The music business, unlike what was practiced in antiquity, a period when authors presented and sold their works in a public square, now moves millions around the world, including the copyrights’ collection and distribution. Composers, lyricists and artists in general work hard to be noticed and earn income from their work. In 2015, the Copyright Collection Office (ECAD) in Brazil distributed about $235 million (USD) to composers, performers, musicians, editors, music producers and the eight Collective Music Management’s Associations. Despite the advent of the internet, copyright information is less widespread and often unclear.
In this uncertain environment arose Bruna Campos (37); a person with the knowhow and understanding to explain the issues involving copyrights in Brazil. Born in Campo Grande - MS, to Japanese offspring from her maternal grandmother from Okinawa, an island province in southern Japan and eldest daughter of a family of two, Bruna tells us that she has always been passionate about music. Inspired by her father, who was part of the Baptist Church’s octet of voices and Quartet Prelude that often rehearsed at her home, Bruna grew up listening to music that made her get involved with this art. She even participated in some TV shows during her childhood and later sang at the Church her family attended.
In her childhood and adolescence she liked to play sports like volleyball and basketball, and enjoyed dancing and singing. She played in the school’s band and competed in its music festivals. When she was just eight-years-old she displayed a great dedication to her performances and would spend a month preparing for her shows, with choreography and dubbing for two hours of a well-rehearsed repertoire. After several days of rehearsals, she would invite her father to watch her performance as soon as he was back home from work, even before he took his tie off! In a chair; strategically placed in front of the gate, Dr. John Campos would stay for two hours enjoying what Bruna called her little show. The singer points out that she doesn’t remember her life without music. She grew up singing songs played on the radio. “My aunt used to say that when I was a baby there was even a melody in my crying” she says.
In 1996, without the support of her family – because from his own experience, her father knew how difficult artists' lives are - Bruna started her musical career, performing and recording the song ‘Se Você Quer’ for an album of the duo with John Harold e Betinho. Bruna emphasizes that it was a great success, however, her father advised her to stop singing until she finished college; and so, she continued singing, but only as a hobby. In 2000, Bruna got the Order of Musicians’ Credential and returned to performing professionally. “For two years I went through difficult times singing at bars and pubs in Campo Grande City,” she reveals. In 2001, Bruna Campos and Thiagão joined together and the duo performed country songs for a year.
Despite her wonderful vocal ability, Bruna reveals that she plays acoustic guitar poorly and knows little about other instruments. She studied piano, flute and acoustic guitar, but has never advanced her skills on any of them. Yet, she likes to take a risk on the piano as long as there are no pianists nearby. As for compositions, she says she prefers leaving that in the hands of professionals. She believes her time would be better spent encouraging her composer clients do the writing and use her time taking care of their careers. "If I start composing too, I will lose my focus," she points out.
Currently Bruna is part of a musical trio formed by Flavinho Coelho and the guitarist Elinho Wada in a project named Derrama. The project Derrama started from the idea of recording root music in order to present it to the new generations and preserve its history and origins. The trio doesn’t do concerts; they pressed only two thousand copies of the CD and distributed it to friends. Bruna emphasizes that when she saw a video in which a mother recorded her son singing songs from the album Derrama, both she and her partners felt a sense of accomplishment. The CD is available on digital platforms and on the singer's website. The Trio has started working on their next album.
When asked why a singer would study law, Bruna argues that her father is a lawyer and, as with her music, she wanted to follow in his footsteps. She adds, she thought it would be interesting to study law since she had grown up in a lawyer's house. During her college years, she also acted as a Lawyer Intern for five years at a Public Ministry Office in the area of consumer and citizenship. She was actually enthusiastic about the work and wanted to become a Justice Promoter. However, music spoke louder and the project of becoming a Justice Promoter was abandoned. During this period, in addition to studying Law at the Catholic University of Dom Bosco in the morning and acting as a Lawyer Intern at the Public Ministry Office in the afternoon, Bruna studied journalism at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul at night.
She spent six years completing her journalism program due to delays caused by constant strikes. It took her longer to complete this program than her Law degree. The initial logic was to finish the Journalism course first as it was one year shorter than Law degree. “This delay allowed me to intern in one of the largest newspapers in Campo Grande, which was a very enriching experience,” she points out. The businesswoman added that during her study years she slept little, slept badly and didn’t participate in as many parties as she wanted. Today, however, she is better than many of her colleagues who preferred enjoying every single party instead of devoting themselves properly to their studies.
