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Buying Beats Online Is Common, Convenient and Risky

Buying beats online is common, convenient and risky. Artists' lawyers worry that they don't understand the consequences of the agreements they sign.

What they may not understand, however, is the agreements they accept to access these beats typically grant them limited rights by capping the number of streams a song can earn and allowing other acts to license the same piece of music. “If a song is going viral and a record company wants to enter into an agreement, the value of the track is impacted by the fact that you don’t have original materials and the beat exists elsewhere,” explains Leon Morabia, a partner at Mark Music & Media Law. “A baby act is doing well, and then they get a producer saying, ‘You’re over the streaming threshold on this track and we didn’t work out a deal; you have to take the song down’ ” — just at the point where artists and their teams need to slam the pedal to the metal by pouring money into marketing.

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