Last updated
April 13, 2009
Page maintained by Adrian A.
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Some members of our Jewish music community have begun work in earnest on creating a Jewish Music clearinghouse and musician's collective, as well as a formal copyright education campaign. If you have some knowledge in the areas of copyright, rights agencies like ASCAP, BMI, ACUM, licensing agencies like Harry Fox or Christian Copyright Licensing, Inc. we encourage you to become part of the committee spearheading this effort. Contact Marsha Fensin at mfsings@wi.rr.com or Adrian Durlester at adrian@ehavanashira.org
Adrian presented a pre-conference workshop at CAJE 30 for members of the music community to discuss and have input into the project. In addition, Adrian presented a full session at CAJE entitled "Honoring Our Sources," which is the initial presentation for our Copyright Education Campaign.
At CAJE 28, August 2003, there were wonderful workshops and roundtables organized by Judy Caplan Ginsburgh and the CAJE Music Network. Discussions continued at Hava Nashira 2004, and at CAJE 29 with the help of Music Network co-chairs Kathy Gohr and Marge Eiseman. At these informative and productive sessions, workshops and roundtables, as well as at other times, the many of us who were there began to get a good sense of the kind of things needed by our community. These include:
JVibes's petition effort, as with previous efforts, noted below, to get NARAS to create a Jewish Music category was unsuccesful, so they decided to create their on awards, the Jammy, or JVibe Music Awards. 2007 results will be announced in March or April. Here's a list of the nominees.
Linda Yelnick (leahhaifa@usa.net) has been at the forefront of the effort to create a Jewish Grammy category. Anyone who is eligible to join NARAS should do so. Linda now sits on a local NARAS board. She has twice submitted proposals for a Jewish Music category, and twice the proposal has been turned down. Considering that Native American Drumming and Polka have their own categories, we think Contemporary Jewish Music deserves one as well.
The purpose is to make obtaining mechanical license and other rights easy. Jeff Klepper, Judah Cohen and I are beginning preliminary examination of this project. Anybody know of a potential donor to support such a massive undertaking? Anybody else what to be part of this effort? For those of you who don't understand what this is all about, visit http://www.harryfox.com and visit http://ww.cmpamusic.org to see what the Christian Music world has done for themselves. Eventually, such a clearinghouse could also work with ACUM to make it easier to obtain clearances for works by Israeli artists as well.
While there are plenty of distributors out there (Tara, Soundswrite, Hatikvah, Sisu, ARE, etc.), everybody can't carry everything. Companies like CD Baby and Amazon are making it easier for us to sell our CDs. And PayPal makes it easy to sell via your own web site. Some still think, however, that if we had our own Jewish Musician's Cooperative, perhaps independent, or perhaps affiliated with CD Baby or some other organization, that would make it possible for more people to have easier access (and perhaps make it easier for those without the retail savvy that some of us have.) We'd take orders and fulfill them, do some advertising, and make samples available on the web. (Note to Randee, Joel, Velvel, et al--this isn't intended to be competition, and we'd want to set it up with your blessing and cooperation. At this time, it's just an idea that came up which sounded interesting.) One important issue, which I'll raise up front, is whether this collective should be open to anyone who can pay the fee, or whether some audition and approval process is needed to assure some quality control. I'll make no secret that I favor the latter, but still want it to be as open as it can possibly be without sacrificing standards.)
In addition to a distribution channel, there are many artists who don't have the time, know-how, or wherewithal to handle many of the business aspects. Another idea being kicked around for the collective would be to make some services available like website design and hosting, business management services (contracts, travel arrangements, bookkeeping, bulk, direct and targeted mailings, block advertising, order processing, order fulfillment and shipping, phone and e-mail answering service, tax preparation, etc.), booking referrals (NOTE-this collective would not operate as an agent or artist's rep and would not book artists-let's leave that to Abi Cotler, Linda Yelnick, Goldenland, and others who are the professionals at it. It would, however serve as a referral service, just as Judy does with JER and Moment does with its listings.) It could also offer mentoring services, and potentially producing, business manager and similar services.
Discussion of these initiatives are taking place on the hanashir discussion list (hanashir@shamash.org. It is the best place to begin hashing out some of these ideas. Let's have at them. Just remember, it's Elul. Don't write anything to the list that you might wind up adding to the list of things you need to answer for at Yom Kippur. (To join the list, send a message to listproc@shamash.org with the following text in the body: subscribe hanashir yourfullname. Be sure to send it from the address at which you wish to be subscribed.)
Also, please note that I am serving as the reporter and messenger here. I don't claim to be the owner of any of these ideas, nor am I endorsing them all (although I do think they all have some potential, and being for a Grammy category is a no-brainer.)