About the issues of the music business on her YouTube channel, she said that she brings them in without fear of her company’s activity; it means that the composers will not stop looking for the publisher because she's explaining everything about Copyright in the videos. "If this were so, everyone would be a lawyer, because on the Internet are all models of petitions, all laws and jurisprudence, etc; sharing knowledge about Copyright does not weaken the work of the music publishers, but reinforces it even more,” she adds. In Bruna's point of view what needs to be done is the strengthening of the composers’ class.
Before founding her own company Bruna Campos worked at Panttannal Discos and helped the record company set up its publishing company. Through that experience, she began to understand more about Copyrights. She went through some difficult times at home as her father wanted her to practice Law, so the Teló family gave her music related work in order not to throw away her years of law school. The work in a publishing house united both, the studies of Law and her passion of music. During her stay in Panttannal, Bruna says that it was four years of wonderful coexistence with Teófilo, brother of the singer Michel Teló and Mr. Aldo Teló, with whom she learned a lot whose cues are always taken by those who lived with him, One of Bruna's favorites is: "Your apologies are just for yourself, when you start justifying a lot about something you're justifying for yourself, deep down you know you've made a mistake." After this work, she worked for two years with the duo John Bosco and Vinícius, as Press Officer and Legal Adviser.
In its beginning the company ‘Rede Pura’ was an internet provider that had antspam email accounts, which is the reason for the name ‘Rede Pura’, which means ‘clean network’ in English. When reviewing the social contract of the company 'Rede Pura and Internet', Bruna suggested to her father that she wanted to add music publishing in the contract. Because, when she does have the time someday she would work on that aspect of it. So it came to pass that the publishing company did well, from being a provider and newspaper and did turn completely to music publishing activities. The idea of creating the publishing aspect came from her previous learning activities while working with the Teló family.
Bruna emphasizes that her intention was not to create a big music publishing company but having the newspaper, internet provider and helping her close friends in the music business through her publishing company. Bruna points out that when the first big hit came out with the song "Você de Volta" recorded by the duo Maria Cecília and Rodolfo, things got out of control. Many composers started to edit their songs with Rede Pura, and suddenly there was no time to take care of the internet provider and newspaper, only the publishing company. So, in 2007, the music publisher Rede Pura was founded.
According to Bruna Campos, the first challenges of the publishing company were to get the partners to understand they could make an income from it. In the company’s beginning, when it was still an internet provider and newspaper, the publishing income didn’t even pay the salary of its single employee, or the water or light bills of the building. The biggest obstacle was convincing the partners that the business would work. In addition to the first major success managed by the company, Rede Pura represent some songs that have been performed on the radio, such as: ‘Camaro Amarelo’ by the composers Thiago Machado, Marco Aurélio, Márcia Araujo and Bruno Caliman, recorded by the duo Munhoz and Mariano; ‘Amar Não é Pecado' by the composers Marco Aurélio, Thiago Machado, Fred Liel and Gustavo Warnner Chappell; And Meteoro by the composer Sorocaba, both songs recorded by the singer Luan Santana, and many others. Rede Pura has a library of more than ten thousand songs edited and represents more than two thousand composers in all Brazil and some Brazilians residing abroad.
Among the partnerships, Rede Pura has an aggregator that works on digital platforms, Warnner Chappel Music, and Socinpro, which handle the collection abroad. The relationship with artists comes in many ways. When the artists are interested in recording some song, they should look for the music publisher where the song is edited. In other cases the composer says that there is an artist interested in some of his songs and wants to record it. In this case, the publisher contacts the artist to negotiate and perform the contractual procedures. Bruna argues she would like to see the composers seeking for the Rede Pura in order to protect their works. “It is always easier when the composers send their music directly to the singers; it is a relationship that contains emotional involvement”, she emphasizes.
Bruna adds that the work of the music publisher is not simply sending songs to artists. The music publisher must give all directions to the composer, broker negotiations, make all release documentation for the record company, receive from the recorder every three months, if the label doesn’t pay the publisher has to charge. If an independent artist wants to record a song, the publisher must send a quote. If any artist records a song without permission, the publisher has the possibility to take the video from YouTube, notifying the artist, and taking legal action.
The music publisher also gives full legal backing in the case of plagiarism and unauthorized recordings by any means, including political campaign jingles. The publisher is also responsible for authorizing executions on TV, for instance. When asked what made her create a channel on YouTube revealing the mysteries of the music market in Brazil, Bruna Campos says: "I answer those same questions I have answered on the videos every week for my casting of composers, so I decided put it all together in a channel, the day a composer makes me a question I have already answered in a video I send the link to solve the doubts ". To learn more about Bruna Campos access: YouTube, Bruna Campos' Official Fan Page, Derrama and Musical Publisher Rede Pura.
by Zel Florizel
