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LINK: http://www.atlantic-artists.com/index.en.phpMy girlfriend, Jillian, got an email from these guys via Broadjam.com saying that they wanted to place dance/electronic music for three individual jobs (they gave "job numbers" as well). They informed her to go to their site and use the contact form, specify the job #s, and write "Special Services" to respond if she was interested. Presumably, they were contacting her because they saw *our* track "Breathing You In" on the Broadjam charts, topping several of them. I actually produced the song and wrote most of it (Jill performed and wrote the vocal parts), but my name wasn't on the Broadjam listing for some reason. So, I decided to email Atlantic Artists explaining what happened and saying that I am interested in possible licensing, I want more info, etc. They then responded with what looked like a stock email, after three days:
With great gratitude I thank you for you interest to work with Atlantic-Artists.
We are a management, production and publishing company and we work with hundreds of different musical establishments. Every week we receive thousands of requests for Major and Independence TV/Radio and Media company music placements. We also work with a lot of Agencies and Music supervisors who are looking for something new to put out on the market. By responding to the request you are given a great opportunity of working with some amazing music companies and get in your music out.
Unfortunately, to represent your submission in our A&R department we are in need of the following items: hard copies of your music, bios, pictures, video etc.
please send your submission package to:
Atlantic Artists A&R Department/Submision PO Box 118 Brigantine, NJ 08203 USA
If our A&R department decides to represent you in Media and Record industry, you will be informed by immediate email. We will also include a 24 Month NON-exclusive contract and all the details of what happens next. Again, Atlantic-Artists Entertainment is NOT a Record Label, but we have huge opportunities with the best contract conditions. In our artist roster are a few hundred musician, composer, and artists names. Among those also include awarded established artists which we have been working with for many years.
If you are interested in a ONE time submission only, please let me know right away an I will personally send you a link with instructions to what is supposed to be done.
Once again we thank you for having interest in Atlantic-Artists Entertainment.
We wish you luck!
Hmmm... well, I don't see them asking me to pay them money outright, that's always a plus. But a red flag is going up for me because THEY solicited ME (indirectly) but then are asking me to sign up for a service or enter into an agreement, rather than place the music directly. Upon checking their website they charge a nominal fee ($15-25) to send my info to "contacts". They call this "personal representation". But they also offer "professional services" which seem to extend to further marketing, promotion, distribution, and placement. Does it cost more money? I can't tell. On the other hand, it seems (in the email) like they are selective, and "non-exclusive" is something I always like to hear.. So, does anyone have any more info or experience with this company? I don't know what to think yet.
Last edited by Andrew Aversa; 07/10/07 03:16 AM.
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I'm not comfortable with their command of the English language. I would want more info on them and just what it is they're selling, and whether I want to buy that. Who is on their lengthy roster, and how well do those customers feel the company has served them. If they've enjoyed success, you brag about it. That's part of the promotion to pitch to others. This sounds like a generic pitch. Better Business Bureau? Chamber of Commerce? Good luck.
There will always be another song to be written. Someone will write it. Why not you? www.garyeandrews.com
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Under "Legal Services" they claim affiliation with ASCAP. Check with ASCAP.
There will always be another song to be written. Someone will write it. Why not you? www.garyeandrews.com
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Couldn't find any info at the BBB or Chamber of Commerce, and I haven't been able to reach ASCAP yet.
Surely someone else has even heard of these guys?
