One of our readers, Ev, came up with the suggestion to have a section devoted to newbie questions regarding music libraries, music licensing, copyright, music publishing etc. There a lot of experienced people on this site and many are happy to share their wisdom. So, if you are a newbie (or not), and have a question, try leaving it here.
Of course many questions have already been answered here. First try searching in the search bar in the upper right hand corner. Also Google is your friend! I have found one of the best ways to search a site is use site specific criteria at Google’s web site. In other words, to search for a specific keyword, say “contracts”, type it in at Google like this “contracts site:musiclibraryreport.com”. Do not use the quotes.
If you still can’t find your answer then leave a comment here and someone will most likely come to your rescue!
Greetings,
I’ve started creating 60, 30, and 15 second versions of my tracks. So do I have to register each and every version seperately with my PRO? Or, could I just register the the original track that each version is derived from and that will suffice.
Thanks ahead of time for any guidance on this.
Just received a contract to sign lately and it says that:
The Writer hereby irrevocably assigns and transfers with full title guarantee to the
Publisher and its successors and assigns for all countries and territories of the World
and the Universe (“the Territory”) the entire copyright and all similar rights of
whatsoever nature and all rights title interest of the Writer (including without limitation interest of the Writer (including without limitation all rental, lending, making available rights and rights of communication to the public and renewal rights) in and to the musical works (whether music or lyrics) written or composed by Writer in whole or in part (and if in part to the extent of such part written by the Writer) (“the Compositions”) listed in the Schedule hereto (“the Schedule”) including all vested contingent and future rights of copyright or similar rights now or hereafter known for the full period of copyright to which the Writer (or their personal representatives or heirs is are or may hereafter be entitled) and any and all renewals and extensions thereof in each jurisdiction of the Territory (“the Term”). If the Writer is a member of the Performing Right Society Limited or any affiliated society in the
Territory “the Society”) the rights hereby assigned are assigned subject to the rights
of the Society arising by virtue of the Writer’s membership thereof but including their
reversionary interest in such rights expectant upon the determination by any means of
the rights of the Society as aforesaid
The first line stands out at me – sign over all copyright – its an exclusive licensing deal, but surely I shouldn’t be signing away my copyright should I?
Sounds like they want you lock, stock, and barrel. I’d pass unless they’re giving you a big upfront payment. Otherwise, it’s just crazy.
Never give up your copyright. You may end up out in the cold.
Not sure about the big upfront money:
The Publisher shall pay the Writer the sum of one pounds (£1.00) payable on of
execution of this Agreement (together with VAT if applicable upon receipt of a valid
VAT invoice) by way of an advance fully recoupable against all royalties and other
moneys payable to the Writer hereunder.
The Publisher shall pay the Writer of the following royalties from the use and/or
exploitation of the Compositions:
(a) Fifty per cent (50%) of Receipts in respect of the mechanical reproduction of
the Compositions;
(b) Fifty per cent (50%) of Receipts in respect of the use and synchronisation of
the Compositions in connection with any cinematograph film, TV film or other
films;
(c) Fifty per cent (50%) of Receipts in respect of any other fees for any use and/
or exploitation of the Compositions not specified in this clause 2.
(d) Ten percent (10%) of retail price (excluding VAT) in the United Kingdom for
direct sales after the first two hundred and fifty (250) copies which are
actually sold paid for and not returned in the United Kingdom in the form of
words and music (or either of them) or as an orchestration arrangement or
adaptation and a pro-rata proportion for mixed folios and fifty per cent (50%)
of Receipts for third party sales (and a pro rata proportion of same for mixed
folios).
Sounds like bad news…
Is it a library listed on MLR?
I’m sorry – why is this bad news ?
You get 50% of eveything they make from your tracks and you get your PRO payments as well.
???
“You get 50% of eveything they make from your tracks and you get your PRO payments as well” – Darkstar
Maybe you do, and maybe you don’t. The language is too screwed up.
“Writer hereby irrevocably assigns and transfers the entire copyright and all similar rights of
whatsoever nature and all rights title interest of the Writer” Huh?
“Maybe you do, and maybe you don’t.”
Well, call me an innocent abroad, but generally you have to accept that what it says in a contract is what you’re going to get. And that the company you are dealing with will abide by those terms.
If you take the stance that no-one is ever going to abide by a contract why are you signing tracks over in the first place ?
“The language is too screwed up.”
Seems like English to me 😉
I guess you’re just smarter than the rest of us Darkstar. 😀
Its Twisted Jukebox
That looks like a very standard exclusive deal you’d see from a PRS affiliated , UK based Library. I’d have no problems signing that deal.
It’s a straight 50/50 deal and you’re allowing them to sublicense outside the UK, where a lot of the money gets made.
Go for it.
I disagree with dblock. The language of the agreement is unnecessarily too complicated. The sure sign of getting screwed.
