Once you are sure of what you expect of yourself in the coming years, then here are three pragmatic steps that should help you achieve your goals:

#1: Align everything that you do in life towards your goal
Very often students who dream of becoming a musician tend to take up graduate courses that have little in common with music, and this only takes them away from their dreams. All your time and energy is spent on studying something that is not in line with your life’s goals.
Another issue might be with self-belief. Even though you might know what you want to do, you don’t necessarily take the steps to make it happen such as meeting people who can help you and so on and so forth.

#2: Associate yourself with people who support your goal
While you cannot change your family, you can change your friends, and perhaps, it’s better to rid yourself of people who don’t support you or your dreams. Associate yourself ONLY with people who do.

#3: A successful mentor can often make the difference
While you might have the drive, the skills and the contacts to get your professional aspirations on track, one definitely cannot rule out the need for a mentor who can help you with important choices that you will have to make along the way.

Of course, you can’t just play their music without a license, and without paying them a royalty as well.

So, how do you get a license to reproduce a song?
Here’s what you need to do to get permission to reproduce a song while also ensuring that the owner gets his or her due:

#1: Finding the copyright holder
Right off the bat, all you need to do is find the copyright holder of the song that you want to release, and pay them royalties for the music that you wish to perform. All you have to do is look for this information at the websites of BMI, ASCAP and SESAC. You can clarify the copyright owners by checking for information at the Music Publishers Association as well.

#2: The US Copyright Office
Now, you will also have to deal with the copyright office in order to obtain the license while also paying the royalty fees for the number of units that you would like to sell as an artist or band. They will send you a written agreement to get your signature and will issue the license, and send you a copy of that as well, for your records.

These two steps will ensure that you won’t face lawsuits later for copyright infringement!

Blame it on the ingenuity of the mp3 and the reach of the internet but what everyone agrees with is that the way music is promoted or distributed has changed and so has the landscape of the music business altogether.

There’s another side to the debate that can’t be ignored either. Since most record labels use CDs to sell the music of artists and bands, they normally charge about $ 16 or so even if the buyer wants to listen to one ‘popular’ song on that album.

Music labels counter this argument by stating that they spend a lot of money making the album and promoting it, and therefore these costs are justified.

Yet there’s one thing that both sides are cognizant of: you can’t stem piracy while it uses the internet as its medium. Who can stop anyone from uploading mp3s onto a website?

Consumers are protected by the ability of ‘fair use’ which states that a copy of the CD or DVD that they have purchased can be copied provided it is used for education, research, criticism or news reporting.

But while the debate rages on, as to whether this is ethical or not, perhaps it is in the best interests of the music industry to use the internet and the widely-used mp3 format to promote their artists and bands instead of fighting against the flow.

If you don’t understand the language used (and in most cases, you won’t), it’s time to find someone who will (since money is involved) but while you do this, here are a couple of things that you must look for on the record contract:

#1: Royalty rates
For every CD that is sold, the band will receive a royalty whose rate will be specified on the contract. However, you must be aware that there are certain situations in which you will not receive the stipulated royalty rate, and for this you will have to find someone to sift through the jargon.

#2: Recoupment
Very simply, this involves paying money back to record label for the expenditure that they have incurred such as an advance, studio time and promotion. It is only once the band covers this “loan” do they start receiving payments in royalties.

#3: The Recording Fund
Instead of handing out bands an advance, record labels have set up a recording fund which is really the recording budget & the advance rolled into one. This is for purpose that musicians stay efficient in the studio while getting to keep the remaining amount if they manage to stay within the budget.

If you’re still confused, let’s review this distinction briefly. While the record label owns the version of the song that you have recorded with them, you, as a band, own the complete creative rights to the song that you can perform anywhere else.

So if anyone wishes to ‘publish’ your song, they have to pay royalties but for that to happen, you have to issue them a license. Since there are so many kinds, sometimes a publisher can help you collect these royalties from the people who use your songs in different ways.

For example, if someone wants to perform your song live, they will have to pay you a royalty every time this is done. Secondly, every time someone makes a physical copy of your song/s, you get a royalty for that as well.

Also, when the score of your music is published anywhere (known as a print license), you receive royalties for this as well.

Finally, when your song is used as a movie soundtrack, in a commercial or as background music, you can obtain a license for this as well.

And in knowing this, you should be able to maximize, in terms of money, on your creative talent.