User talk:GreekStar12/Archive 4

Publishers, collection agencies, master ownership/ record financing

Nope, Sony/ATV and it's predecessors, including Michael Jackson's catalogue he merged is COMPLETELY different. Sony/ATV is music publisher, a company which "publishes" a song which is then picked up by record companies under a "mechanical license" issued by the publisher. Publishers literally publish a song and collects a fee payed by the labels, radio stations (the public broadcasters of the material), etc... This fee is then broken down, the publisher keeps a fair chunk and then passes it to the collection agencies on a particular song. Big American collection agencies are ASCAP and BMI. Songwriters register with collection agencies, who in-turn work with the publishers to collect the fees owed by the publisher to their songwriter members.

Check this out, a Rouvas example!!!:

http://www.warnerchappell.com/wcm_2/song_search/song_detail/songview_2.jsp?esongId=856487900&view=splitinfo

So for example, Rouvas' "disco girl" is published by Warner/Chappell Publishing, because the main songwriter who wrote this song works with Warner/Chappell. In fact Andreas Carlsson "controls" the song since it's published through his contract with Warner/Chappell , an imprint they've created for him known as "Andreas Carlsson Publishing Ab". Rouvas' A&R (artist&repertoire) people at the time at Universal Music France/ ULM, his label, scourered the publishers to find suitable songs for him, and they found disco girl.

The song's songwriters then have their own collection agencies, aka collection societies. Carlsson is under Swedish STIM. So when Universal France buys a mechanical license from Warner/Chappel to include the song mechanically on disc, the fee they pay to Warner/Chappell partly is channeled to STIM, representative of Carlsson, to pay his due royalties. Same goes for the other songwriters and their collection agencies. In Greece, the ONLY society/collection agency is AEPI- http://www.aepi.gr/. Even though all the major publishers have offices in Greece to take care of international repertoire, 99% of Greek songs are NOT published. AEPI works directly with the labels; they don't go through publishers. This is probably cuz Greece is a fairly small market (it wouldn't be profitable nor is it particularly complicated as a market) and it's been done like this for decades and stuff... I know as a fact that Sony/ATV and Warner/Chappell have been vying for years to set up publishing for Greek songs from the athens offices, but the AEPI blocks these prospects by locking in Greek songwriters into exclusive contracts that almost mimic publishing contracts- Greek songwriters are therefore unable to work with any other music administrator-type businesses in the territory of Greece. The big publishers have argued that AEPI is rather exploitative and anti-competitive for doing these practices.

On the issue of SRM:
Now that you have a better idea of what exactly is a music publisher and collection agencies, let's go further onto SRM. SRM is basically Sakis' company. He finances his recordings himself, instead of having Minos EMI do it for him. If you make the record yourself, and the label doesn't pay, then you OWN the material, you OWN the MASTERS. What you're getting confused with is with the term "music catalogue", a rather ambiguous term, which is generally associated with music publishing. In Greece, as I said there is NO publishing of Greek songs (except under rare circumstances when a song can go global and the administration of that song is better off taken care by a publisher). However for arguments sake, let's say all those big music publisher offices in Athens of sony/atv, etc., actually did publish Greek music. Well then it would generally not be up to Rouvas who would be the publisher of his songs, but rather it would be determined by the songwriters and who they are associated with. Let's say Kontopoulos had a deal, being a hot commodity right now, with Sony/ATV. Then him being the major songwriter of Rouvas' song, it would be published by Sony/ATV. (again under my hypothetical example). And then Sony/ATV would pay AEPI (Greek collection agency) to which he is a member of, some royalties received for the song from radios and Minos EMI CD/ digital sales. His cheque would come from AEPI. And if any other songwriter with ties to other publishers were associated, for example EMI Publishing, then EMI would have a "piece" (literally a percentage claim) of the song. In fact, very rarely are songs 100% owned by the controlling publisher; there's one publisher, the controller, and a bunch of others who lay claim to the song.

