Hello and Welcome back to Medi8tor,
Medi8tor is a blog dedicated to the topic of
fame management. Fame management is the balancing act of how to maintain being
a public figure and ones personal life at the same time when in the limelight.
In addition to this mission, we also seek to be a resource for artist,
entertainment professionals, and the general public in understanding not only
the beast of fame, but understanding the entertainment industry overall.
Therefore for our newest post is about a
very important skill set to have in the entertainment industry, the art of
negotiation. We sought to illustrate the art of negotiation by interviewing two
dynamic individuals in entertainment about how they negotiate in their specific
fields. For today’s post, we will feature an interview we conducted with Debra
Roberts who is a manager of music licensing for Walt Disney Studios. In
laymen’s terms this means that Ms. Roberts’ and her team are responsible for
all the wonderful music we enjoy in Disney films. There are many job functions
involved in this process, but Ms. Roberts is responsible for securing music
rights, by negotiating Disney’s contracts with: artist, composers, musicians,
publishers, or managers that will be featured in the companies’ full-length
feature films. She has relationship with many record labels throughout Los
Angeles to accomplish this feat, and provide Disney films with the classic music
we all love.
The contents of our interview with Ms.
Roberts are below:
1 .) What is the primary form of
negotiation that you conduct in your field?
I negotiate rights. Our
company has certain policies and certain language that must be in our contracts,
before we can move forward with using someone’s music in our films. I am
responsible for ensuring that my company’s specific language is included in our
contracts when securing rights and publishing for the music that we seek to
acquire. I have to go out and negotiate why my company needs this language in
our contracts, or else Disney will be unable to use the material in our films.
Most people in the music industry are more than willing to adjust their
contracts to suit our needs, in order to be associated with Disney because of
the level of exposure that we offer.
2.) Do you ascribe to a positional
style of bargaining or a style of bargaining that has mutual benefits? And can
you give an example?
I think that our company
touches on both. When we are working with a newer music company or artist we
absolutely have mutual benefits for them. They are being paid BIG MONEY to
include their music in a film that will have maximum exposure. This is also an
advantageous position for a new artist because Disney is the buyer of their
product, and their work will be heard not only in a Disney film, but will be
included on the films’ soundtrack as well.
Disney engages in positional
bargaining especially when we feel that we are right in a negotiation. Disney is
also well-respected and much larger company than most musicians are used to
dealing with, and these factors work to my companies’ advantage when we are
engaged in positional bargaining. Often times positional bargaining does not
work in Disney’s favor when we are dealing with artist or groups that have not
worked with Disney before, are very established, have extensive catalogs, and
have huge fees in order to secure the rights to their music.
Also if an artist has
certain guidelines for the use of their music, they may request a copy of the
script for review. If the artist in interested in having their music be apart
of the film project, and is willing to negotiate then positional bargaining
would come into play for the artist. This only occurs if the producer for a
film is adamant about using a particular song in their project, which would
cause my department to adjust accordingly.
3.) During these negotiations are
you able to separate people from the problem? And if so how?
For me a negotiation never
gets personal, and I am able to separate people from the problem, because I
always remember that this isn’t my company. That being said when I am dealing
with people who are very arrogant, or are fighting extremely hard for their
company (which is a good thing) but maybe rude or out of line, I stop the
negotiation. At this point, (if I know them) I call them by name, and remind
them that we have no real power in making the final overall decision regarding
this negotiation. We are merely facilitators, and as facilitators we should
reach an agreement that works well for all of us, so that we all parties
involved get what they want. And in the event that we cannot reach an agreement
at our level, we can take our information back to our bosses and let them decide.
We realize that we’ve come to a stalemate, and I suggest why don’t we take this
up to someone higher and see if they cannot come up with a compromise?
4.) What kind of third party or
outside references (objective criteria) do you use when you cannot reach an
agreement with an opposing party? And how do you research this information?
We do use objective
criteria. Music is such a small knit group that we can go to our counterparts
(other studios) and find out what their studio has agreed to in the past, or
worked out with this particular client in a previous negotiation. This
information helps inform our current negotiation, and allows us to know what we
can expect from this particular client. Or we might utilize the resources we
have in house by talking to people within Disney in the television division, or
co-workers who may have come from other studios, and might have prior knowledge
of a licensing deal with a particular client that happened at their former
studio. We usually use these tactics when an artist expresses that they would
never, or have never agreed to something in an initial negotiation with our
company. After this initial exchange we do our research, and then use the
information we find as leverage in our next negotiation with the client.
5.) How do you deal with dirty
tricks (attempting to hurry a negotiation in order to catch a plane or take a phone call, lying, focusing on personal attack rather than the problem at hand)
in negotiation?
At our company we never hurry
up and do anything because we want to be thorough. We always try to find the
next best alternative to completing a negotiation that will allow us to take
the time that we need in order to complete a thorough negotiation. My
department primarily deals with creative types, artist and managers, and they
will say anything to get what they want. Sometimes these negotiations, and
often times working with these people can be very difficult, but we have to
work through it in order to get the best deal that we possibly can. We also
have more than one person (colleague/coworker) looking at things so we are
covered, as well as lots of meetings, conversations, and sharing of ideas to
avoid people playing dirty tricks on us. Our aim is always to achieve a
successful negotiation.
6.) What negotiation are you most
proud of?
That’s a good question, but
I don’t know if I have one. I don’t spend much time thinking, “Oh that (deal) was good.” I just do my job, get it done, and move onto the next. Everyday I
get new songs that need to be licensed, and my focus is to complete those
negotiations. I don’t know if there is anything yet that stands out for me.
That concludes our interview with Debra
Roberts who is one of the incredible manager’s of music licensing for Walt
Disney Studios. We hope that this interview was insightful, and makes you gain
a greater appreciation for the music you hear in film. Please join us next time
when we interview Lauren Tobin of Panther PR on the negotiations involved in
Public Relations for artist.
Until next time stay magical,
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