hfa soundcheckv n April 2010 10 2 The New Frontier A few words from Gary Churgin, HFA President & CEO As our industry continues to evolve, opportunity abounds. And the end of 2009 brought a new focus for HFA. The proverbial “reset button” has been pushed and there is no looking back. Looking ahead, however, to the next decade, I see several bona fide game- changers. Our response to these forces will be critical in establishing ourselves as leaders in the entertainment marketplace of tomorrow. At HFA, we are uniquely positioned to handle the multi-dimensional, ubiquitous music distribution business, which is not only increasingly complex, but due to its digital nature it is immensely voluminous. Here are seven drivers that I believe are changing the face of our industry and presenting tremendous growth opportunities for HFA: • Web-based distribution revenue has yet to be a real replacement for the decline in mechanical revenues. • Online music distributors are emerging from the tech sector with no significant music industry experience. Opportunity abounds for HFA to assist these companies in navigating the rights landscape. More… 1 The new frontier… • Copyright laws are likely to change in order to accommodate the new ways that musical works are being used. • Consumers are starting to migrate from a music ownership model to a music access model. • Mass synchronization rights management is becoming paramount as, increasingly, music is being combined with a visual experience. • The shifting of time, place, and method of listening to music provides an opportunity for additional revenue from such services and will ultimately require accurate royalty reporting. • The phenomenon of “Music in the Cloud” enables the distribution of a single music purchase to multiple playback options As I’ve said before, we are encouraged by all we have accomplished in the past year and we are in full swing with new opportunities in 2010. We are continuing to diversify our service offerings by finalizing administration service agreements/deals with several unique and innovative companies such as Ultimate Guitar, a leading tablature and lyrics provider and several others. As leaders in the field of music publishing, we fully understand the need for diversification in revenue streams and the corresponding need to not only support our client’s efforts to expand in this new frontier, but to also become a viable service provider to those companies changing the face of music. We remain resolute in our active pursuit of these new opportunities. l 2 APRIL 2010 HFA SOUNDCHECK hfa news HFA Signs Licensing Deal with Ultimate Guitar. HFA is pleased to announce that it has entered into a “We are pleased to streamline our licensing initiatives licensing arrangement with Ultimate Guitar, the world’s through HFA,” continued Mr. Naidenov. “Their long- leading online guitar community and guitar tablature established relationships with an extensive network of music website. The deal includes rights for lyrics display, title publishers, combined with their licensing knowledge and search and tablature display with download and print infrastructure, provide an efficient method for our company capabilities. to reach out to the music publishing community.” “This licensing arrangement with Ultimate Guitar Ultimate Guitar (www.ultimate-guitar.com) is the leading shows HFA’s commitment to providing new revenue and fastest growing online global social media site for opportunities for our publishers in innovative areas such as the guitar enthusiast community. Ultimate Guitar’s 1.5 lyrics and tablature,” said Michael Simon, Chief Strategic million members worldwide rely on the site for gear and Officer for HFA. “HFA’s bulk licensing capabilities and CD reviews, music news, guest columns, forums, guitar sophisticated distribution systems support all types of new and bass lessons in addition to the Internet’s largest library business models.” of legal guitar tabs. Ultimate Guitar’s North American headquarters is in San Francisco, CA. Maurice Russell Named SVP of Licensing, Collections & Business Affairs for HFA HFA is pleased to announce that Maurice Russell has been “It has been a joy working with Gary and the HFA senior promoted to Senior Vice President Licensing, Collections team over the past 8 years, and I am thrilled to take on this and Business Affairs and will report to HFA’s President new challenge,” said Russell. “We’ve made tremendous and CEO, Gary Churgin. Russell had been Vice President strides refocusing HFA’s service offerings, which provide of Licensing, Collections and Business Affairs. Russell increased value for our publishers and licensees. I look joined HFA in 2002. forward to continuing to work with the team in this new capacity to keep HFA moving into the new business “With almost a decade here at HFA, Maurice is an frontier.” expert in our company’s business processes and, more importantly, the needs of our clients,” said Churgin. “He Before