Welcome, everybody. Welcome to lesson two. Now this lesson is gonna be very interesting because it's gonna deal with something that is very important, not only to record companies but to artists as well. And that is the Exclusive Recording Artist Agreement. The Exclusive Recording Artist Agreement. You know, during the later part of the last century, and even into this century, there were a few corporations. As a matter of fact, there's currently three major conglomerates that control about 85 to 90% of the distribution of at least physical records. Well, that's changing now with the internet which is so important and so exciting for us as we grow into this digital age. So you can have an artist, a musician, that can create his own record, his own video. Access it through iTunes. As far as sales, for streaming purposes through YouTube. Go through a major aggregator like CD Baby or Nimbit or TuneCore to have all of the tunes placed in various, various digital outlets. So it's important for even that individual musician to be able to have a contract that really explains the rights and obligations of his company to himself if he's his own artist. For instance, suppose I decide to record a song and I could do that on my laptop. And I could also create a video. Well, I am in business then. I have John Kellogg Music. And it's important then for that individual artist to sign a contract with this company, why? Because contracts convey certain rights and obligations. That are very, very important to the business. So this lesson is gonna talk about those rights and obligations. How an artist gets paid and once again, I say every time their music gets played somebody gets paid. That exclusive recording agreements determines how. How much and how you're going to get paid. So it's very important to understand the terms. Now it's not rocket science, it isn't easy. I remember when I first started practicing law and I read my first recording agreement and I said I don't understand this stuff, but I told myself I'm gonna read more and more of these agreements, and I'm sure over time I'm going to have a better understanding. Well it isn't rocket science, like I say. So I'm gonna try to break down some of the terms and you'll be able to see the contracts in the text. And the text is written in a fashion where you have the legalese on one side, and you have the annotation in other words, me breaking out what the legalese is saying in layman's terms on the other side. So at least read the layman's terms side of the agreement in the text so that you have a better understanding. Now, we also are gonna deal with what's happening in the digital age, how contracts are evolving and what's gonna happen in the future. What you need to look out for, what you need to be a part of lobbying to make sure that artists and companies and creators are fairly compensated for these works as the digital age is exploding and as these works are being used in so many different fashions.