I’m actually going to go with it. The track only took a few hours to create and to be honest I think it will be an interesting learning experience. I’ll let you know how it works out
Like I said, I’d go with that – most UK libraries have a very similar contract, the wording may be a little different here and there, but essential it’s the same deal.
Best of luck and may the PRS be with you 😉
Disagree with what? lol!
What would be the need to sign over your copyright?If they want the song exclusivily why not get you to sign for x amount of years.Whats to stop the library renaming your track,(you’ve signed away the copyright to them,they would now own it wouldn’t they?),selling it to someone else and giving you nothing
Exactly! Once they own the copyright all Hell could break loose.
Again, never sign over a copyright unless you’re getting good upfront money, Period!
Or… if you don’t value your creations. 😀
John,
A question – which libraries buyout upfront and pay 50% of master/sync fees? I’d like to know.
DeWolfe Music & Killer Tracks to name two.
Thanks John.
So in theory,if I was unscrupulous,not saying in any way that this library is,I could
set up a website,offer this contract signing over copyright for $1 upfront.Then retitle the tracks,i own the copyright so nothing illegal their.So if I payed $1000 I could have me own 1000 track library of a wide variety of genres overnight.Thats cheaper than software!
Er, thats not generally how exclusive libraries do business. This whole re-title concept seems to be something unique to the royalty free world.
And not the best of ideas either.
You guys seem to want to have your cake and eat it 🙂
Hi, a question about renaming my tracks. If I submit songs to many libraries that ask me to rename my songs. Does that mean I rename songs differently with every library I sign with?
No, the non-exclusive re-titling library will re-title it. Most times they’ll just add a prefix to your title. Pump Audio uses numbers for titles like this “PUMP AUDIO 98563”.
Hello everyone, I recently started getting into this business and have a few contracts going. Im Canadian, and have received a cheque from one non-exclusive library for 120 dollars. Now, the description states that it is for a commercial of a big burger chain (think Arby’s, Harveys etc.). I was expecting (since it is a 50/50 split on everything) to get more than that and emailed them. I also asked if i can expect any performance royalties, but the response was that there is no performace royalties on commercials in Canada. Anywho, Im a bit confused about the whole thing – does everything check out? Any help or advice appreciated..
for webvideo and television commercials you will get a “buy out” for use within a specified territory. Sounds like this is what happened. With the dollar amount this sounds like a webvideo. And yes it is true there is no performance royalties on these types of uses. This is why it is “bought out”.
Thanks to Darkstar/anonymous (the other anonymous)/Matt for their replies to my questions.
Still not clear. For example Matt 800 tracks means 800 full length tracks which with edits and alternate versions come to several thousand tracks or 800 tracks consisting of say 300 hundred full length tracks and 500 edits and alternate versions.
My master plan is
Phase 1 get the my 20 best racks with edits etc up on 10 websites/libraries ( so far I have found Audiosparx good for getting my metadata chops together and Revostock best for actually selling a couple of my tracks)
Phase 2 get the next best 20 or 30 tracks up on the same sites
Phase 3 get 10 new tracks written and recorded complete with proper edits and versions
packaged up and put on the same 10 websites
Phase 4 Having got everything organised with metadata etc expand my catalogue and the number of place where I am putting it.
One problem I have had is that a lot of my best material was recorded in the days of the Atari 1040st and so it is hard to do proper edits but I have managed some using instrumental passages etc
On the CD Baby front I have a couple of CD’s up there but in terms of me as an artist I am too old fat and ugly which is why the Production music route seems the most attractive
So thanks again and I better get writing!
Never really knowing what edits a client will want, I find it better to just do the full track with a side note that you’re ready to make any edits (quickly). I suppose a full track and a :30 track would be okay as well.
As far as duration of a track; I’ve had 9 second tracks and 3+ minute tracks used. You’ll never know. Why waste your time doing several durations?
Sometimes a client will want tempo, instrumentation, etc changed as well. It’s non-productive trying to out-guess those creatures. 😀
I guess that depends on whether it’s a situation where a client is just looking to download something instantly or is willing to enter into discussion with you about what they want. What you say is sound advice tho!
Cheers!
Also a lot of clients do their own duration edits.
And remember a lot of clients will never need edits, like TV shows and films.
I am new to all this but have started out on my journey in production music. I have been a musician for a long time and have a backlog of reasonably professional recordings so am in the process of getting those up and running on a bunch of sites first (argggh! metadata!) and then working on new stuff more tailored to the situation next. Got a couple of placements already with Revostock.
I have a couple of questions.
1) maybe I am being dim but to do a 15 or 30 second version of a track that finishes neatly it surely has to be at 128bpm so what do you guys do for tracks at other bpm’s
2) is this really a numbers game ie. as long as your material is above a certain level of competency (of which a lot of people’s music is now with the technology available) it is a case of getting as much material out there as possible.
