Legal Aspects of the Music Industry

Don Gorder

Author

Don Gorder, chair and founder of the Music Business/Management Department at Berklee College of Music, is an attorney, educator, and musician. He holds advanced degrees in law and music, has authored numerous articles on the music industry, and has spoken at many national and international music industry events. As an attorney, he has represented clients in matters of copyright and contracts, and he remains active as a trumpet player in a variety of jazz and commercial settings.

Don is Vice President of the NAMM-Affiliated Music Business Institutions, a past officer and Board member of the Music and Entertainment Industry Educators' Association, and currently sits on the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. He is active in NARM, NAMM, and the International Association for Jazz Education, where he is a member of the Resource Team representing music business/management.

Valerie Lovely

Author & Instructor

Valerie Lovely is Assistant Professor of Music Business/Management at Berklee College of Music and a practicing transactional music attorney. Her clientele is limited exclusively to musicians, songwriters, publishers, record labels, and others with music law needs. The firm provides various transactional music law services, such as contract drafting, negotiation and explanations, copyrights, trademarks, band business evaluation reports, and other music business and legal services. Attorney Lovely also hosts a free informational Web site, MusicLawInfo, that provides numerous music law articles of interest to today's musicians.

Valerie has been a guest speaker, panelist, and lecturer at a variety of events sponsored by legal- and music-based organizations (American Bar Association, Massachusetts Bar Association, Berklee College of Music, Blacksun Festival, etc.). She has taught copyright law to attorneys as a member of the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts faculty.

Valerie has also been a musician for most of her life. She plays several instruments, has performed in rock bands, chamber groups, wind ensembles, and in studio projects, and has composed music in various styles and for use in a variety of media.

Steve Masur

Author

Steve Masur is a member of Masur & Associates, LLC (MasurLaw). MasurLaw is a boutique intellectual property and business law firm at the forefront of the media, entertainment and technology industries. As a lawyer, board member and business advisor, Steve has served some of the most innovative new companies in the entertainment, music and information technology sectors in the last ten years.

He has helped organize, secure funding, draft contracts, do deals, negotiate successful exits, and work out solutions for a who's who of music industry clients. Firm clients have included: successful new music services like CD Baby, the Orchard, CDuctive, and Digital Club Network (now eMusicLive); multinational corporations like Yamaha; video game companies like PlayTV and En-Tranz; wireless content providers like Zingy, Vindigo, UPOC, and Chaoticom; and a wide variety of independent music, film, and entertainment and media clients, including Upright Citizens Brigade, the makers of Everquest, the nationally distributed newspaper India Abroad, and others. MasurLaw has worked with literally hundreds of innovative new companies with novel business model twists on advertising, publishing, media delivery, software, hardware, and licensing.

Before starting with MasurLaw, Steve was an attorney at Sabin, Bermant & Gould in New York, where he practiced corporate and cable television law, serving such clients as Advance Publications, Conde Nast Publications, Newhouse Broadcasting Corp., and Eastern Microwave. Steve received his J.D. from American University in Washington, DC and is a member of the New York and District of Columbia bars.