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These scams are so obvious, but people fall for them everyday. The people that fall for these are the same people that believed Bill Gates would send their family to Disney World if they just forwarded an e-mail. Sound familiar?

Where do they get your name? It seems a strange coincidence that when people send in to the US Copyright Office they start getting solicited by scam music companies. Somebody somewhere is creating a list of those entries and selling them. The sad part is that most of the time that list is full of first time songwriters, and they believe so bad that their talent has gone unnoticed that they fall for these scams.

We're Looking For Lyrics!
Step One - The Generic Letter
Hi, we've heard your a lyricist and we would like you to submit your lyrics. If accepted we will pay for all recording costs and promote you nationwide on a release that will sent to over 1500 radio stations across the nation. Now we don't accept many people, the lyrics have to be exceptional. So don't be upset if you're not accepted. We receive thousands of entries a week and only a few are selected. Remember, famous songwriters like Michael Jackson and Dolly Parton have made millions of writing songs. They were once songwriters just like you!

Step Two - The Acceptance
Congratulations! Your lyrics have been accepted. We will pay for all recording costs of your production and promote you nationwide. If interested please respond.

Step Three - Give Us Money
Like we said, we'll pay for all production costs of your recording. We just need a little help from you with production costs. Please send $800 to cover your promotion and we'll cover the recording (a $3,000 value) by top studio musicians.

Step Four - What You Get
You just paid $800 for a cheezy studio recording and your lyrics probably weren't too good to begin with. You get some copies of your song, a little follow up hype, and will get mail from them forever asking to do it again.

The two worst offenders for this type of scam are located in Los Angeles, CA. Hope that helps you out.

Note: I sent the worst lyrics I could think of to one of these companies and was accepted immediately.

WE GUARANTEE YOU RADIO AIRPLAY!
This isn't really a scam. It's just usually misleading and basically stupid.

Here's an idea that's new to a lot of people: Radio stations make their money selling ad space. They're not here to promote your career, they're here to sell ads. The reason they play music is to get people to listen to their ads. Most radio stations have strict guidelines and a pre-selected list of approved material. This is based on their target market so they can present themselves to advertising clients and say "We have 30% of the local country music market", etc.

So no one except the big boys can usually get you in regular rotation. But you say: "I was played on the radio". Maybe a couple times. It's not enough to collect any royalties and all it's really worth is a little ego boost.

Why do people spend so much money to get airplay, and not complain when they only get a couple plays? For a lot of people that is enough. They got a little ego boost and a couple comments from family. If that's your idea of time and money well spent, then knock yourself out.

Music Hype
Ok, this isn't really a scam either, but it bugs us. We're tired of hearing people hype themselves about things they did 25 years ago. Usually this spills down to naive artists that fall for "This person is the Uncle to the Whatchmacallits that had a hit in 1978", or "I played guitar with a famous punk band in 1983" and so on. So what?

Now we're not belittling the high points of a musical career. Our point is this: Be very skeptical of people that have to reach way back in time to bring up impressive credits (or as is usually the case, credits they THINK are impressive).

Here are the main warning signs someone is a little full of it:
1) CONSPIRACY. They were SO close but something catastrophic happened, they were really the founder or original writer but the credits were stolen. There's always a great story with incredible detail. It's a great story because the person telling it has had years practicing the same story for the best dramatic impact.

2) TIME LAPSE: It will ALWAYS have happened more than 5 years ago. Our question: If it happened more than five years ago why are you still talking about it?

How do you cut through all the hype and bull? One simple question: What have you done in the last five years?

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