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Ever wish you could sneak a peak at real major label record contract? You can, thanks to Benjamin Burnley, frontman of hard rockers Breaking Benjamin. He’s fired the band guitarist and bassist, Aaron Fincke and Mark Klepaski, and filed launched a lawsuit against them. Burnley claims they have making decisions on behalf of the band, like releasing a greatest hits and remixing some tracks, without his authorization. They’ve countersued, but the real winners are the musicians who get to look at this major label contract between the band an Disney’s Hollywood Records.

The entire court filing is available thanks to Tunelab. The actual record contract starts on page 25.

If the external PDF isn’t loading correctly into the viewer below, you can view a version hosted directly by Google Docs.

These Breaking Benjamin court documents are public record. These are the court documents in full, with the exception of sensitive personal information being redacted.

Via Hypebot and Tunelab

Artists and music marketers have been using Facebook heavily for some time now, often working with external startups like RootMusic to ensure their pages are working effectively. Now Facebook has published a document called the Musician’s Playbook, which aims to “help you begin or refine some ideas and best practices for how to integrate social experiences into your direct to fan strategy to drive results”. The document – published on Scribd but soon to be hosted on Facebook itself – is divided into two main sections: one focusing on advice for using Facebook pages, and one on integrating Facebook Connect into the artist’s own site. Facebook has been sending the link out to labels, and plans to keep the Playbook updated in the coming months and years as new features are rolled out.

Via Music Ally

Tour diaries: They are the satisfying sustenance required by every hardcore music fan to feed a band addiction. A glimpse into the backstage, on-tour-bus life of one’s favorite band. Now, thanks to the marvels of modern technology, it’s easier than ever to create a highly visual tour diary to sate the appetite of your friends and followers. One word, my musically inclined friends: Instagram.

Instagram, that increasingly popular photo app that launched near the end of 2010, has become the darling of many a news outlet and brand, but has yet to really catch on among the musician set.

Still, according to Josh Riedel, head of business development at Instagram, more and more bands are getting hip to the site. The most popular is undoubtedly The National (@ntnl). Riedel, for one, hopes to see more bands joining the platform.

“We see bands on stage, but most people don’t get to go backstage,” he says. “Through photos, you can let fans in on what happens when you’re not performing, which I think helps fans develop more of a personal connection with the band.”

Go get the top 10 @ Mashable

Are things getting a little crowded online these days? It’s getting a bit tough to stand out. MTT has some ideas and hips a few services…two you already know about and how the industry uses them to keep tabs on you.

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Social networks provide far reaching opportunities for musicians, the only trouble is they don’t work for the overwhelming majority of bands and aspiring artists. Critical mass and huge opportunity creates overcrowding.

What always struck me as strange was how musicians on myspace.com actually thought that having a million friends was a good thing (despite the fact those friends were all musicians who only ‘friended’ so that they can get more ‘friends’ for themselves).

Can people spot the problem here? It’s a fake market, a bit like the sub-prime mortgages that bought the banks down.

A large proportion of musicians use social networks to build a fan base and launch their own careers. However, without adequate finances and marketing expertise it is very tough for a band to break through to reach public awareness. It is possible, but tough!

Read more @ Music Think Tank

Out of ideas on how to juice your bands profile in the greater world wide web? This might be a place to start.

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Author David Meerman Scott made a honest and realistic quote, “if you want 20,000 fans you must do 2000 different things that each generate 10 fans.” This wasmy favorite quote from 2010 and I am going to take this on as a challenge for 2011 for an ambitious project to give you 2000 different things you can do to generate 20,000 fans.

Some of these items will apply better for larger acts, some items will work for any act. Some may work for you, some may not… not yet. Some these can be done with little effort, some will take some web development, some might even require some significant development. Some of these have successfully worked for me over the years. The point is to create a list of items that would cover a wide range of acts and abilities.

1. Reply to every Tweet that mentions you.
2. Let your fans lead you – What did you get for KISSmas.
3. Ask your fans to submit photos of their tattoos.
4. Select a fan of the week.
5. Share what is on your iPod.

Read more @ Micheal Brandvold

It’s all about getting your show dates into as many hands as possible. SongKick, who is also picking up people from Google left and right, now has a Facebook App to jack those show dates into your band’s Page.

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If your group is smart, you have been making sure that Songkick has your concert dates up to date. Whether it is to raise awareness or make sure that your Bandcamp page has dates you should always make sure Songkick has your dates. Another great reason to do it is they now have an awesome App for Facebook that will show your concert listings. In the above pic you can see them. Simply search Facebook for the Songkick App and get started!

via Musformation.

If you’re driving people to your Facebook page then this is for you. It’s all about keeping them on that thing and it’s not just voodoo that does it. A few good tips backed up with some stats. Get on it.

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Though this report clearly is shared to attract attention to their services, the sharing of such data in this form is exceptionally useful for music marketers who want to move beyond hunches and what’s worked so far. This report focuses on engagement rates based on considering “fan base size” in relationship to the number of comments and the number of “likes”.

Some of the findings with an emphasis on industries most relevant to music marketers:

• Shorter posts increased engagement. 27% higher engagement was seen for posts between 1 and 80 characters.
• Full-length URLs trumped shortened URLs. Engagement was 3 times higher for posts using full-length URLs.
• Posts outside of regular business hours, identified as 10 am to 4 pm EST in this study, saw engagement rates 20% higher than the overall average.
• Engagement with posts peaked on Thursday and Friday however peak usage also varied by industry.

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011/04/how-to-increase-engagement-in-your-facebook-wall-posts.html

It sounds like MySpace Music is starting to re-group and make sense of what they’ve got. Clearly all our Tweeting, Posting, Blasting needs to be understood in context. Is it connecting with fans? How to do it better, faster and more efficiently. The MBA’s call these “pain points” and MySpace is looking to soothe what ails yah with Wildfire. DMN has the details.

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Are you just blasting your social networks, and spreading yourself thin responding to every last tweet?  Yes, according to many of the labels, artists, and managers we’ve talked to, and it’s just not working.  But, how can this be done more intelligently, with more efficiency and better fan engagement?

This is a serious problem in music marketing today, and one that MySpace Music is now attempting to address.  According to details shared with Digital Music News over the weekend, MySpace Music is now working on a social media intelligence platform called ‘Wildfire,’ a concept currently in the early pilot stages.  At a top level, the Wildfire platform is designed to more intelligently identify the most important nodes of a fan network, and give bands and labels a better strategy for making things ripple.

More @  Digital Music News