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Andrew, I can't find anything on them by doing a Google lookup, but they setup with Godaddy in late 2005, so they can't be that "old" or around that long. From their own pages, I learned a few things. Quotes:Steve Taylor - CEO Atlantic-Artists Entertainment, Inc. Even if you already have a contract with another company, you will benefit from working with Atlantic Artists and taking advantage of our consulting abilities. It's quite possible that, once your current contract expires, we will find something more interesting for you! Additional professional services:Atlantic Artists offers many additional services that are essential to the success of your project and you professional musical career. You can read the detailed description of our professional services, or learn about our studio. Personal Representation:If you are a musician, performer, or composer in electronica, dance, jazz, new age, pop, children's instrumental, soundtrack, re-mixing, or ethnic beat style - Atlantic Artists is ready to represent you. To start your career, read about our personal representation options for * Label-Ready Artists * Musicians * Composers All around it sounds like they want to sign artists up for a management contract. They'll even provide you with "financing" to help pay for all their services. Financing:* Financing your project on mutually profitable terms. * Creating a professional budget for your music project, and preparing all necessary documentation for obtaining financing on favorable terms. That means you can actually go into debt if you're not careful. Evidently, they want to develop & sign artists and then probably work with them on an exclusive basis, which means they would get the publishing of your songs, just like most major labels operate. This is usually NOT a good deal for most independent artists. From this page they have a long list of things they want artists, bands and composers to invest into to "develop" their music career. http://www.atlantic-artists.com/services.en.phpIt's quit a long list, but they never mention how much any of these services will cost. My guess is that they want to sell you a complete "bundled" package deal. Yikes, that's probably no risk for them and a BIG risk for you, the artist. And here is their Philosophy:The leaders and staff of Atlantic Artists are convinced that in business, everybody should concentrate on their role. You are the author and performer, and you should allow other professionals to take care of their area of expertise. A sound producer will work with you in the studio. Your agent will handle negotiations and planning. A tour manager will arrange your concert touring schedule, while a stage manager will oversee the sound during live performances. Your album's cover art will be created by a graphic artist. A marketing promoter will advertise your project. Finally, your music attorney will represent your best interests when you sign contracts. ----- This kind of philosophy might work well for a proven act (artist or band) that can afford to hire certain kinds of specialty services they may need as their career grows and takes off. But it would be expensive to hire ALL these services if you are NO where near ready or don't have a proven act or fan base, etc. I think it's best for artists to shop around (and network) to establish their own team of trusted contacts and service providers. Well, that's my view but maybe others (Brian?) will shed some more light. Regards, Michael
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. -- Johann Sebastian Bach MichaelBorges.comLicenseQuote.com
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I don't know anything about publishing since I am still in my learning stages. Maybe just looking at a site is'nt enough indication. But I tapped that atlantic-artist link at the start of the post. I was able to get the page super fast on dial-up, where even with my own small homesite takes about ten to fifteen seconds for the page to load up. That pop site speed may indicate that the site could have been put up by a scammer or phisher. Though I don't want to falsely accuse, I would be checking and rechecking any source I can get my hands on to find out the legitamacy.
There seems to be something fishy, right down to the borrowing of the Atlantic name.
Is'nt there a way through these reputable publishing organizations (ASCAP, BMI, etc.) where the legitemacy these type of companies can be found out?
They probably could'nt keep up with them. There are ISP's where the legitemacy of a business can be found out.
I would'nt mess around with this unless I knew for dead certain. I'm going to be looking through different search systems.
Matt
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Unless you know this companies track record and have first hand knowledge of any artist they HAVE handled successfully. I would be very wary. No mention of fees, vague details of what they actually do, no verified testimonies from people who can be identified, virtually unheard of within the industry, dodgy grammer on their site, they contacted you, ALL ALARM BELLS. I did a search and could not find anything apart from the site you gave a link to. I also noticed that this site did not even post a registered business address. Very suspicious.
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I figured it wouldn't hurt to send them my press kit (CD, photo, bio), so I did a few weeks back. I had almost forgotten about the company entirely until just tonight, when I got an email from them: we are very happy to inform to you that after careful consideration, our A&R department has made its decision to represent your existing and future work to the Record and Media industry. One of our interns will prepare our first NON-exclusive Management Agreements and send it to you.
Don`t hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions.
Once again we thank you. We wish you luck!
No mention of money yet... promising. The services on their site for $25 (press kit preparation) don't say anything about non-exclusive management agreements which leads me to believe this must be some other service they provide. I'm still very wary. But a little optimistic too.
