Please Note: I have been noticing a number of different commenters coming from the same IP address. They are either leaving “rave” reviews or nonsense. They have been deleted and banned. Just sayin…

BTW, if you use an anonymizer then you run a greater risk of being banned.

A reader suggested this topic and I thought it was a good idea.

How do you keep track of your submissions to the various music libraries and projects? Who accepted and who rejected? What songs are placed with what companies and the alternate titles for each song? What other relevant data do you track?

I built a relational database (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_database) using Alpha 5 Software (http://www.alphasoftware.com/). I like going this route as it so easy to massage the data. When I need to I can export the data in whatever format someone needs, Excel, PDF, etc. I also use it to create addendums to contracts as I add music to their catalogs.

So what do you use?

Reader Bobby Cole has been kind enough to post his solution. Thanks Bobby, awesome job! Right click on the below links to download.

Excel Spreadsheet Template – xls version

Excel Spreadsheet Template – xlsx version

Mark Lewis, at Partners In Rhyme, recently finished creating a tool that allows people to easily build music playlists and add them to their websites without uploading files or editing code. They often receive submissions from composers who make it very hard to simply hear their music. Mark thought this might be a cool thing to offer composer and podcast creators, etc. It even has a place for a purchase link to promote the composer’s music. Mark thought some composers might find it useful so here’s the link. http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/xmlGen2/Free_Audio_Player.shtml

Spamming The Ratings: Please do not spam the ratings. I do check the IP addresses! Recently a fairly new library that was listed here showed up as #1 with only 5 votes and each vote a 10. This was over the course of 5 days. Suspicious huh? All the IP addresses began with 91.32. I deleted all but one of those votes as I assume many libraries give themselves at least one 10. I do have the option to remove the rating capability from any particular library listing. This will prevent that library from ever appearing in the ratings.

Michael Nickolas informed of a guide he has put together that I found very informative. Particularly as I am building my own license web site and was looking for some guidelines for license fees. Michael is a published author (“Recording Magazine”, “Berklee Today”) and this guide lists the going rates for licensing music in broadcast and non-broadcast placements. Categories include Film, TV, Internet, Corporate and more. You can use the guide to set prices, verify an offer being made to you, or to verify the payments you are receiving from libraries placing your music. The guide also makes an excellent starting point if you are considering opening your own music library. Check it out directly at http://tinyurl.com/yfn64xw or visit www.studionineproductions.com and click on the “Music pricing guide for independent artists!” link.

The price is $9.99. I don’t share in any of the revenues, I just thought it was worth mentioning.

John Fulford, one of our readers at www.musiclibraryreport.com, would like to hire someone to re-produce old hit songs in new and inventive ways. John is willing to pay $400-$500 per song, 1/2 upfront.

He would need vocal mixes along with an instrumental mix. You should be aware that, because these are existing songs, there is no backend royalties as a writer and John would own the masters. As for artist royalties, I doubt there would be any.

Folks can email links of their production skills to: John AT JohnFulfordMusic DOT com. He will listen and decide on who to pick.

There are no immediate time constraints and he will probably be buying one at a time. As mentioned, he can pay half upfront after discussing the song selection/genre with the producer.

I am passing this information along as a service and I am not endorsing it nor am I involved in this in any way, financial or otherwise. Please do your due diligence.

Here is the follow up to the May 2009 post. This was written in July of 2009.
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I thought I would catch everyone up on my trial run with Tunesat as a number of people have expressed an interest in this service. There have been a couple of glitches to report but I’ll start by reposting part of my earlier post so those who are not up to date will be.

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You start with sending Tunesat your music (after signing a contract), currently via a DVD (no FTP yet), and they “fingerprint” it to compare to their monitored networks. For the trial period they will run a scan on Q2 2008 and also 45 days going forward from the day they get you into their system. The cost for the trial period is 50 cents per piece of music and 20% of any monies you recover. In my case I sent them about 150 cues for a fingerprint cost of $76. You are provided with an account page at Tunesat with a list of the detections that include the name of the channel, show name, episode name, date/time, cue title (title you submitted to Tunesat), duration and finally a “Listen” link to hear the detection (with dialog). The point is to check for copyright infringement, shows that that are using your music and not reporting it and/or cross referencing against your cue sheets.
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So here we are at 07-12-09 with a couple of problems.

1.) After many promises of running a 2nd quarter 2008 scan within a month of my signing up (May 2009) they have yet to deliver it. Only last week I was finally told they would not be able to deliver that quarter. They would send me May 2008 last Friday and July 2008 by next week. Still waiting for May… In all fairness they have extended my trial way beyond the 45 days. It’s a bummer though, the whole point was to compare their detections against my BMI statements. Very disappointed, I asked for any previous quarter and was told they didn’t have a full quarter!

