Is Jingle Punks dead?

[smiley J]

It really isn’t important how much money in-house composers make. I know theymake a lot more than I do. They get more placements than I do. But the owners of Jingle Punks make even more money than the in-house composers. That is how all businesses work.

If I want to make big money from music, it would be best for me to own a company and hire people to make music for me. I would make a lot of money off of the labor of those under me as long as the business was profitable.

But why are composers angry at a company for making money? The more money JP makes, the more opportunities they will have for composers like me. If I was in it solely for the money, I would start my own company and compete at that level. I think that composers need to relax and stick to composing. If they want to earn more money, they have to become businessmen and take on more risk. Why hate on JP?

[Steve]

You mis-read my post, or perhaps I was too ambiguous.

I wasn’t referring to how much the in-house composers get paid, I was referring to how LITTLE they get paid.  They are getting seriously taken advantage of, which isn’t exactly the hallmark of a great company.

I’m not hating on JP for making money.  Far from it.  The more money they make the better.  Just like any company I work with.

And, just to be clear, I make a pretty nice living writing music.  I’m not just a random guy who doesn’t know the industry or what is going on.  I write for libraries, a music house, I work directly with an ad agency, and I have music all over TV on a daily basis (I also have a business degree and am working on a secondary business with the cash I’ve earned from music… so I do know how businesses work).  I am fully aware of what a good deal is and what a bad one is.  I have been pretty flexible and have even given up small portions of my writers share at times over the years (with upfront compensation of course as a sort of “buy out”).  I’m definitely not a “hard liner” who isn’t willing to give a little for the big picture.  I’ve done it a number of times and it has served me well.  I don’t expect composers to get red carpet treatment from anybody, but the in-house JP deal that I was told about is crossing the line IMO.

I’m taking a “wait and see” approach with JP right now.  I’m not a fan of the tactics they are adopting right now, but maybe things will work out just fine.  Until then, I have other companies I can write for.

[Sean]

 

“@Michael Nicholas I think that Sean answered your question.

“JP has gotten me ‘started’ so to speak and they are the only reason I have a statement in ASCAP at all. It’s not a lot but more than nothing.”

THAT is one sentence worth a thousand words.”

Answered what…that I enjoy giving my music away for free?  Of course I don’t, and I respect the concern about the devaluation of music.  However, if something is working for me why would I not continue on that path?  Working with JP has helped me to improve my music and get signed with another library that I have been trying for the last 3 years.  I’ve been a serious musician for close to 40 years,  I am finally making progress and I’m darn happy about it.  As I said I respect everyone’s opinion and feelings about this, but I will make my own choice.  I apologize if that is selfish.

[Art Munson]

@smiley J. You are starting to sound a bit like our old friend Yadgyu. Coincidentally your IP address and his two IPs are from the same general area in Michigan. Could it be?

[Michael Nickolas]

“This article from Sound on Sound applies equally to writing for libraries.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may12/articles/notes-0512.htm”

Thanks Michael, that essay is a good read. The author sums it up with “Be dedicated, focused, creative and realistic”. I feel it is realistic to expect to be fairly compensated for my work. I suppose I should be opened minded, but I just can’t see the other side, the point of view that says it’s ok for their work to be used for free.

smiley J wrote:

“But why are composers angry at a company for making money?”

Because, in the instance being discussed here, the money is not being shared. In this instance, a company makes money and the creator earns nothing. And on top of it, if the creator has singed the music exclusively there is no opportunity for he or she to earn from it elsewhere. I don’t see how this can be justified or rationalized. Even if the company makes the creator money in other placements, I don’t see how the unfairness of placing their music in a situation that earns for the company  but not the creator can be accepted. This is where I suppose composer anger comes from.

[MichaelL]

“I suppose I should be opened minded, but I just can’t see the other side, the point of view that says it’s ok for their work to be used for free.”

As I alluded to in a previous post: when you take the attitude that “something is better than nothing,” no matter how little, or in your view, unfair, the battle is lost.

[Producer Composer]

I am glad the debate still rolls on. The point of my last post is to encourage all composers to NOT sign this exclusive contract. By doing so, you are just giving JP total control of your music in perpetuity (forever) for free. They have no answers regarding an exclusive search engine and a non exclusive search engine. I really do not see that happening. The majority of the work they get are from stations and networks who do not care about exclusivity. There number one goal is to fill up cue sheets with as many “in house” composers as possible, particularly the owner. Hasn’t anyone noticed how many times the owners name appears on cue sheets?..I have…If I get one synch on a show….he’s getting 10 to 15. That’s just the way it is and that will not change. I am happy that JP is getting me placements but there is no reason to get manipulated into signing an exclusive contract that only benefits them. If you feel confident in your music and the quality is there…why make a change and give total control over your music to JP? Why fix what is not broken? I am not bashing JP, I am grateful for the extra few thousand they put in my pocket each year. All I am saying is that this will not change by going exclusive with them, especially if all or most composers refrain from signing this one sided deal. @smiley J. I’d love to know how you will benefit or you have benefited from signing your cues over to JP exclusively?

[smiley J]

Producer Composer, you made some great points. I guess the exclusive deal with JP is not very beneficial. You and others do have some great points.

I think that even though I signed the exclusive deal, I will not contribute new tracks until I hear better news. Luckily I did not include any of my existing songs to become exclusive. I have only submitted 3 songs for the exclusive deal and they aren’t my best work.

