Ecopalooza, phewww

Played at a music and arts festival called Ecopalooza at a place called Funky's Backyard with May Ling.

The journey to the place was quite challenging. Used Google Maps, and we eventually realized that it was in the middle of the jungle. Line was not that good in there, if any at all. The road leading to the place was not really a great one, and it was too narrow to be a 2 way road - so you could imagine the tussles happening when cars from another direction is coming thru. As it was getting darker, the creepier it got.

At one point, the feeling of turning back hit me. But then.. since I promised the organizer.. so just go ahead la..

When we reached, I got thought to myself "wahh got river here??? The people dancing in the river don't feel cold??" Walking further in, there were tiny wooden houses and tents here and there, as well as many shirtless people. aiks.

The stage was on a higher ground - like a mini hill, deeper into the jungle. We performed our set, and met this cool solo singer Fabian. Cool voice.

Back home now from the jungle phewww. Going to watch criminal minds episodes on youtube now to chill :)

A new project...

hmm.... decided to really re-visit my computer sc college days a little more seriously.

Been helping people out do some simple website here and there, and also the wendy wednesday official page. Never did take the trouble to write a software... which would be much to my lecturers' disappointment I'm sure, ended up in another industry instead.

Now am doing a web site, but something much more interactive. Hope I'll see it through and not give up half way! The thing that inspired me to do this is... music haha. Tht's all I'll be saying for now about this :)

Digital Music dilemma

I signed up with CD Baby, a digital music distributor based in US.

Good thing about it is that it looks trustworthy and it partners with iTunes, so I'd be able to get my music onto iTunes too. I can't put my song on iTunes myself because iTunes will only deal with you if you have 20 albums to put in the store. Which I don't, of course.

And then.... when I tried to upload a song to be sold, it says that I need to pay a one-off fee of $14.95, which would be about RM45. Huhhhh! Then I thought... hmm.. okay.. I might consider it...

And then, the payment method (when people purchase the song and CD Baby wants to pay me), it's either by cheque (with $1.50 fee for each cheque issued), by bank account (only for US bank accounts!), or by PayPal (which PayPal will charge 2.4% to 3.4% + RM2.00 MYR). Like this... with the song only sold at $0.99, cannot la...

Checked around for Malaysian digital distributor... still don't have.

Royalties and the Music Publishing

MACP is a performing rights organization and they would now be collecting royalties on my behalf on each broadcast / performance of my songs.

They have this list of TV and radio stations they will check and collect the royalties from, other than that I will have to rajin-rajin notify them. And I will receive the royalties at the end of each year only. But if the amount at the end of the year is less than RM100, then I'll have to wait for the next year or next next year or whenever until the amount they need to pay me is at least RM100 hmmm :-/

But I did ask kak Aishah from MACP... if say, a company wants to use my song for example, for an advertisement, and they ask me "how much should we pay for royalty", what do I answer? She says that the amount and all - a publishing house should work it out for me. And then I asked if my record label could do the publishing work, but she says can't.. I would need to open a publishing company to do that.

After searching the web, it says that performing rights organizations like MACP will require those people who want to use my music - to apply for a license of which they have to pay a fee to MACP. From the license fees collected, MACP will distribute the monies back to the authors, composers and publishers (the royalty payments). So.... I don't need a publisher rite...? That's how I see it.

However, I did look around the web to see what a publisher could do for me.
From what I read, the publisher would:

a) pay me advance money to own 100% of the song. Our royalties - split 50-50. And that advance money I received earlier, they will be collecting it back FROM MY ROYALTIES part. So, I will not receive any royalties until they get back their money.

b) register my songs on MACP

c) Get the record label and any other parties who needs to use my music - to apply for license from MACP to use my music

d) to market my music around to people to get them to use my music


50% goes to publisher? Choke! Choke!
BUT, there is another type a publisher - the administrative publisher. They take in about not more that 20% of the royalty amount. What do they do? Item (b) and (c) above.

So, Do I NEED a publisher?

And now I realize what kak Aishah meant by I would need a publisher to settle the case above - where it concerns a company trying to use my song for their advertisement - the publisher will need to make sure that the company applies for the licensing with MACP and pay the fee! Unlike radio and TV stations which have already registered the licensing with MACP, there are many companies out there which are not registered.

Other than the matter above, I think having a publisher would also be good when they would market my songs around... But for the song registration part, I don't have any problem because I'm already a MACP member and it's easy now to register the songs... Hmm.....

IF I decide not to sign with a publisher, will I need to open my own publishing company?? I thought at the moment I'm self-publishing. I don't really need to open a publishing company to do this because I automatically own all publishing rights since I'm the creator of the song rite...

MACP!

Today was a nice day. Had lunch with JD, and then went to get this! I feel so proud receiving my cert as a member today from Music Authors' Copyright Protection (MACP). I feel so happy.

Helo Helo on "The Games of our Generasi"

This video on YouTube is so adorable ha ha. It has "Helo Helo" track in it!

I feel happy that they wanted to use Helo Helo :)

At Mulberry's soft opening

Went for the soft opening of Mulberry, a restaurant managed by my friend Ramesh. Nice place and cool food :)