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I’ve been offered a contract with a PMA library with the following:
Performance Royalties: Composers always retain 100% of the author’s share of backend performance royalties. The library always retains 100% of the publisher’s share of backend performance royalties.
Exclusivity: While the tracks you submit must be exclusive to us, your songwriting skills are not exclusive to us. (i.e. you are free to write for other publishers as well.) The library Sale of Catalog: Upon sale of the library catalog, library composers share in 25% of the net profit from the sale, with your share determined by the number of unique titles in the catalog.
Licensing: Composers receive 25% of licensing payments from our clients and 25% of the licensing payments we receive from our subpublishers abroad. (If there is more than one composer on a track, you will share in the 25%)Unless there’s a really good reason, 50% of synch is what I consider fair. No matter which library it is.
+1 50% unless there’s a good reason.
And a dumb question here, what a PMA library stands for?
Hi, Carles,
I’m new here, but I’m sure they are are referring to “PMA libraries” as those music libraries that are members of the Production Music Association.
Thanks Danny, that makes sense.
I’m quite new to the business so still not very used to these.In other thread (in just one thread) you can find these
RF (royalty free)
NE (non exclusive)At some point feels like we need a glossary 🙂
Pixelee, not sure if is that as it seems to refer to a particular library rather than the internet slang word itself.
Mark (Petrie) in the thread “PRODUCTION vs RF Libraries” wrote:
“…much higher than sites like AS or even ML, and it’s no secret…”In the same thread (BTW I should ask there rather than here, but that’s me… always in the wrong place :D) also “CM” and “SAS” by the context sound like specific libraries.
I guess if you are starting on this and you can get into a library with top reputation would be a good reason.
It’s a different business, but I know lots of people that would be willing to work for free in the company I’m working on (Weta Digital) or even pay for it as far as they can get that in their CV.
Not in the CG industry because I’m many years on this, but regarding music, even having no share at all (for one or just a few tracks I mean) I’d be willing myself to “sacrifice” a few tracks to acquire a nice strategic position. After that you can tell that you’re in this or that library and also gather some nice credits (my music was used on this or that “well known brand” campaign) even with zero income as it could open other interesting doors. It could pay off in the future.
Nothing comes to my mind other than this specific scenario though.
In the same thread (BTW I should ask there rather than here, but that’s me… always in the wrong place :D) also “CM” and “SAS” by the context sound like specific libraries.
I discourage the use of specific library names on an open forum. The main reason is that a topic will meander into a discussion about individual libraries and I want to keep specifics about a library to their individual listing. It’s the only way to build a consistent knowledge base about each library.
General questions about libraries can be asked here https://musiclibraryreport.com/forums/forum/music-library-questions/.
Thank you
Art
What kind of good reason would it be? What kind of benefit would you be able to pass up that extra 25%?
I agree with the comments made above, that 50% should be standard. I’ve been lucky enough to get 60%, or even 70% before, in special cases.
Getting in with a big library is a lesser reason to accept 25%, because it’s not really fair in my opinion. A better reason would be if they offered some kind of upfront fee – even a small $100 – $250 a track fee.
Hey Carles – the abbreviations are for popular libraries that I think you’ll find on the ratings page.
You’ll find, SS, P5, ML, CM, AS etc up there : )Art, not intended to initiate a discussion about any library but just to figure out who are you guys talking about when using those abbreviations because I’m not familiar with them.
Sorry, I could not suspect that the forum “music-library-questions” is more appropriate for my question as it looks to me like a specific libraries forum rather than a general one (I’m quite new here and if you have a look in there now you’ll find that mostly posts are fully specific, so that’s misleading), thus didn’t find it wrong by asking here as it’s looking more general to me. Apologies.
@Mark: Thanks, that’s very helpful.
As Mark said, if they offer you some up front money per track on signing the contract then a lower synch % could be acceptable. To me this always shows that they are serious about selling your music and are confident they can do so. Which are really good signs in a library..
The only other time I’ve had a lower synch split was because the tracks were being contracted by not just the library but also a production company, and were specifically for that company. Probably not my finest hour of negotiation but that company has a huge share of the television market, so the deal was that the tracks would generate a lot of backend.
Hey Carles – the abbreviations are for popular libraries that I think you’ll find on the ratings page.
You’ll find, SS, P5, ML, CM, AS etc up there : )Great tip Mark. Now why didn’t I think of that! 🙂
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