sale in a high-profile position in the store, such as an end cap.

PRO – A performing rights organization, such as ASCAP or BMI, collects revenue for the commercial public performance of copyrighted songs. Money collected by a PRO is for the songwriter and the publisher, not for the record company.

Publishing contract – This is an agreement between a publisher of written music with a songwriter. The publisher agrees to exploit the songs and the songwriter agrees to write them for the publisher in exchange for a percentage of royalties.

Radio & Records – One of two major American trade magazines serving the music business and the radio industry.

Recoup – This is when a record label withholds royalty earnings and applies them as payment for expenses that the artist has agreed to pay, such as the cost of hiring an album producer.

Ring back – This is the “ringing” sound heard by a caller to a cell phone.

Ring tone – This is the sound a cell phone is programmed to make when it rings.

Settlement – This is the meeting, usually immediately following a live performance, at which a concert promoter reviews income and expenses from the event with a representative of artist management and pays money due the artist.

SoundScan – A proprietary service that accounts for and reports to subscribers the actual number of unit sales of recorded music in the United States and Canada.

Split point – The split point is where the promoter has earned their agreed-to percentage and the artist has earned their guarantee, with any excess earnings from the performance being “split” between the two.

Sponsorship – A fee paid by a company to a music artist to associate its brand with the artist, typically at performances.

Stage plot – This is the diagram of stage and its wings on the side of the stage that indicate where the performers and equipment will be during the performance.

Subordinate goal – A lesser goal that is part of an overall strategy to reach a major goal in an artist’s career. For example, a goal to learn the structure of commercial songs would support a major goal of signing with a major song publisher.

Sunset clause – A provision in an artist management contract to pay a reduced commission to a manager after a contract has ended.

SWOT analysis – An assessment of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the subject of the analysis.

Tour support – This is money advanced by a record label to an artist to help offset expenses that will be incurred from touring to support a recording that has been released commercially.

Trust – A trust is an account established and managed by one person for the benefit of another.

Venue – The physical location of a musical performance.

Voice tone – This is “artist spoken word clips used for everything from phone ringers to subscription messages.” (Milom, 2006)