Last edited by Andrew Aversa; 06/21/07 12:50 AM.
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Andrew , congratulations...I signed on with Pump Audio for a similar set up, they seem to be a library from which tv and film licenses are issued as their clients select music from their catalogs to use in their projects...the more their client base grows the more licenses they will issue and thus more $ for us all...the fact that it's non exclusive frees you up to pursue other avenues of exploitation...again way to go, sometimes, actually quite often, we have to make something happen or it just won't...Moker
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Andrew,
Don't pay them a dime.
Brian
Brian Austin Whitney Founder Just Plain Folks jpfolkspro@gmail.com Skype: Brian Austin Whitney Facebook: www.facebook.com/justplainfolks"Don't sit around and wait for success to come to you... it doesn't know the way." -Brian Austin Whitney "It's easier to be the bigger man when you actually are..." -Brian Austin Whitney "Sometimes all you have to do to inspire humans to greatness is to give them a reason and opportunity to do something great." -Brian Austin Whitney
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Andrew, Yup, I agree with Brian, be careful and stay on guard!
You're a sharp guy, so I'm sure you'll proceed carefully. Be sure to get an attorney to check any strange "language" in their service or contract agreement. If you aren't sure, check back here and/or get a referral for a good attorney. Better safe than sorry, but that doesn't mean there aren't some good services out there that will charge a fair price for decent (worthwhile) services.
Best regards, Michael
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. -- Johann Sebastian Bach MichaelBorges.comLicenseQuote.com
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Brian; I don't plan to. As soon as I see them asking for money I'm out. But I'm still holding out that they might be a legitimate management company, eg. they would only take a cut of money if they get me a deal (and hopefully an appropriate cut).
Michael; I'll review the agreement carefully. If anything looks fishy I'll probably post it here.
Moker; I subbed my stuff to PumpAudio recently and they're reviewing it now. Seems cool.
No matter what, soon enough I'll have some definitive answers about these guys.
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Andrew , Pump is slow, takes about three months, but they do eventually respond to your submission...Moker
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I have a simple rule of thumb: If a company attempts to cash in on the famous name of a non-connected company (like say a famous record label or movie studio) I don't even consider doing ANY business with them. Unless this company can demonstrate proof of being directly in business WITH the corresponding record label and then I independently verify that with (in this case) Atlantic Records I would never consider doing any type of business with them. That's my opinion on the matter but my instincts have typically been correct. Legit companies build their reputation based on their own work, not that of an unrelated company.
Brian
Brian Austin Whitney Founder Just Plain Folks jpfolkspro@gmail.com Skype: Brian Austin Whitney Facebook: www.facebook.com/justplainfolks"Don't sit around and wait for success to come to you... it doesn't know the way." -Brian Austin Whitney "It's easier to be the bigger man when you actually are..." -Brian Austin Whitney "Sometimes all you have to do to inspire humans to greatness is to give them a reason and opportunity to do something great." -Brian Austin Whitney
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Andrew, Again, I have to agree with Brian 100% on this! It's a sleazy marketing tactic to use anothers' good name & reputation to build one's own business, and especially if such business is based on a shadowy or back-handed (scammy) business model to begin with.
However, if a company is doing their own work in an honest and competitive way, there is nothing wrong with mentioning a competitor's name for comparison's sake.
For example, let's say a new service similar to Taxi.com starts up and they are doing a great job though maybe in a new or different way, they might say "Compare with Taxi." but their own name should be different, NOT something like "Taxi Records" or "Taxi Promotions", etc. That would be a deceptive trademark (TM) practice.
Some companies put the names of their competitors on their website in the meta name (tag) keywords. It's not illegal, but it can cause confusion, so most SEO experts don't recommend it. It's better to use generic keywords like: record deal, recording, songwriting, get signed, songwriter, musician, musicians, artist, artists, band, songs, publish, publishing, publishers, music industry, producers, demo tape, home studio, (etc.)
