There are those that love music, and there are those that live music. Some members of our firm fall into the former category, but one of our clients falls squarely into the latter category: Angus Maude of Nyhla Records Inc.
Nyhla Records Inc., a Vancouver, B.C. headquartered record label, has a committed team of young, passionate, and talented music industry mavericks, lead by President Angus Maude and Vice Presidents, Sam Herman and Taylor Friginette, who aim to change the music industry from the bottom up.
Starting a record label can seem like an overwhelming task, with demands ranging from talent management, music production, event scheduling and band merchandising, to business finance and a wide array of legal issues. At its inception, Angus, Sam, Taylor and the Nyhla team went out to exam what the needs of artists were and what the market was then providing, with the idea of a transformative commercial collaboration between Nyhla management and the artists and talent they wished to represent. To do so, they investigated how best to meet the needs of their artists in a commercially sustaining manner, paying attention to where industry pitfalls have failed to serve the create side of the business in the past.
This investigation and unending commitment to developing a new “business model” for this record label start-up, resulted in at some interesting (and at times) challenging, business and legal issues. That’s where the lawyers of Barbeau Evans LLP stepped in to assist. We were introduced to Angus, early in Nyhla’s development and from our perspective, that is always the best time to get professionally involved.
We provided Nyhla with pre-incorporation legal advice on questions such as legal liability issues, engagement of artists, business set up and compliance matters, and intellectual property advice on a wide and varying scope of issues. Based on the Nyhla team’s early success, we very quickly moved forward with incorporation of the new business venture, advised further on music industry related intellectual property and e-commerce issues, and refined and developed the Nyhla business model.
It’s been an professionally satisfying journey for our lawyers to play a part in the launch of a new, successful and transformative music business, with an international scope, all emanating from the Nyhla Vancouver headquarters. Congratulations to Nyhla Records Inc., Angus, Sam, Taylor and their team.