The Creative and The Law: Recent Episodes
Adewunmi Adeusi
As a creative, you must understand that there are two sides to your craft. The Creative side and the Business side. The creative side is the expression of your art, whether it is singing, writing, performance, designs, and paintings. While the business side includes organization, optimization, planning, and legals. This is what I’m here to help you with.
Don't just know your craft, know the business of your craft.
Do you know one of the reasons why artists and Creatives have management teams is to regulate their conduct and behaviors to the public? The way you are perceived by your audience and fans plays a major role in the success of your business as a creative. This episode aims to help the creative build proper ethical behavior in his business.
Which would you prefer, 10,000 followers or 10,000 dollars? I’m not downplaying importance of having good numbers on social media, it all depends on what you do with them. It is not just enough to have social media followers, more importantly you need to know how to convert those followers to fans who are dedicated to your craft. This episodes talks about basic ways you can achieve that conversation.
Like they say, when you have someone doing everything for you, they can take everything from you. No matter who you hire to handle the business side of your craft, it is important that you are involved. This episode teaches you how you can be involved even when dealing with professionals.
There are two sides to every successful creative business, the Creative side, and the Business side. There has to be a perfect blend of passion and organization, spontaneity and structure to achieve success in your business as a creative. This business side is what I'm here to help you with.
This episode addresses a common question of whether instrumentalists are entitled to music royalties. Listen to hear what my stand and opinion are.
This episode flows from the previous episode where I laid the foundation of Music Royalties. In this episode I went a little further by explaining the kind of copyright that exists in a song. Every song has two copyrights and I broke them down in a way that anyone can understand. The aim of this episode is for every musician to be able to define their contribution to a song and to determine what they are entitled to as a result of that contribution. ENJOY!
This episode dives a little bit into the music business. Royalties are the primary way musicians are paid, they are the revenues earned from the use of musical works. I began this topic first by explaining the types of Royalties, which are aimed at helping music professionals and composers identify the different ways by which they can make money from their works.
Many people often ask, when a creative is an employee who owns the rights to the works created by the Creative. In this episode I addressed this conversation blending the law and the industry practice. I’m sure you will find it educative.
Precisely on the 23rd of February 2022, I got arrested by the Nigerian police and was taken from Ojuelegba(Lagos State) to Asaba(Delta State. Listen to the full gist.
There have been several conversations and arguments as to whether music producers are entitled to copyright. Some people think they should and some others think they shouldn’t, both answers could be correct depending certain conditions. This episode gives an insight into the conditions that makes a producers eligible for copyrights. This is relevant for both music artists and music producers.
Many creatives in our part of the world are not open-minded to documenting terms and agreements. This of course many times hurt the process of their work. In this episode, I intend to first change your perspective about contracts and agreements, then show you a few things to look out for when drafting or reviewing an agreement. Enjoy!
The contribution of a performer to the execution of creative work cannot be overemphasized. The law does not only protect the rights of copyright owners and authors, but it also recognizes and protects the rights of performers. This episode is focused on enlightening the performer on his rights and how they can be protected. A performer includes musicians, actors, comedians, spoken word artists, voice-over artists, etc.
As an artist or a creative, the last thing you want to receive in your mailbox or on your desk is a letter notifying you of infringing on another person’s rights. This episode is to guide you on how to avoid making such careless mistakes while creating your works, it discusses various ways rights can be obtained and also situations where works can be used without obtaining a license or permission from the right owners.
This episode aims to give a general overview of the topic of copyright. It is an introductory episode that addresses three major things. The definition of Copyrights, the categories of works eligible for copyrights in Nigeria, and the exclusive rights of a copyright owner.