I guess I owe you a debt of gratitude. It really doesn’t make sense for me to sign over more songs without any extra benefit, especially when the owners are going to leave me with crumbs.

By the way, what do you recommend I do from here on out? Should I stick with non-exclusive libraries, or go for exclusives with upfront payments?

[Producer Composer]

Hi All,

There is a lot more to this story when you take the time to look under the covers and intelligently draw conclusions about what you observe.  I’ll begin:  First, a positive… for myself, royalties are on the rise…this is a good thing.  Second, if you have not used JP as a search engine to see what’s out there, who is composing, and do some tests as to when your tracks show up in a search using some key words…you may want to do that. I did find that some of my stuff can not be discovered when searching by track title, but tracks show up in other miscellaneous searches. Third, you will notice a great number of cues by two “artists”:  fish n’ chips (750 cues) and the beards (750 cues). Both are insiders, specifically, Jared 75% writer and Jeffrey Peters 25% writer.

You see, these guys are recording cues every day based on briefs and requests they get from their clients and the (internal) catalog just grows and grows. These are the cues that get “special attention” and sent right to the edit suite of those making/ editing the show. This is why Jared is a writer of 10 to 15 cues on a typical cue sheet and we’ll all be a writer for 1 cue.

Now, Jared does not have this kind of time to write and mix all these cues so clearly there is a deal going on where he made the agreement to take 75% share of every cue made by in house guys…and the in house guys are getting a salary in return. I’ll bet that Peters is a key writer who shows up every day and writes cues for a salary. Those cues will always be at the editors desk the day the show is getting edited and the rest of the library is “filler” for tracks they can’t supply…then the editor can go and search for it. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing  because I do believe that if a video/ film editor discovers a track they love…they will favorite it, and listen to more by THAT composer, and hopefully become of fan of YOU, the composer and search YOUR name, or your ARTIST’s name when searching for tracks.

So just put out high quality work and the editors will find you.

Fish N’ Chips and The Beards have great tracks, I did listen to a lot of them and Mr. Peters is a talented composer…(I just can’t believe Jared is  writing all of these cues and running this company simultaneously….it’s absurd)

It takes great Talent and great quality to get on the air. Forget about the exclusivity bull shit…people want what they want and need what they need regardless of whether it was discovered exclusively or non-exclusively. If  a track enhances the scene, it will get on the show and hence, on the cue sheet.

For the record, I am expressing my opinion above and not stating concrete facts, but my thesis looks to be well supported based on my research of my own cue sheets and what I see in the Jingle Player Search engine. I also want JP to succeed and become the top source for production music…it will just increase all of our chances of growing our TV and Film editor fan base. Those folks are our best friends, all editors and assistant editors editing the shows JP has relationships with.

Conclusion: no need to go exclusive, if TV show editors like my shtick…they’ll check my body of work out and come back to listen to my stuff more often. (or at least I hope they will).  I can only believe this is the case as my royalties are rising each quarter….we’ll see what happens moving forward….

[Advice]

Smiley J… Upfront fees from exclusive libraries are harder and harder to come by these days. You have to have something they consider very high quality and not just another track like many others in some genre. So think about what you can bring to the table that is unique and in demand. 🙂

[Gus]

Like Smiley J, I also contributed about 3 new songs exclusively to JP, and I have about another 5 waiting on the sidelines, but I think I’m going to hold out until they can provide some better details on what the benefits are in comparison to just submitting non-exclusively.

[Blind]

To you guys that already signed the exclusive deal: keep in mind that once you sign that you can no longer submit to them non-exclusively. Everything you submit from here on out is exclusive.

[smiley J]

@Blind, the exclusive JP agreement I signed only gave exclusivity for 3 years and did not transfer the copyright to JP. They only have the right to be the sole licensor for that term. But I will still be cautious since 3 years is a nice amount of time to have tracks sitting in a library.

[axiomdreams]

Yes, there seems to be a 3 year reversion clause unless the track/tracks were placed & generated some $

-AxD

[Steve]

“Yes, there seems to be a 3 year reversion clause unless the track/tracks were placed & generated some $”

Ah… so there is an “income threshold” of some sorts involved?

Well, I haven’t seen the contract, but I would still assume that when you sign a track exclusively with JP you are signing it exclusively in perpetuity.  In my experience, when you have a reversion clause that has a condition like that you essentially have no reversion clause.  More than likely JP will get you a placement in 3 years that will void the reversion clause.

Here is an experience of mine that people can learn from:

My first deal was an exclusive deal that had a reversion clause just like JP’s it sounds like.  After 3 years you could take back your tracks, but if they licensed a track it voided the reversion clause.

This company came highly recommended by other composers who I seriously respect, as well as a big time music library attorney.

The contract gave a very small percentage of the sync fee to the writer, and, unbeknownst to me, this companies revenue is generated almost solely from sync fees with virtually no royalties (I was a newbie at the time… I pretty much knew nothing).  Not only that, but they were essentially micro/RF licenses.

Moreover, this particular company mostly sells 10 track collections or their entire library at deep discounts.  So…

Almost immediately they licensed their entire library as well as a few collections I was on and I made like $20 on 12 tracks over an entire quarter.  There goes my reversion clause.

After about 3 years and 25 tracks, I have made MAYBE $500 from this company.  This is an extreme example and I think JP would do much better money wise, but the moral of the story is this: don’t let reversion clauses fool you.

 

[Author]

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