ABSTRACT
Most attorneys practicing music law will, at some point, cross paths with producer agreements. This chapter explains what a producer agreement is and how it functions, offers some guidance regarding how best to negotiate and draft producer agreements, and also offers recommendations for an alternative approach to documenting the business relationship among producers, artists and record companies. Typically an artist will engage one or more producers to produce and deliver the recordings the artist is required to deliver to the record company. The business relationship between the producer and the artist is documented in the producer agreement. Producer agreements might cover an entire album or could apply to only a single track. Most of the negotiation process used in connection with producer agreements is done by email. Although many people believe that email is the most efficient method, that's not necessarily correct.