Fair game is fair game, but some tactics are obviously sleazy and under-handed, so it's best to avoid those kinds of services if that's the main image or business style that they are projecting.
Cheers, Michael
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. -- Johann Sebastian Bach MichaelBorges.comLicenseQuote.com
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Smells kinda funny,illigit...better had watch it. Reminiscient of the kind of operation that pirated my name just recently. Until I actually hear what the cuts represent, I shall refrain from commenting, but these people just decided that they liked 3 cuts of mine, and decided to use them without even talking to me first. Flattering, sure. For about five seconds.
Neil Rosengarden cdbaby.com/all/curdsandwhey - music nrosengarden@roadrunner.com - email Neilrosengarden.com - webpage
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Andrew , Pump is slow, takes about three months, but they do eventually respond to your submission...Moker I find Pump Audio very slow indeed.I sent them some songs about three or four years ago,they never got back to me,period.So I figured the song never went into their library,until about two plus years ago I started receiving royalties on a song from airplay on a TV station that I never sent material to.I checked through my PRO,SOCAN,and sure enough,this was a song placed by Pump Audio,never let me know or anything.I got after them for my mechanical and synchronize share of the contract which I never received,they said it was an oversight and I will receive it soon,if soon doesn't soon come,I'll be calling them again.They may be legit but watch them.Maybe they are just careless.
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Evertt, True, though most companies I've found are legitimate, on occasion they have growing pains and related administrative problems, even errors. Last year I was doing business with an online music licensing service which I'm sure is 100% legit, but they were going through so many programming changes that several unexpected glitches occurred.
Turns out this was the kind of administrative error couldn't be noticed until after the sale, as it showed up only on the final sales history in one place, nevertheless making it likely to cause some misunderstanding with my co-publisher at the time. They have fixed that and there are better options now for distinguishing between publisher, co-publisher and songwriters, as they are not always the same, and in my case was not supposed to be.
There is a big difference between honest mistakes and out-right scamming and sharking. Two completely different worlds. In the computer/internet world, the most challenging thing is to avoid software programming bugs & glitches. I'm working on a large new deveopment project now. To make it work, everything has to be planned and perfectly integrated. Initially we will have only a handful of users testing it before live launch.
My programmer (lead developer) tells me that some bugs are very hard to find. For example, it might take 1 minute to fix a bug, but could take several hours to diagnose & first find it. In other words, we could spend 12 months programming but then spend another 6 months trying to optimize and de-bug the system.
To make a long story short, I'm sure Pump Audio must be highly automated to handle an average of about 50,000 (reported) licensing deals per year. This represents a big staff and tons of computer tools to track all this work. Then they have the screening (filtering) process since they can't accept everyone's music though they are probably fairly open to most indie artists.
Best regards, Michael
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. -- Johann Sebastian Bach MichaelBorges.comLicenseQuote.com
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As an update, my thing turned out to be a mystery ghost in the machine... After buying the CD with my name associated with three cuts, I didn't hear me playing, and I didn't hear any of my tunes or pieces of my tunes, so I guess I'm just out $21.00. I don't understand why my name was on three cuts, or is business so bad, are they sending out invitations to buy the CD this way? B I Z A R R E!!!
Neil Rosengarden cdbaby.com/all/curdsandwhey - music nrosengarden@roadrunner.com - email Neilrosengarden.com - webpage
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Andrew, I too recieved one of these messages from Atlantic-Artists. I immediately questioned its legitimacy and googled it. I came across this forum and decided to go no further into the whole Atlantic-Artists thing after reading some of these posts. If you find anything else out please post here- I would really like to see what happens next.
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You got it. I haven't heard from them after their last email - no responses to my two general inquiries. Could they just be really busy? Maybe, or maybe it's a scam. Most scams I've encountered ask for money at some point - either before you send your materials or after you're accepted. They've done neither... yet.
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"If one man can do it, any man can do it. It is true. But the real question is, if one man did it, are you willing to do what it takes to do it as well?" –Brian Austin Whitney
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