In March 2026, The Ella Project, an artist service organization based in New Orleans focusing on pro bono legal assistance and arts business development, premiered its Rampart Guide to Legacy Building and Readiness for Musicians. Written by a team of intellectual property and estate lawyers, Rampart is designed for the moderate-income musician and/or their heirs to demystify estate planning and to encourage these musicians to organize their catalogues and maximize their royalties in an orderly fashion. Rampart also focuses on preserving electronic records, protecting the digital afterlife, working with museums, and all other aspects essential to preserving a musician’s legacy. This presentation will go into the need for effective planning for musicians, existing resources nationwide, and working with artists one on one to preserve their legacy.
A one hour workshop presented by Ashlye Keaton and Gene Meneray, Co-Founders of The Ella Project, the main portion of this presentation will share strategies to best catalog artists’ intellectual property assets, protect the use of their name, image, and likeness, work with them on creating discographies and split sheet agreements and discuss artists royalties, focuses on sound recordings and the multiple rights organizations an artist or their heirs need to engage with to ensure they are maximizing their royalties. This cataloging, organizing, and communicating with rights organizations is not work that needs to be done by an attorney, and is not (for that most part) governed by state law, so the techniques can be used by musicians and/of their advocates throughout the nation. Participants will leave the workshop with a broader understanding of royalties and the respective rights agenciesthat govern them, heritability of copyright, and how artist service organizations can engage artists to take this necessary step to protect their legacy. The Rampart Guide can be viewed and downloaded at https://ellanola.org/rampart