It's very rare that an artist has a publishing company, unless they themselves are generally MAJOR songwriters. Only very few examples exists of songwriters who have their own INDEPENDENT publishers, such as Kara DioGuardi's Caroland (while being represented by BMI collection agency). Even notable singer-songwriters have their own "publisher" which is actually an imprint of the big publishers. Lady Gaga's "House of Gaga Publishing" is an imprint of Sony/ATV. I don't blame artists/composers for not making their own independent publishing companies because the administration of copyrights/royalties/mech. licenses and stuff is so legally intricate it would require multiple full-time specialty lawyers in the field and stuff...(i'm sure you're confused by now yourself lol) ... so there's no reason why you need to run your own publisher (yippy)....just outsource it to the big publishers who know best and you're done!

Back to SRM, so SRM is his own financing company; it produces his work. The work belongs to him, he payed for it after all! He then can take this work to his label, Minos EMI, to which he's under contract with to provide recording content, and he LICENSES the work EXCLUSIVELY to Minos EMI (for a predetermined time- every contract has an expiry legally!). Minos EMI becomes the exclusive licensee of the work and will then act as marketer and distributor, and whatever else the licensing deal stipulates. Sakis will always own the MASTERS of his SRM albums, instead of the label (labels usually finance recordings and projects and therefore end up owning the masters). Should Sakis break up with Minos, then the exclusive license would probably be terminated, and then he can license it to whoever else he likes, whether it be another label or if he ever makes his own record company. This is a VERY COMMON setup in the music industry, especially for independent musicians. Anna Vissi produced her album with Maple Jam abroad. She financed the album herself as well, under her company "Vanilia ltd." named after her cat lol, and Vanilia licensed use of the master to Greek Sony. Sony Greece had no idea what she was doing abroad, no control, no say etc... hence no funding... However, music licensing is integral to the industry so I don't wanna just limit the scope to Greece here.

Conclusion:
1. SRM is NOT a publisher. It does not own rights to a "music catalogue" (in the publishing sense).
2. SRM owns the MASTERS, exclusively licenses them to Minos EMI for marketing/distribution (since Minos EMI did not make it, they do not own the masters) Sakis will always own the masters since he created them and can exclusively licence them to whoever he comes into contract with in the future.
3. SRM is not a record company/label. It doesn't have any label operations, at least not for the time being since Rouvas is still under contract with Minos EMI (i.e. no incentive to begin a label operation, even to sign others). So SRM does NOT belong in the label entry. It's just a graphic placed on the CD as a logo, and along with the copyright notice, signals who is the owner (i.e. master ownership) of the work.

Imperatore (talk) 20:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah Greekstar, you're letting me down! I thought you had good knowledge of the music industry as you have claimed :P. Tell you what, I think I can address every question on my talk page. But to make things more easier for the both of us, literally, I suggest you rearrange all your current questions on my talk page into numbers Q1, Q2 etc.. This is the most efficient and effective way at this point since the issue is so complex/intricate. I look forward to continuing, so get working on posing your questions! lol Imperatore (talk) 22:00, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• 1. I'd hate to get into more rationalization about the Beatles because that was many decades ago, and the business of music was very different (pre Sony/atv) and big publishers etc. To say the "beatles catalogue" is ambiguous, people only say this in the media to simplify understanding. What he bought was Northern Songs, a publishing company, which included the publishing of Beatles songs (aka 'Beatles catalogue'). So he bought a major song publisher and then merged it with Sony/ATV. Secondly, all those singer-songwriter artists you mentioned have publishing deals Sony/ATV, meaning when they write a song they publish it with them. (fyi eminem is not a sony music artist). Shakira, Ricky Martin, and all those sony artists were probably hooked up by sony music, keeping all aspects of their music within sony. But the reality is one song usually has MANY publishers (but only controlled by one publisher), depending on the songwriters associated to it. Sony Music doesn't necessarily only deal with Sony/ATV, that would be simply ludicrous. You can't have songwriters exclusively working for you by your company's publisher etc... Lady Gaga, a Universal artist, writes all of her songs and thus requires a publishing contract in her own right; she has a deal with Sony/ATV and has her own imprint with them called "House of Gaga Publishing".
  2. Masters are very well covered in Master recording, and more specifically under Master_recording#Ownership_of_the_master, the links I previously provided :p. Rouvas does not have a "catalogue", nor does anyone in Greece since there's no Greek song publishing business in Greece. So the term catalogue, under industry terms, the answer is No!. Even if Greek songs were published, catalogues then refer to songwriters, and one song usually has more than one songwriter, and thus only the controlling songwriter to whom the song is published can call that song as part of "their catalogue". So for example, Kontopoulos is signed to Sony/ATV, and Yiannis Doxas is signed to EMI Publishing, and together they write the song Irthes. Well if Konto has the biggest share in the production of the song, say breakdown is 75% and 25%, he would be the controlling songwriter at 75%, and Irthes would be published by sony/atv. But in the ownership breakdown of this sony/atv song, only 75% belongs to Sony/atv (and control status "YES") and the other 25% by EMI publishing (control status NO). Now I think you can see how Rouvas will never have a "catalogue", nor do most singers who aren't songwriters. ---> Masters are what the labels own to which they can issue copies of the disc. Normally if they own the master tape they can use it to issue releases as they wish, but to do so they need to clear all the rights with the music publishers who hold copyright claims to the material on those masters. So a label clears those rights by buying a "mechanical licence" from all the various control publishers of each track on the disc. The contract will say: mech. licence to produce 1million copies, for example. The label pays the rights to manufacture 1million to all the claim holders. 30 years later they can go into their vault, grab the master tape, and buy more mech. licenses to issue another 1million copies. Minos will probably NOT be able to do this 30 years down the road, they don't hold the SRM masters, Sakis does! But they will be able to do so freely with pre-SRM masters. And Universal Music Greece will be able to do so for all the PolyGram masters.
     