joining HFA in 2002, Russell was the founder and continues to play a major role in HFA’s key business CEO of Machine Enterprises Inc., where he provided initiatives particularly our enhanced income-tracking commercial artist management and business consulting process. He will be a critical member of my executive services to creative enterprises in the media, entertainment team as the company continues to evolve, and I’m pleased and design fields. Prior to that, Russell was Vice President to promote him to this new role.” and General Manager of Razorfish Studios, Inc., where he oversaw the daily operations of this fast-growing start-up. Russell came to Razorfish Studios from Red More… HFA SOUNDCHECK APRIL 2010 3 hfa news HFA’s Songfile® Is Now Available for Ringtone Licensing HFA is pleased to announce that Songfile, its online licensing service, is Maurice Russell… now available for ringtone licensing. In addition to obtaining licenses for Ant Entertainment, where he was cover versions of songs for CDs and permanent digital downloads (PDDs), the Senior Director, Business Songfile’s over 69,000 registered users can now do the same for ringtones. Development and Licensing, heading up the special products and Customers may pay via credit card or electronic check payment. Licenses licensing department. Before that, for ringtones and PDDs must be obtained in separate transactions. However, he was a Senior Director, Contract users may obtain up to 50 separate ringtone licenses in a single transaction. Administration at Polygram Records, The ringtone royalty rate is 24¢ per copy. responsible for supervising the administration of over 250 recording, “This is an exciting new offering that our independent licensees can now license and video agreements, as enjoy,” said Maurice Russell, Senior Vice President of Licensing, Collections well as tracking options, product and Business Affairs, HFA. “Independent bands, individual artists and labels delivery and financial obligations. continue to explore new revenue streams; our ringtone licensing feature Russell holds an MBA from New creates an easy and efficient way for their fans to legally access music.” York University’s Stern School of To begin using Songfile for ringtones, visit the Harry Fox Website at Business Administration and a BA www.harryfox.com. from Columbia College, Columbia University. Carlyle Johnson: an HFA Stalwart In February, we at HFA bid farewell to a veteran of the company and the music industry. Carlyle Johnson, Distributions Analyst, retired after a full 26 years of service at The Harry Fox Agency. Throughout his time here, he maintained a passion and love for his work and always displayed a pleasant demeanor and positive outlook. A well-respected member of the Distributions Team, colleagues and clients alike will miss his dedication to and professionalism towards his work and his peers. It is with pride and appreciation that we wish Carlyle nothing but the very best as he begins a new chapter in his life. Pictured from left to right: Aja Pringle, Distributions Team Lead, Carlyle Johnson, Distributions Analyst, Matt Wuolle, Senior Director of Distributions Technology and Ed Hunt, SVP of Publisher Services 4 APRIL 2010 HFA SOUNDCHECK hfa news HFA’s eSong® How to check the status of your song registration. eSong®, HFA’s online publisher catalog management application, allows you to manage your catalog by requesting the addition or update of a song to HFA’s licensing database. Once you log into www.harryfox.com, you can find eSong in the “Catalog Management” area of the site. After you’ve requested additions and/or updates to your catalog, as described in our September 2009 issue, you can track the status and history of these requests through the “Requests History” tab, shown above. The Request History screen displays all requests submitted by your publishing company through eSong. The list is not limited to just those submitted by a specific user. You can sort or filter the Request History Menu by any of the fields shown. Every eSong request is automatically assigned a unique request reference number by eSong at the time the request is created. Clicking on the “Request Reference #” link will re-direct you to the detail of the song request. You can always determine whether a submitted song request has been completely handled by HFA (either registered or rejected), or is still in progress based on the song’s “Request Status”. When a request is first submitted in eSong it is kept in “Submitted” status for the remainder of the day in which it was submitted. During this time, the publisher can make any necessary modifications to the request. After that, the request is listed as“In Progress” until it has been completely processed. Once a request has been successfully processed, the status will change to either “Song Added” if a new song has been added to the HFA licensing system, or “Song Updated” if a pre-existing HFA Song has been updated based on the request.