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Probably. Anyone who enters a business transaction without awareness of the terms and conditions governing that transaction is unnecessarily exposing themselves to financial loss. And here’s a catch for you, even if you never signed a contract for a particular transaction, there are statutory terms that will govern your transaction in the absence of a contract. And guess what, they are NOT in your favor! So it generally behooves you to sign a contract.
The purpose of a contract is to outline the rights and obligations, as well as the remedies and consequences for each party in a business transaction. Getting into any business relationship without a contract in place is almost certain to be a disaster that can cost you significantly, often resulting in disputes that may end up in court, where the only winners are the lawyers.
Independent artists and small business ventures usually operate with very tight budgets that hardly ever include contract drafting/review and rarely have an attorney on retention. Therefore, it is in your best interest to have a specialist, such as CMS, representing your interests in a business transaction.
CMS is tailored to offer contract services resource for independent artists and independent record labels. Here’s why...
CMS is not a group of lawyers. We are contracts professionals with over 35 years of experience in drafting, negotiating and managing contracts in a variety of industries including entertainment, construction and manufacturing. As musicians ourselves, we have always been and shall remain fiercely independent, and as such we have a very soft spot for any business venture that finds itself locking horns with larger corporate entities that have no problem with making money at your expense; WE ARE ON YOUR SIDE!
The CMS operation model and pricing is very simple. Rather than having a licensed attorney draft a contract for each client, we have a database of contract templates to fit just about any situation you encounter in the entertainment business. Each of these templates was created by or in consultation with, a licensed attorney. What we do is revise the template to suit your needs, and for this, we charge a fraction of what a licensed attorney would charge you for the same or similar service. And if you need contract drafting for a purpose not covered by our templates, we can do that too, just ask.
Rather than a retainer such as the ones attorneys work under, we will give you a not-to-exceed realistic estimate of what the task will cost; more often than not, our final invoice will be lower than our estimate, and NEVER over it. That is our guarantee.
Music history is full of horror stories of record companies and industry executives taking advantage of artists using a variety of old snake oil salesmanship techniques, such as fake urgency to sign a contract while dangling an advance check in your face. Don’t let yourself be another statistic in this category. Don’t ever sign a contract that contains ANY provision you don’t fully understand. Ask for some time and get help, hopefully from us!
In summary, if you need a contract, we can draft it for you; if you need a specialist to review a contract you are offered, we can review it for you and ensure your best interests are covered; and, if you need an experienced negotiator to represent you in a contract negotiation, we can represent you. And we can do any or all of this at prices you won’t believe.
Don’t be the next music industry contractual casualty. Contact CMS at contractms2020@gmail.com or 916-606-0567 for a free consultation and estimate.
Please reach us at contractms2020@gmail.com if you cannot find an answer to your question.
Being a one-size-fits-all solution, a template is designed to cover very general situations and as such they tend to either contain many provisions not required for your situation and/or lack certain provisions needed for your situation. Both add unnecessary risks to your contract. Because we are experts in contracts, we revise any given templates to ensure your interests are fully covered. If you have a lawyer on retainer, he or she can certainly do this for you, but their price will be significantly higher than what we offer. Everyone likes a streamlined, easy-to-read contract, but it takes real skill and experience to draft one.
It means we will give you an estimate of what your absolute worst scenario price-wise is for our services, and more often than not, we will come in below that estimate so you will have some savings. We don’t inflate our estimate, we just make sure we are reasonably covered, and then we work hard to ensure we spend as few of the estimated hours as possible.
Generally, for drafting and review services, no. We assume two review passes in our NTE estimate, and anything over that is on us. The exception to this is if you hire us to negotiate on your behalf because we can’t reasonably account for difficult negotiating counterparts that may extend the process beyond what is reasonable.
The CMS managing partner has more than 35 years of contracting experience, during which time he either worked for or with corporate attorneys and external law firms. His experience is with contract values ranging from $100,000 to $2 billion, assessing contractual risks, drafting provisions, and negotiating terms with public and private entities. As a partner in a record label, he has also come across just about every possible business transaction in the music industry. So combining corporate and entertainment experience, he is the perfect resource to defend your interests.
Honestly, we are not aware of any other service quite like ours. There are many entertainment lawyers out there who, while capable, will likely not represent the best cost solution for you; and, there are online contract template suppliers, which may inadvertently open you up to unforeseen risks in drafting for generalities. What sets us apart is that we start with a template, but we have the expertise to revise and modify the template to ensure all of your interests are appropriately covered, especially in the jurisdiction that governs the contract.
If you have any questions not covered in this FAQ, please reach out to us at contractms2020@gmail.com or (916) 606-0567.
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