  3. VISSI IS BY NO MEANS SEAMINGLY DIFFERENT. Rouvas self-financed Irthes, like Vissi did with Apagorevmeno. For arguments sake, lets ignore Vissi's previous work.... like you mentioned Sony Europe and Moda stuff which is completely irrelevant for this argument, trust me, lol. I don't think Rouvas is innovative for these scheme, even by Greek standards. Not only is music licensing a standard practice throughout, but even in Greece there are many examples. Even Stavento licenses to Sony, for example. What I meant by independent artist is an artist without a major label backing, and not some kind of innovative status. Many independent musicians must book studios themselves, find and hire production personnel, session bands, etc. (since they have no label to do so) and they must find their own money (ie take out bank loan) to finance their recordings/projects. So in reality, what Rouvas is doing is nothing more than what any indie musician does on a daily basis, only he has the power to license it to a major label. As for following in MJ's footstep, there's absolutely no parallel that can be drawn here lol. Thousands of artists have gone to found their own labels, for example, and this to me is "musical entrepreneurship". There's no parallel to be drawn because Rouvas has no association to publishing, like anyone in Greece (for greek songs, of course).
     
  4. Sakis Rouvas Music is a patrimonial company with the main purpose of financing his musical endeavors, and ultimately is the copyright holder of the work. Vissi's is called Vanillia ltd. Stavento's is called Kouinelis ltd. Michael Jackson's was MJJ Productions inc. Thousands of artists, literally!
     
  5. This SR logo is his brand. Now I don't know if SRM is the company that also licences his name as a trademark to toy companies for the dolls, or to clothing companies for the shirts, etc.. Maybe the guy has many companies, and leaves "sakis rouvas music" just to deal with Minos EMI and with financing his records? SR logo - SRMusic, maybe there's a LEGAL connection, but either way, SR name and SRMusic...do we have to bother to make an association?

Imperatore (talk) 23:07, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

If you search sony/atv for greek songs, the only songs that come up are "my number one" (obviously needed to be published cuz it went global- it was better off so) and a couple of songs from C:Real when they did their first album, I believe, with a Sony Music European dance label, dance pool. Since it was a German release, the germans hooked them up the mainstream way to do business. Sony/atv office in athens is responsible for international repertoire only then. At Warner/Chappel, the other major publisher, you find Rouvas' Ola Kala songs (thanks to Andreas Karlsson) and some of Parapirizou's songs, specifically cuz Marcus Englof has a publishing deal with Warner/Chappel Scandanavia (W/P is the controller of some of her songs) as well as Alex Papaconstantinou's deal with Universal Music Publishing Scandanavia. So literally there are only a handful of published Greek songs, and most of these come in this decade with the advent of the globalization of greek music lol. Imperatore (talk) 23:45, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Vissi awards

