I thought I might be done with the business stuff and could focus my attention on the mastering and editing the video. I will, very soon. I’d love to have this finished and released. So, here is what I have accomplished since my last post.

My PayPal account was converted from a personal account to a business account. I signed up and became a member of the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies. The AARC collects and distributes royalties stemming from the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. These royalties come from the sales of personal audio devices, blank CDs, media centers and the like. Since I am the featured artist on my album and my LLC is the recording company, it made sense to sign up. It is free to sign up. I also submitted my application to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO to trademark my logo. It will be about 3 months before it even gets reviewed and then probably another 3-6 months before I hear anything from them. This task was the one I put off as it is very detailed and a little tedious to complete. Some folks hire a trademark attorney to get it done. You need to research your name and mark (logo) to make sure no one else is using it. Doing the process I did grants federal protection. By using the common law mark of _^TM or _^SM you may have statewide protection. Some states do allow you to register your mark, but then it is only in that state. In my area it is very easy to work in neighboring states…well it was before COVID-19.

After the release there are a few places you may want to register your song. For starters…ALLMUSIC. Their data provider is TiVo. I’ve linked the submission page. ALLMUSIC is a comprehensive resource to find out more about a song, the artist, the writer or musicians on the track or album. Discogs does kind of the same thing. It shares information about all artists and all labels. It is a public music database. I’ve linked their submission guidelines. Lastly, I’d like to share with you Nielsen Soundscan. I will be getting my UPC from DistroKid, my digital distribution company. You’ll need your UPC to register your song with Soundscan so your sales can be tracked. Go to Nielsen Soundscan Title Registration and Nielsen Soundscan ISRC Registration. You will probably also want to claim your Spotify page and Apple Music page once you have your music released. Don’t forget to copyright your final master of your sound recording if you own the master.

Keep yearning and learning!