Rock Your College

This book describes in detail how students and faculty in a higher education institution (college, community college, university, etc.) can start, maintain and achieve success with a student-run music business entity that may include a student-run record label, a music publishing company, a booking agency and a concert promotion company. This book uses a step-by-step approach to take the reader through all aspects of the music industry and shows what you need, and need to do, to establish those kinds of entities. The experience is enhanced by the addition of multiple useful graphs, charts and checklists. Also, the book offers and explains in detail many of the most-often used music industry agreements.

This book centers on the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of starting and maintaining a university or college-based, student-run, faculty-supervised music industry enterprise including a record label, a music publishing company, a booking agency and a concert promotion company and more. It's purpose is to provide a comprehensive, easy-to-understand blueprint for any university or college that wishes to have a student-run record label and/or other music business enterprises. It will offer a step-by-step approach from start-up, to maintenance, to success. Through the use of supplemental materials (such as checklists, charts, contact sheets, spreadsheet financial templates, music industry agreement templates, sample press releases, sample marketing plans), students and faculty alike will be able to institute and maintain a student-run record label at their university or college. The information contained in the book will guide educators and undergraduate students. However, it will be just as helpful to anyone who wishes to start a record label or other music industry-related business. Those interested in the legal aspects of the music industry will find the book useful as well. All of the material contained in this textbook has been class-tested and has succeeded in the classroom as a high-level, experiential learning model.

Marcy Rauer Wagman is an attorney and the Managing Partner of entertainment, media and technology law firm Wagman Hurwitz & Dickman, LLC, representing all types of artists, technology/software firms, entertainment industry professionals and media entrepreneurs. She was an Associate Professor and former Program Director of the Bachelor of Science in Music Industry at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA for ten years where she developed and taught business and law courses. She gained international attention for Drexel’s innovative Music Industry Program by creating and heading up the Drexel University-based, student-run MAD Dragon UNLTD, which housed MAD Dragon Records/ADA, BANTIC Media & Artist Services, DraKo Booking, MAD Dragon Publishing, and MADKo Concerts. Before this, she was a songwriter and producer, co-writing hit songs with major label artists, including those with SONY & Atlantic Records, landing a #1 Billboard hit and other charted singles. Ms. Rauer Wagman owns Shaney Divine Music Publishing, and has had numerous songs placed in movies, TV shows and broadcast ads. Also, for over 15 years, she was Executive Producer/Creative Director of FC&D, Inc., a broadcast music production company, where she composed and produced music for hundreds of national advertisers, garnering many local and national advertising industry awards. She serves on the Advisory Boards of Villanova Law Sports & Entertainment Law Journal, Future of Music Coalition, Music Resource Group/Independent Music Awards, Rock to the Future and Rock ‘n’ Roll Afterschool. She served on the Editorial Board of the Music and Entertainment Industry Educator’s Association (MEIEA) Journal. She served on the Board of Directors for Philadelphia Folksong Society. She is a voting member of The Recording Academy (Grammy organization) and served five terms on its Board of Governors, and she has been a member of ASCAP and NMPA for over twenty years. Her publications include “The Digital Revolution is Being Downloaded- Why the Copyright Act Must Change to Accommodate and Ever-Evolving Music Industry” for the Villanova Sports and Entertainment Law Journal, Vol. 13:2 (with Rachel Ellen Kopp, Esq.) and “The Artist, The Label and The Internet – A Stormy Tale” for the Art & Culture Heritage Law Newsletter, American Bar Association Section of International Law, Summer 2011, Vol. III, Issue No. 2.