I responded on my talk page. Not sure if you are watching it or not. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 03:06, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

We have to get it done like now if we wanna get DYK. What's a good hook? Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 18:55, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

The references should be moved to be after what they source. The DYK hook has to be exactly from a source, we can't synthesize (or whatever the word is). Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 19:12, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I think putting the references with the nomination/wins would be better in most circumstances. I mean there are like 10 ref links after one statement, so it's not easy to determine if one occasion was not referenced. I can say that she won 15 awards, but I'm not sure if that is the most interesting thing that can be said. I can't say she broke a record with 4 wins at MAD cause that would be borderline original research since we would be making that up, even if it is true. I'll try a she won blah blah awards at some contest and see if they like it. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 19:35, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Eurovision Newsletter - August 2009

Note: the Newsletter is "collapsed" for convenience. To see the full letter, click on the "show" button at the right end of the gray bar.

If you are no longer interested in WikiProject Eurovision then please remove your name from this list. This Newsletter was delivered by Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 17:03, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

CONTACT

FIRST OF ALL GREEKSTAR12 I DONT KNOW IF YOU ARE GREEK!!!!!!! HELENA PAPARIZOU IS MY FAVOURITE SINGER AND I KNOW EVERYTING ABOUT HER!!! I DONT MAKE MISTAKES!!!! FIRSTLY I COME FROM HER OFFICIAL FAN CLUB WWW.HELENAPAPARIZOUCLUB.GR AND I HAVE SEEN MANY MISTAKES HERE!!!! 1. SHE IS ROCK SINGER 'NOWAND SHE HAS STATED THAT SHE IS ROCK SINGER THE TWO LAST YEARS!THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS THAT SHE WILL RELEASE MANY ROCK ALBUMS FOR GREECE ! 2. THE GAME OF LOVE IS AN ENGLISH ALBUM WHICH IS NOT INCLUDED IN HER STANDARD DISCOGRAPHY!!! HER MAINLY DISCOGRAPHY CONCISTS OF HER FIRST ALBUM PROTERAIOTITA HER SECOND IPARXEI LOGOS AND HER THIRD VRISKO TON LOGO NA ZO !!!!IF YOU WANT DONT WRITE THE GAME OF LOVE ALBUM IN THE LIST OR MAKE AN ANOTHER CATEGORY WITH HER INTERNATIONAL ALBUMS SUCH AS SHAKIRA SECTION!!!! 3. THA MAI ALLIOS IS GOING TO BE RELEASING IN HER 4th BRND NEW CD!!!! SO, THERE;S NO REASON TO WRITE THAT MAY BE THE SONG WILL BE PUT IN A SPECIAL EDITION BECAUSE SPECIAL EDITION WILL NOT EXIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I KNOW WHAT NOTIFICATIONS I DO!!!!! SO LET ME DO MY PROOFREADINGS! SINCERELY, THE OFFICIAL HELENA PAPARIZOU FAN CLUB'S MANAGER —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.107.114.172 (talk) 13:40, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

First of all, I was trying to be nice to you but since you are yelling at me, I'm just going to tell you what I really think! I am Greek, born and raised, and I probably speak it better than you. Secondly, I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT if Paparizou is your favorite singer, you obviously don't know what you are talking about and don't understand wiki guidelines. I doubt that you are the manager of her fanclub, judging by the positioning of your IP, but even if you were, it doesn't matter b/c fanclubs are considered a piece of crap when it comes to WP:RS. There is nothing in the article about a "special edition", but as for the song, you need a reference that says it will be included on the next album. You are probably some 12 year old kid on your parents' computer who thinks that Paparizou is the greatest thing that has ever happened to Greek music b/c you don't know anything about real Greek legends like Nana Mouskouri, George Dalaras, Giannis Parios, Haris Alexiou, Stelios Kazantzidis, Stratos Dionysiou, Giannis Poulopoulos, Haris Alexiou, Marinella, Notis Sfakianakis, Sakis Rouvas, and Anna Vissi. The Game of Love WAS released in Greece, making it part of her standard discography. Shakira is an international star with multiple Spanish and English albums, while Paparizou does not need a seperate column b/c she is NOT notable as an English-language singer and the album was barely even released outside of Greece...and was a total bomb in the countries that it was.

