Billboard DMS 2003 - Music and Money

The Music & Money panel covered music licensing and getting paid for publishing (mechanicals, synch rights, points and royalties). Jason Nevins cemented the point that remixing is not where the money is and that publishing/writing is by relaying his experience of not getting paid a lot for his global smash remix of Run DMC's "It's Like That." If he had done it as a cover with a fresh recording he could have had producer points rather than a minimal remix credit. He did point out that he received a lot of work because of the "VS" with his name in the title.

Music supervisors are the people who choose songs for commercials and TV shows and were jokingly (yet seriously) referred to as both "the new A&R people" and the "next radio programmers." Rachid Wehbi of Widelife said that it was all about getting your music to the right people who like what you make and that they had received most of their TV/Film gigs from the success of their smash "I Don't Want You." Another panelist made the point that it was often about being in contact with the right person at the right time with the right song for the right scene. The signing of Mirwais to a publishing deal after hunting him down in France was used to prove the point that you have to stay current and think ahead to be successful in publishing.