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Blueface Royalties Seized: How Artists Protect Publishing · Clone Wars: The Spinoff

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  Welcome to the show, everybody!
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  I'm Calvin Blingwell, here with Dangerous Zygos, DJ Universe,
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  and Dandy Market.
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  And look, we gotta talk about this TMZ report because it is a massive wake-up call
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  for the entire culture.
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  A court just ordered Blueface's ASCAP and BMI royalty payments to be redirected to
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  satisfy a one-hundred and twenty-three thousand dollar judgment.
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  This all stems from a defamation lawsuit involving Soulja Boy's ex,
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  Jackilyn Martinez.
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  That one-hundred and twenty-three thousand dollar figure is exactly what we need to
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  look at.
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  People think royalties are some kind of magical, untouchable creative dust.
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  But the courts look at that judgment and treat those ASCAP and BMI checks exactly
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  like wages, a bank account, or a physical piece of real estate in Los Angeles.
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  It is a financial asset, and if you owe money, the law can and will attach a lien
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  directly to the source.
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  And let's be clear about what was actually seized here.
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  This wasn't his master recording money from a record label.
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  This is ASCAP and BMI, which means we are talking strictly about the publishing
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  side--the actual songwriting and composition.
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  When you write a hook or lay down a verse, that composition generates a performance
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  royalty stream every single time it gets played on radio, TV,
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  or streamed.
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  If you set that up right, it pays you for decades, but if you get hit with a
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  lawsuit, it's the easiest target for a creditor's attorney to intercept.
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  You gotta stay lit to survive, but you can't stay lit if the court is literally
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  snatching the food off your plate before you even smell it.
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  I see these dudes screaming about "ownership" on Live and flexing chains,
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  but they don't even know who their publisher is.
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  If your paperwork is sloppy, your ownership is just a slogan.
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  Blueface's legal drama just proved that the court speaks fluent paper,
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  and they don't care about your clout when they send that garnishment order straight
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  to the performance rights organizations.
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  Dandy is right on the money.
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  Going to school in Baton Rouge and managing my own music out in Calabasas taught me
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  that the legal system operates entirely on documentation.
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  If you don't treat your catalog like a corporate portfolio,
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  you're just an employee of your own mistakes.
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  Those BMI and ASCAP royalty streams are highly liquid once a judge signs that order.
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  The moment Jackilyn Martinez's legal team got that signature,
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  they bypassed Blueface entirely and went straight to the clearinghouse.
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  That's the ultimate chess move.
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  As a manager, I tell my artists all the time: the culture moves at the speed of
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  light, but the courts move on paper, and paper wins every single time.
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  If you don't have a fortress built around your intellectual property,
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  you're basically leaving your bank vault wide open for anyone who decides to sue you
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  for defamation, copyright infringement, or a broken contract.
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  So let's talk about building that fortress, because as the CEO of currency
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  development, this is where the real strategy starts.
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  Step one is basic hygiene: you have to register every single song immediately with a
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  PRO--that's ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC.
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  But you can't stop there.
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  You also have to register your works with the MLC, the Mechanical Licensing
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  Collective, to make sure you're capturing those digital mechanical royalties from
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  streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
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  The MLC is crucial because millions of dollars in black box royalties just sit there
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  unclaimed because artists don't register properly.
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  But before you even upload the file to a distributor, you need split sheets.
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  I'm talking about a physical or digital document signed by every writer,
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  producer, and engineer in the room, laying out the exact ownership percentages.
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  If you wait until after the song blows up to argue over splits,
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  you're inviting a dispute that will freeze your royalty pipeline instantly.
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  Man, those split sheets are your shield.
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  When I'm in the studio, we don't leave the room until the splits are signed.
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  And once you have those splits, you don't register them under your personal name.
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  You route that royalty income through a properly structured LLC or a loan-out
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  company.
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  You keep a business bank account that is completely separate from your personal
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  cash.
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  If someone sues you personally, you want corporate barriers protecting your assets
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  so one mistake doesn't contaminate everything you've built.
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  This is really about self-respect and intelligence.
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  It reminds me of those old-school teachings about building and destroying through
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  your own choices.
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  You can build a beautiful career, but if you don't have the discipline to protect
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  it, you destroy it just as fast.
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  Getting your business structure right isn't just corporate boring stuff; it's
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  cultural preservation.
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  It's making sure your kids actually get the money from your catalog instead of some
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  random judgment creditor.
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  It is the ultimate form of self-preservation.
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  And the smartest investment you can make isn't a new watch or a car; it's retaining
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  an actual entertainment attorney before you have a problem.
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  You want that lawyer reviewing your split sheets, setting up your loan-out LLCs,
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  and clean-checking your contracts before a defamation claim,
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  a lien, or a one-hundred and twenty-three thousand dollar judgment ever exists.
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  Exactly.
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  Don't wait for the fire to try and buy insurance.
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  Secure your publishing, lock down your entities, and keep your business tighter than
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  your music.
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  That's how you stay truly independent.
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  Thanks for rocking with us, y'all.
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  We out!