Finally, don't come in here acting like you know everything there is to know; if you know everything about Paparizou that's because there isn't much to know! Paparizou is NOT a rock singer —I mean compare her to the rock legends that I listed before. In fact, she is barely even a real pop singer! I cannot name one song of her's that is truly rock, but at the most barely even pop rock. She was always contemporary laika and her most adventurous work was bubblegum pop, an image she adopted in order to gain popularity after ESC, copying what many other female artists in Greece have done: singing mostly contemporary laika repertoire but adopting and promoting a pop image (Anna Vissi, Despina Vandi, Elli Kokkinou, Peggy Zina ect.). She is just a wannabe who follows trends and has never once had an original idea, even for Greek standards and would compromise artistic expression for mainstream success in a heartbeat.[1] If you read album reviews of hers, you will see that they accuse her of following a trend that is popular now: pop/laiko singers having a slightly edgier wardrobe and adding a few guitar riffs and pretending to be rock stars, smth that Vandi started with 2007's "Thelo".[2] Adding a couple of piercings, leather, and barking like a dog do not make one a rock singer! And in fact, most critics are actually panning or making fun of the ridiculousness of her new look b/c she ain't fooling anyone...kinda like when Britney wore a dominatrix outfit at the VMAs.[3] She's trying to emulate Rouvas and Evridiki but she looks like Michalis Rakintzis (S.A.G.A.P.O.).[4] It doesn't matter if the albums go plat b/c even people who just came out of a reality show can acheive that, not to mention someone who has been around for a decade and won ESC! Here at wiki if an artist notably sang a certain genre and then changed it dramatically, then both would have to be included b/c wiki is not about what's going on now—that's what individual album pages are for; ie Bruce Springsteen ranges between rock and folk and both are included. It doesn't matter if Paparizou tries to perceive herself as a rock singer b/c this is not supported by the music that she is making. She called her last album "more rock than ever" but that's b/c before that she was a negative amount of rock ROFLMAO! I can only name 3 songs on that album that are even rock-flavored. And what do you mean two years ago? Like when she horribly covered the rebetiko "Min Fevgeis"? Her most notable period (following ESC and the ESC song itself) were contemporary laiko and that is the genre she is most-affiliated with. Period. Artists try to BS for their image all of the time, but it has to be supported by their music and critical reception. I can't just go out and say that now that MJ passed away I am the new "King of Pop"...it doesn't work that way. The only real Greek rock singers are Vasilis Papakonstantinou and Lavrentis Machairitsas, and Kalliope and Evridiki for females, while newer artists like C:Real, Nikos Mihas, and Onirama have also made their debuts. Even Sakis Rouvas, who is considered by many to have popularized western music trends and has numerous pop rock/rock/hard rock songs cannot be only called a rock singer b/c he has other genres. Christos Dantis who began with laika songs and is now desperately trying to be perceived as a rock artist cannot be called that just b/c he likes the genre and has done a few live covers. Further proof is that she has never once been nominated for awards in any rock category and her albums aren't rated there either.[5][6][7] [8] Paparizou should learn how to sing basic pop tunes first and leave the rest to talented artists.

Νομίζεις ό,τι χιέζομαι για την άσχημη φάτσα της Παπαρίζου ή την άσχετη φωνή της?? The truth is that I do not in anyway care about Paparizou and believe that artists like her compromise the quality of the music industry with limited talent and no original ideas, however, I HAVE BEEN one of the biggest contributors to her page since I began here and have added many refs and cleanups b/c the goal of me and three other main editors is to get Greek music articles into good shape. Do you notice how I am not the only editor reverting your edits? Check the edit history! Wikipedia is a factual encyclopedia that gives neutral points of view to a mass audience, not a place for you and your forum buddies to promote your favorite singer's new project. We are established editors on wiki and you are the one who will be blocked if you do not co-operate. We tried being reasonable.GreekStar12 (talk) 15:55, 10 September 2009 (UTC)