contract advice deal or no deal?

[keltech]

i’ve been out of the game for a very long time would consider myself a newbie, many rejects or ignored emails later i’ve finally been offered a deal for 10 tracks with a small library.
their TV show clients look big enough the only thing is the contract doesn’t sound that fair unless i’m out of touch with todays latest contracts.
would any experienced composer cast their opinion please

$50 per track upfront (main mix plus at least one alt mix)
exclusive deal,
100% copyright goes to them they will own the music and do what they want with it.
100% publishing to them
term perpetuity
composer gets no sync fees
no get out claus if they don’t get any placement after x amount of years.
composer can not terminate contract

composer gets 100% writers royalties from PRO

whats your opinion?
the lack of sync fee’s worries me and the fact i could be signing a way tracks i have worked hard on and they just sit on them. the upfront fee’s seems a little low?

thanks in advance

[Art Munson]

Hi keltech and welcome. Personally I would pass on that deal. It’s horrible, IMHO.

[Paolo]

I totally agree with Art. And I’ll add that it will sting if these folks do a poor job of placing your music and you end up with zilch. But they own it — for $50! The better scenario: you own your music. If a library doesn’t produce results, give it to someone else. Good placements mean $$$$ on the backend over the lifetime of a cue.

[LAwriter]

One thing to consider – I’m seeing a new trend over the last couple of years. What I’m finding now is that cues are used for one season, then discarded. They want completely new stuff for the next season. If you loose the ability to manage your cues in perpetuity, then you are hosed.

I’m ending up writing almost identical cues every year now. In fact, they send me my own cues from the last couple of seasons and ask me to do more like those. And effectively, they are the same cue, rehashed with minor changes. Dumb. And yet…..

Ownership of your music is a critical long term strategy. Unfortunately, it sometimes make it hard to move forward in the short term. Judge wisely.

$50 seems to be the new number that companies are throwing around.

[keltech]

thanks everyone I appreciate the comments

[Author]

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