I'm a partner at Gilbert's LLP in Toronto, working with music, entertainment and tech clients. Email me at paul at gilbertslaw.ca. I play drums in The Rural Alberta Advantage. Reach...
Latest Blogs
Why I Hate Options in Music Contracts
PaulManagement agreements, record deals, publishing agreements – they all share one near-ubiquitous feature: Options. By “options” I mean the ability of one (or both) parties […]
Music Copyright 101, Part One: Why is it So Confusing?
Music copyright is one of the least accessible aspects of music. I find that really frustrating, because I think music should be something everyone can […]
Grants for Music-related Businesses
The City of Toronto Music Office has been doing a great job putting out information about grant opportunities available for musicians and music-related businesses. Here’s […]
Why Your Artist Management Agreement Says Your Manager Won’t Get You Gigs
About 15 years ago, my band signed our first management agreement. I was in law school, and we couldn’t afford a lawyer to look at […]
Bad Behaviour in Recording Agreements
Here’s a quick rant. I’ve been working with a lot of artists lately on their record deals with small labels, and I want to talk […]
A Copyright Mystery – The “Rule of the Shorter Term” and the Public Domain in Canada
This is the kind of law blog post that I dread. I’m about to write about something I’m unsure about. And, if it wasn’t for […]
How Patents Can Make Music Sound Bad (or Good)
*** UPDATE FEB 16, 2022 *** I should acknowledge as of WIndows 11, the AAC codec is natively supported in Windows (hooray!). Also, for an […]
Canadian Musician Podcast – Vaccine Passports & Live Music: What Could the Near Future Hold?
I was honoured to be a guest on the Canadian Musician Podcast this week to talk about the concept (and legality) of vaccination passports, and […]
Using Creative Commons Licensed Music? Take a Beat and Do it Right.
Yesterday I wrote a blog post about open source software licenses for Slingshot, my law firm’s legal service for start-ups and small businesses (I promise […]
Can Vaccine Passports Save Live Music?
Could COVID-19 Vaccine Passports save live music? The concept is that a proof-of-vaccine card (or app) could allow people to rejoin aspects of normal, congregating […]