Expenses
Lesson time: (1min 10sec)
Judge Jules explains which costs a manager can reasonably recover from your income, like couriers and flights, and why an approval right in your contract matters.
Course preview
This lesson is part of the course Legals & Deals: The Basics of The Music Industry
Watch a preview of the full course below.
Lesson transcript:
Understanding Managerial Expenses in Your Music Career
Inevitably, your manager will incur certain expenses in the running of your business on your behalf.
Types of Expenses
We're not talking expenses of an overhead nature, such as:
- Rent and rates
- Phone lines
- Employee costs
Instead, we are referring to expenses that are specific and generally speaking, either directly or by implication requested by you, the artist.
Examples of Specific Expenses
- Courier Costs: Biking something somewhere with a courier.
- Flight Costs: Your manager incurring flight costs on your behalf.
Management Contract Provisions
Normally speaking, the management contract will allow the manager to recover these costs on a kind of first-call basis. This means:
- These costs will have a first right on your income before you, as the artist, are able to enjoy that income yourself.
Importance of Approval Rights
The important thing in a management agreement is that there's an approval right. This means that:
- A manager can't simply go away and spend your money indiscriminately on expenses.
- Typically, this is negotiated between lawyers, so there is a finite threshold.
Financial Thresholds
- It can be £100, or it could be a few hundred pounds, above which the manager has to ask for your approval.
- Otherwise, they can't incur those costs.
About the instructor
Jules O'Riordan has over 30 years of experience across the entire spectrum of the music industry. This includes nearly a decade as an A&R for the Universal umbrella of labels, 15 years as a presenter on BBC Radio 1, over 150 record releases and remixes in his own capacity as a recording artist, plus a 30-year career as one of Britain's best-known, globally-travelled DJs (Judge Jules), with over 5000 gigs under his belt, plus extensive experience as an event promoter and artist manager at the highest level. Suffice to say, Jules knows the music industry inside-out, and his clients regard him as a trusted advisor for whom no legal or business affairs challenge or problem is too large or small. Jules has been a lawyer for 10 years. His practice takes in the entire breadth of the music-focused entertainment industry. His legal and deal expertise includes management, recording, publishing, distribution and label services, music-based apps, games and tech projects, production deals, producers, featured artists, endorsements, merchandising, neighbouring rights, TV/film scores, live performance, events and venue agreements, plus copyright and rights infringement and many other disputes. Jules's clients include artists, management companies, record labels, songwriters, event promoters, producers, music tech businesses, production companies, live agents, music publishers and DJs. He has spoken on many panels and seminars including ADE, Brighton Music Conference and AIM events, and has been a guest speaker on legal issues across a number of on and off-line media outlets, including BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Introducing, Financial Times, The Sun, The Times and Mixmag. Jules speaks fluent Spanish. Who better to demystify the contracts and deals every musician eventually faces? In his course, Jules turns three decades of hard-won industry knowledge into plain-English guidance, so you can understand the business side of music and protect your work long before you sign on the dotted line. read more