Tracks and status

[mdlbear]

Cleanup on 6 more tracks: "Cicero", "Silk and Steel", "Demon Lover", "TEOTW", "Vampire Megabyte", "World Inside the Crystal". That leaves only the four tracks that might still need a little actual work: "High Barratry", which needs to have the .wav file copied out of the concert directory; "Daddy's World", where I still feel there's some work to be done; and "Little Computing Machine" and "Someplace in the Net", both of where I want to go back and compare the last two of my vocal parts to see which is better on which verse. "Daddy's World" has a lot of clicks where my fingernails hit the pick-guard when I strum; not clear whether to try again or leave them in. I've never managed to play that one without clicks, so it might be a lot of frustrating work for nothing.

There are some developments in the non-audio status, too. I've been making notes on the graphics, and decided to ship them off to artbeco to be turned into real Photoshop files by a real artist. The other possibility was to download a trial copy of CS3, struggle through the layout on my own, and come up with something that looks like it was done by a programmer pretending to be a graphic designer. Or throw money at Oasis; their designers are good and professional, but they don't know me and don't have a history with the project.

The remaining tasks are to give the cleaned-up tracks another couple of rounds of listen-and-tweak, get some additional text and logo graphics to artbeco, and to cook up a permission-to-publish form for the performers to sign.

Packrat that I am, I have actually kept all of my old recording permission forms, plus my book contract. I wasn't able to find the work-for-hire contract I signed when I wrote a chapter for Microprocessor Operating Systems. which is unfortunate -- that might have been a useful model.

It's my understanding that the usual practice is to consider session work as work for hire; that would certainly simplify things for me. On the other hand, the work cflute and the other members of Tres Gique have done goes quite a bit beyond that. And in any case, since I'm releasing the whole thing under a CC license, I should put in verbiage explaining that. It's going to get a lot more complicated if Tres Gique starts putting out albums...

Anyone out there have some sample text they could send me? Otherwise I'll just cook up something simple and straightforward based on the stuff in my files.

Comments

[callibr8]

FWIW, work-for-hire is how EC handled the guest appearances on our second, third, and fourth CDs, and how I've done things when I've done flute or vocal tracks for others' CDs. While I haven't any exact verbiage to offer, I do think it's a good model, and you certainly have my permission to distribute things I contributed to by any and all means you deem appropriate.

[mdlbear]

Thanks. It's reassuring to know that my initial idea of using work-for-hire is the right thing to do.

[aerowolf.livejournal.com]

Technically, even if cflute and TG have done things that might go 'quite a bit beyond' work-for-hire in your standard way of looking at it, remember this:

You're the producer. Your job is to find people who can contribute to it. You're also the owner of the project, and you're the one backing it with your fiscal capabilities. Everything else on it is either engineering work, performance work, or artistic work, all of which can fall under "work for hire" rules.

Make sure they get the proper credit for things they've done, so they can add it to their portfolios should they want to find additional session work. That's about the best you can do, unless you want to have to account for royalties in perpetuity. Which I don't think you'd want to do. (Since it would end up going down the path of, at this point, 150 years of copyright and accounting -- you'd end up binding your heirs to the accounting as well.)

[mdlbear]

Good point.

If I really wanted to be totally accurate in my accounting I ought to pay myself, too. And I will have to account for the mechanical license fees I have to pay myself as the songwriter. It cancels out, but it goes on two different lines on the tax forms.

To be even more correct I'd probably have to file two different schedule C's: one for the publishing business and one for me as a songwriter. I don't think I have to go that far; otherwise I'd find myself writing myself a Form 1099. (If I incorporate HyperSpace Express, I would have to go that far, which is one reason why I don't do it.)

[aerowolf.livejournal.com]

The beauty of being a sole proprietor is that you can account for things swapping between different projects (such as 'ownership') without having to have a bill of sale or any money changing hands. The downside to this is that the value of everything that is 'owned' by a particular project must be accounted for as equity if the project ever acquires its own independent legal identity. (Thus, at the time it became the property of the independent entity, you get paid for it by increasing your equity in the entity.)

Schedule C is "individual profit or loss from business". Since the tax return is a summary of everything, unless it's directed that you split the data you summarize you probably wouldn't have to file two separate ones -- if you want to fill them out for your own records (useful in the case of an audit) you can, but generally the IRS doesn't like additional paper in the general returns. (I know Wisconsin doesn't.)

Of course, you need to consult with a tax advisor -- I haven't had to deal with this myself, so I don't have as much experience as would be necessary.

*grumbles* Why does the business of music have to be so complicated?

[mdlbear]

Yeah, I don't have to file separate Sched. C's at this point. And I have a long history of filing royalties on my Sched. C, so it's just a simple matter of double-entry bookkeeping.