Capsicum Records CEO and Director of A&R Roger Meltzer Leads Tropicalfete Workshop on Copyrights & Royalties
Tropicalfete Inc on Saturday held an introductory workshop on Copyrights and Royalties for aspiring Caribbean songwriters, producers and artists interested in learning “the business of the business” from 36-year industry veteran Roger Meltzer, founder, CEO and Director of A&R of Hartford, CT-based indie Capsicum Records LLC. The Saturday afternoon seminar was held at Complete Music Studios, 227 St. Marks Street in Brooklyn, NY, and attracted some two dozen relative newcomers to the industry.
The workshop was engaging and very informative covering topic such as the difference between a PA and an SR copyright, starting your own publishing company, Who derives residual income for various work done in the recording industry, performance rights licensing, mechanical (Copyright Royalty Board/Library of Congress) and much more. The interest in the subjects discussed caused the workshop to go an hour over the schedule time of ninety minutes. Mr. Meltzer went in-depth in every subject and answered numerous questions from the attendees. One of the attendees Owen Joseph left the workshop saying “This workshop in a big eye opener.” He will be also be giving this lecture in Manahattan next week as part of the JCT-Magazine/TV award ceremonies.
“When I was coming up in the business, I was fortunate to be mentored by some of the music giants at that time — Kenny Gamble, Thom Bell, McFadden and Whitehead, Jerry Butler, Lou Rawls, Bruce Hawes, Sherman Marshall, Bill Bloom, Phil Asbury and others,” said Meltzer, “guys who not only taught me how to hone my craft, but also how the business operates. They had the patience to stand there in the hallways with me day after day and answer a thousand new questions.” “This is just my way of giving something back in their honor and memory.
“My experience has helped me clean up some of the more notorious abuses in the industry and avoid them when I founded my own indie,” Meltzer explained. One of the objectives of the workshop was that artist become knowledgeable about the music industry and they do not become victims to some of the pitfalls in the industry. By the end of the workshop that objective was met, all the participants were very please with the workshop.
