Name: Sabine Jones
Job Title: Owner and Founder @ SJ Consultancy
Company: SJ Consultancy
Tell me a bit about yourself.
Born and raised in Munich, Germany. Being a “right-brainer”, my passion (and I guess strengths) have always been related to music, art and languages. I left music (piano playing) and art/history (apart from a course in hieroglyphics and Egyptology) behind as ‘hobbies’ and studied to be a translator for English and French. First jobs were with BMG Ariola and GEMA in the early 1990s.
Followed my urge to live abroad and moved to England in 2000 where I continued to work in the music industry and continued to work in the music sector. Left Kobalt Music in 2013 to become self-employed and to try a different approach to my work-life balance.
Amazing achievements! So how did you get the job you are at now?
I studied to be a translator and interpreter in Munich; I am using the spare time I have as a self-employed music industry consultant and translator to do a part-time executive MBA at Henley Business School (special course for the Music & Creative Industries). Due to my rather communicative personality, my networking skills became my main strength and I have been very lucky to be able to rely on the people I have met on my journey, and I do try and work for people pro bono or return favours – you never know when or how it comes back….
Meeting people and making relevant connections is definitely key in an industry like this, your experience definitely shows that… Have you worked at any other music related jobs?
The majority of my career was spent in so-called collecting societies, or Performing Rights Organisations (“PROs”), from GEMA in Germany via PRS in the UK and PAMRA (for artists) in the UK (prior to its merger with PPL) to SWISSPERFORM in Switzerland. A little “break-out” was my job at Nielsen Music, where I was not responsible for royalties but the marketing and sales of data related to radio airplay and digital music downloads.
What are your areas of specialisation?
Copyright – from a royalty collection perspective but also a user perspective (I am a legal translator now and get to translate all kinds of documents, including licensing agreements, e.g. Netflix) and Neighbouring Rights (i.e. the copyright that someone holds in the recording of a musical work e.g. an artist, singer, session musician, and of course the record label). So a paralegal linguist with networking and “getting people together” skills, I guess.
Being able to communicate in multiple languages about something so important is a great success! What made you want to set up your own consultancy business?
After a rather intense career as an Executive, including moving countries, I realised that during my last position – at Kobalt Music, which was probably the most exciting job I ever had – I simply faced the choice to continue or to run out of juice. I was burning my candle at more than two ends! Rather than taking a “sabbatical”, I decided to set up my consultancy, where I would be in control of how much work I would take on. Plus the consultancy provided me with the “time to breathe” and stop and think about myself – which is why I am now doing an MBA as I realised I had not really invested in my own training and development but rather fought other people’s blazes as their firefighter.
Being your own boss, the ultimate dream! You are studying for an MBA at Henley in Music and Creative Industries, how is that going to further benefit your career?
I believe the MBA ‘journey’ will help me to fill any knowledge gaps, without trying to become a jack-of-all-trades. I also expect that it would help me to be better equipped if I decided to return to a full-time executive role. Learning by doing might be a good thing but there comes a time when you need some tools to face the ever-changing environment. Just gut-feeling is not good enough any longer.
Do you have a creative background?
My grandfather was a pianist; I inherited his piano and started to play recorder at the age of 4 and piano at the age of 6. Unfortunately, I haven’t been playing the piano as much as I’d like to in recent years but it’s one of my “back to the roots” activities to do. I also used to sing in a church choir and even made it to Alto soloist in our little Bavarian village.
Could you talk a bit about what you do in the average day at work?
Looking for new clients and doing general admin, this is more than most people would think you have to do when you are self-employed. The actual job itself does not take more than 40-50% of a working day on average (this would be translating a newsletter for a collecting society in Germany or a licensing agreement for another society in Switzerland, or consulting a client on strategic matters e.g. rights issues or business development). Plus of course now the time I need to dedicate to my MBA, which luckily interlinks with some of the consultancy work.
How do you find working with music lawyers?
There were some really pragmatic ones; especially at my last employer I met some great legal ‘players’. Of course it sometimes got hairy as you would usually defend two different viewpoints and each side wanted to get the best deal for their client!
Of course! Your biggest triumph career wise to date?
Not triumph, that’s the wrong word… best job satisfaction ever: to reunite performers with their due neighbouring rights monies while I was running PAMRA, having people like Benny Gallagher, Peter Filleul, Rick Wakeman, Ashley Mason and Mel Gaynor, to name but a few (the list is long!) on the Board of Directors. They all gave their time for free and served the cause because they really believed in it, and so did I. Hardest decision ever: to pluck up the courage and say goodbye to a great company like Kobalt, to go it alone and become self-employed.
How would a new artist go about protecting their music?
In our global age it does not matter where you become a member of a “collecting society”, but do yourself a favour and do it in the country you a) spend most of your time in or perform (also as tax can be a devil) and b) where your language is spoken. I’ve seen cases where a German composer thought his school English was enough for a licensing agreement with an anglo-american record label and it turned out he had signed something he didn’t fully understand. Which resulted in a loss of royalties for him. My advice: do get someone to help you with translations and legal paperwork, or filling in forms and so on, and make sure they do this at a reasonable price for you- if you are an artist, you can’t be a jack of all trades.
And finally, if you had 3 pieces of advice for new artists who don’t know much about the law/business aspect of the music industry?
- Ask – if you can – some of the “older” artists in the industry and learn from their (often tough) experience but also for their recommendations regarding fair managers and helpful lawyers
- Attend workshops or lectures by the umbrella organisations for your area (just check the internet for events organized by the Musicians Union, the MPA, PRS for Music, PPL, AIM, etc. etc.)
- Hang out at the Heights, St. George’s Hotel. There’s a lot of music folks but also people from the Beeb. You never know who you meet there. (and that’s just one example, London’s obviously full of places like that).
A huge thank you to Sabine for featuring on Always Read The Small Print! If you have any questions please feel free to comment on this article and I will do my best to answer you.
Written by: Cherry Johnson
Disclaimer: I am not giving formal legal advice, only the information I gain from research and interviews. If you are unsure of a legal problem you are having please seek advice from a qualified lawyer.
ARTSP. 