Executive Editor SUSAN BUTLER has been reporting and writing professionally for more than 15 years. After practicing law for 21 years representing clients throughout the world in the entertainment and technology fields, she began writing full-time in 2004.

Since then, Susan has achieved a number of "firsts" for an entertainment industry trade journalist:

• Acquired confidential financial information on a $2 billion acquisition that no other financial journalist covering the story in Europe or in the U.S. could obtain, and her handling of that information led to obtaining similar data on other multimillion-dollar deals.
• Secured exclusive in-person interviews with high-level government officials including U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft (2004); U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (2005); China's Chief of Ministry of Culture, Division of Audio and Video, Chen Tong (2007); French government task force members (2009); White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel (2010) and others.
• Obtained permission to join New York Police Dept. undercover detectives and Motion Picture Assn. of America and Recording Industry Assn. of America investigators on a bust of an illegal CD and DVD replication facility. Her investigative, first-of-its-kind cover story for Billboard, which included one-of-a-kind photographs of the bust, explained the international physical-goods piracy market.
• Investigated and wrote Billboard cover stories on China and on India revealing potential music business opportunities in the emerging markets.
• Reported and wrote a first-of-its-kind feature article explaining the complex music licensing structure throughout Europe, followed by an in-depth investigative commercial White Paper used by executives, lawyers and government officials & advisors in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan as a source of reference.

CAREER:

• 1983 began legal career as a litigation attorney in Los Angeles.
• 1988 opened own law practice, handling transactional matters and litigation, as well as a personal management company for record producer/engineers and recording artists.
• 1991 elected by members of the Recording Academy (the GRAMMY organization) to its board of governors for the Los Angeles Chapter, and the following year elected by board members to be an officer of the Academy chapter.
• 1995 moved law practice to the San Francisco Bay area when the Internet was capturing everyone's attention, expanding client list to include tech and new media companies, and began contributing articles to such internationally-distributed magazines as Ziff-Davis' Computer Life and IDG's Macworld. While continuing her law practice, Susan also became ZDNet's small business columnist for three years at a time when ZDNet (later acquired by CNET) was the top tech news site on the Internet.
• 1999 authored a first-of-its-kind book on how to build an international e-business and comply with international laws, "eBusiness Legal Kit For Dummies" (published 2000), part of the "For Dummies" series, which sold in more than a dozen countries.
• 2002 moved to New York City and continued law practice. Two years later Susan was elected by the Recording Academy's New York Chapter members to their board of governors, and then elected by board members to be an officer of the chapter.
• Summer of 2004, a Billboard editor contacted Susan to write the magazine's legal column. Their discussions resulted in her electing to make a career change, writing full-time for the magazine as a columnist, feature writer, news reporter, online reporter, legal online report editor and conference participant to cover the types of issues never before covered by a trade publication. She was the first Billboard reporter to have ever worked in the music industry (as opposed to observing the industry as a reporter).
• June 2008 resigned from Billboard and launched Music Confidential. Susan remains licensed as an attorney in California and New York, although she no longer practices law.

During her legal career, Susan’s clients have included corporations, partnerships and individuals including producers (film, multimedia, commercial and music producers), television network news correspondents, recording artists and musicians (including Oscar-winning film composer and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto and Grammy-winning artist Steve Vai), Internet content providers, software developers, Web site developers, Internet marketing consultants, authors, photographers, composers, publishers (music, magazine and audio book publishers), recording engineers, recording studios, performance artists, special event producers, nonprofit organizations (film, computer, music and marine life), visual and graphic artists, television hosts and others in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, London and Tokyo. She negotiated business deals throughout North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, Brazil and South Africa.

Music Confidential is published by Butler Business & Media LLC. Music Confidential, Straight from the Source and Biz Dev Mashup are trademarks of Butler Business & Media LLC.