I notice some guys saying they have hundreds of tracks out there but are theses all full length tracks or does that include all the edits and underscores.
Yours
Myles
ps great website
will donate if I get over 100 dollars
“1) maybe I am being dim but to do a 15 or 30 second version of a track that finishes neatly it surely has to be at 128bpm so what do you guys do for tracks at other bpm’s”
Make it work, is the glib answer.
You need to write tracks with a definite resolution / end point, instead of just stopping dead at the 15 or 30 second mark, if that makes sense.
“2) is this really a numbers game ie. as long as your material is above a certain level of competency (of which a lot of people’s music is now with the technology available) it is a case of getting as much material out there as possible.”
Bottom line, yes.
I’ve got several hundred tracks out there, about 98% with exclusive libraries. But as I’ve mentioned before, I’m UK based and thats how it works over here.
“I notice some guys saying they have hundreds of tracks out there but are theses all full length tracks or does that include all the edits and underscores.”
Yes, afraid so – full lengths, edits, the whole nine yards.
1) Try other techniques – meter changes, tempo changes
2) You really need 100’s of tracks out there to make a steady living from royalties and license fees. Once I hit about the 800 mark I was able to quit my day job. Every now and then you might get a big license fee, or a big bump in the royalties, but to have a pretty steady income, you have to place a lot of tracks with a variety of different types of libraries. Some composers here have likely made a lot from one library, and stick to that one source, but my take on it is that you never know which revenue stream will dry up, or how long each will last. It’s best to work with all types: royalties based, royalty-free, license fee based and buy out/upfront fee based.
I agree. I would only add that once you get enough original tracks to cut an album do so and head over to CDbaby.com or something and sell them as downloads. You’d be surprised what people are listening to in their ipods or MP3 players. Just make sure the tracks have non-exclusive commitments otherwise there could be some issues.
Then go to ebay…
Word of advice:
As one noob (that’s me!) to others, don’t be in a huge hurry to get all of your tracks into non-exclusives. Keep some juicy ones to yourself and shop them out to high-end libraries. If you have the goods, you might be surprised what doors will open. FWIW! 😉
Library recommendations? So I decided do have 5 libraries to submit to so I don’t have to much of the same non exclusive stuff out there. I signed up with MusicSupervisor,Jungle Punks, and MusicDealers. I don’t count Crucial music and AudioSocket since it’s impossible so far for me to get anything accepted by them though I’ll keep trying.
Can anybody recommend two more who pay backend, have decent placements and are active in securing licenses and of course, are accepting?
Thanks
Pat
I’d try Pumpaudio. For some reason they get a bad rap around here but they place a lot of music. My biggest complaint with these guys is that they move at snail speed. One misconception about PA, however, is that they accept anything. Not true. They’ll accept any GENRE not anything. They don’t have genre quotas like most other libraries so if your demo was rejected then it was probably because of some production/songwriting deficiencies rather than “we already have enough of that stuff.”
I’ve been looking at Musicrevolution.com as a royalty free alternative. You might want to check them out.
I agree! They’ve gotten me a lot of placements. It does take awhile for tracks to be up & running though. However, I noticed certain genres get accepted quicker. I recently sent three CD’s of material – orchestra, electronic, and Christmas CD’s.
The Christmas CD’s were accepted first.
Thanks for the input anonymous. I’ll take a look. Also looking at “Film and TV music Library. Not much in the way of opinions here but they look pretty good at first glance except for the 5 year contract. I hate 5 year contracts after DSM.
Where is the discussion about copyrighting multiple songs in a collection? I can’t find it.
You have to click on “older comments” and scroll up to find it.
Yes, this site can be a little awkward to find previous posts. I think it would be easier to navigate if all the replies would be in order of the time posted instead of grouping related postings..
Right now the comments are “threaded” so that they are kept together to a particular topic that has sprung up. If I “un-thread” them then I think it would be harder to follow the thread. I agree it’s awkward but not sure how to fix it. One reader suggested a forum format but then again topics have a way of straying of course and it becomes the same problem. I’m all ears for suggestions!
All comments and questions on Copyrights have been moved to here: https://musiclibraryreport.com/music-miscellania/copyright-issues-and-questions/. I think I got them all. Phew what a pain! But I found a new plug-in that will make it easier in the future.
Thanks for your input anonymous.
I think my mixes are ok just the volume seems low.
You bring up another interesting point. It seems to me that when I listen to songs on some libraries, it almost sounds like all the songs could have been mixed and mastered on the same day byt the same guy. That is all the levels sound about the same and the quality sounds about the same. Do these libraries do anything to the music they accept to get that kind of continuity or is it just me?
You can always normalize your tracks dBlock. That will bring everything up proportionately to peak volume.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll try it.
A great, fast fix for me is Waves’ L3 plugin. It’s about $450.