2.) A number of shows came up in the scan where I had no idea of how the music got on the shows. I called the production company of two of those shows and talked to the executive producer. Naturally he was concerned but one of the great things about Tunesat is the ability to go to their website and listen to the detection as it came off the air. I let the executive producer from the show log in to my account and he played back a few of the detections. He promptly said they were not his shows! They only had female hosts, these had male hosts and American accents (his shows are out of Canada). I called Tunesat and spoke with Chris Woods who explained that they get the schedules periodically and then re-update a couple of weeks later if there are any schedule changes. As these shows were aired in May the schedules should have updated and been corrected, didn’t happen. One of the shows just re-aired and I recorded it and verified that indeed the Tunesat scan did not match the show schedule.

Even though I am disappointed in these glitches the service is pretty amazing. The fact is I found out that we had much more music airing every month than I thought. Even though some of the schedules did not match up, the music was aired and detected.

I am still waiting for May and July 2008.

I wrote this post on another blog in May of 2009 and thought it would fit well here.
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I recently signed up for Tunesat’s trial period. For those of you who don’t know, Tunesat is a service that monitors (according to them) all shows, on 100 Networks, for detections of your music.

You start by sending them your music (after signing a contract), currently via a DVD (no FTP yet), and they “fingerprint” it to compare to their monitored networks. For the trial period they will run a scan on Q2 2008 and also 45 days going forward from the day they get you into their system. The cost for the trial period is 50 cents per piece of music and 20% of any monies you recover. In my case I sent them about 150 cues for a fingerprint cost of $76. You are provided with an account page at Tunesat with a list of the detections that include the name of the channel, show name, episode name, date/time, cue title (title you submitted to Tunesat), duration and finally a “Listen” link to hear the detection (with dialog). They started monitoring my cues on 05-07-2009 and to date (currently 05-29-09) they have “detected” about 500 uses of those cues (Q2 2008 scan will be in about a month). The point is to check for copyright infringement, shows that that are using your music and not reporting it and/or cross referencing against your cue sheets.

Many of the shows detected were on Scripps Networks which has not been paying any performance royalties.

Though I have made my living for many decades making music in various capacities, I had very little knowledge of music libraries. In 2004 my wife and I made a deal to write and produce about 100 cues for a TV production company. Through a series of miscommunications and lack of knowledge, on everyone’s part, we ended up with a lousy contract and learned that most of the shows were for Scripps Networks. One thing we did insist on is the ability to re-use the music which they agreed to, as long as we re-titled.

I know all about the controversy regarding re-titling but for us it was the only game in town. I submitted our completed cues to many, many libraries and the only ones interested were those who offered the now typical “re-titling” option (BTW these libraries were found submitting through the Film Music Network). I was not going to let the music sit on the shelf so I went for it. How the re-titling controversy will play out is anyone’s guess.

In 2006 I placed our music with two different libraries. Over the course of the last three years one library has done an excellent job of placing the music but the other has never placed one piece. I was curious. Was the one successful library a fluke and/or the other library inept or dishonest? I will know more about this aspect when the Q2 2008 scan is run but I have learned that the library that has done well for us has placed some of our cues with Scripps. This I did not know and I made sure to let them know. To say that they were surprised I knew this is an understatement! But the nature of the business is that they (like many other libraries) supply a hard drive of music to production companies and from that point it’s hard to know where the music ends up. I do think that now, with a service like Tunesat, I can at least let them know I know.

Now to a hopeful sign. The whole Scripps issue with BMI has been bugging me since I found out about it in 2004. I had called BMI a number of times in L.A., N.Y. and Nashville and few people knew what I was talking about. When they did they had no clear answers except that BMI was negotiating with Scripps. After observing all of the Scripps shows on Tunesat and getting more incensed I started calling BMI again. After a series of calls I finally got through to a couple of people who got right on the case to get me some answers. Today I got a call from BMI saying they were a few months away from finalizing a deal with Scripps and that Scripps was deciding what shows would be on a blanket license or per program. BMI also said payment would be retroactive.

I’m always the “infernal” optimist so I would like to think this will happen. Needless to say I will keep on my contact at BMI and hope for the best. The person at BMI did state the Scripps was not their longest running negotiation but (as she said) there are a lot of lawyers involved!

As I find out more about Tunesat, Scripps Networks and BMI I will update.

I’ve decided to remove the ads and donation plea from www.MusicLibraryReport.com. They were not garnering that much and were slowing down the load times of the site.

I do want to thank those few who did donate:

Beatpick
Daniel P.
Erik H.
James L.

Those donations were very much appreciated!

Just a reminder: You are now able to subscribe to comments. In other words you can follow your favorite thread by checking the box (underneath the comment section) to “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail“. Of course you will need to leave a valid e-mail address but all e-mails are kept private. You will also be able to manage your e-mail address and the comments you are following. Thanks to Tad Sisler at Mainstream Source for the prodding!