Advice Needed
 

Ok as some of you all know my son has a band that just cut their first Demo CD.

Anyway the other two band members the bass player and drummer are brothers.
For the past year all the boys have been practicing in our basement. I provide food and drinks every time they practice which is either 1-2 times a week. The parents are lame because they do not contribute nor support their boys at all. These parents took their 9th grade son of out high school 2 months ago to home school him and he has not even been home schooled, he tells us he sits at home playing video games everyday now.

All the boys knew the recording was coming up 3 months in advance and each had to come up with their portion of the recording fee. I let the parents know as well at the other two boys which had saved up their money for this recording. Well guess what, the parents borrowed the money from the boys to go to a church retreat 2 weeks prior to the recording. My husband and I ended up fronting the entire fee. When we asked them again where their portion was they cried proverty and said they did not have it.

Anyway my question is how do I cut the other boys loose ? I like the boys but, since they are minors I have to deal with their parents. Should I write a contract saying these are the terms of the band etc and if they do not like it they can walk ? I want to make sure I am legally covered.

This is very troubling to me and any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I think when you have a situation such as yours, you need documentation, a good paper trail to cover your own ass, it almost seems like it would have been better to have had this paperwork already.

Good luck.

Sign them to a mangement contract & start keeping track of expenses :D

ok that sounds good but, the parents are asking for a copy of the demo CD, in which they have not paid a dime for. How should I handle that ?

Charge them $10 for each copy :D

ok thats a good figure to charge if they keep insisting on getting their copies. Thank you

Remember that once they have a copy of the demo CD there is nothing stopping them from reproducing it and selling it. Unless of course you have some documentation that states they can NOT until they've paid you back.

Think about it. The second you give them a copy they have no incentive to ever pay you a dime.

I take it there is only three members of the band? hopefully they are not the majority of the band........ keep all receipts...... and get a contract going asap.

Actually there are 4 members total in the band. My two sons and their two sons.

I have kept all receipts etc. Thanks for the advice :)

If you produce music it's best to get it licensed. We did that with our first CD and now we and we alone own the rights to this music.
Our singer/songwriter owns the rights to the lyrics and the entire band owns the right to the music.

It's best that if you intend to do something like this that you make sure who was which rights. If I was you I'd put the entire rights on your sons names.

What I have done thus far is I have sent it to be copyrighted to the library of congress. Which I have a Fedex Reciept for and everything is in my Son's name.

Is that what you mean by licensing ?

pretty much yes, here in Belgium it's an organisation called SABAM (Belgian Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers) didn't know how to call it in the previous post :D

ok cool so I did the right thing so far. I also sent two copies back to myself and i keep it sealed for more copyright protection.

Anyways, if you feel the urge tocheck out my band's picyures + mp3's just go to http://www.orchrist.com :)

but be aware, it's heavy stuff..

And oh yeah, in October/November we will probably be the support band of Therapy... |bananna|

This is kinda off topic but if your boys are the ones writting the songs I would really make sure who owns the rights to the music, im not sure how ya do this outside of Australia, but since their parents dont care and chances are might wanna protect their boys incase all goes to hell, its best to protect your boys and copyright all written material in their name.

You can cut the other boys free and possibly not have to pay them any royalties...if the demo is picked up and signed by a record label 99% chance they will have to record it all over again, aslong as the original demo is never released no royalties are due. We recorded 6 tracks many moons ago and later cut loose a band member, never had to pay him a cent since the material written and recorded wasnt in his name.

One worrying thing is that there are already financial issues before first demo is done, this will only continue. I would look into independant management to protect all the boys involved.