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People grossly underestimate what it would take to handle all the sales, marketing, and business matters on their own. It’s a full time job to itself would drastically reduce any time available to actually create music.
I know to some it seems like 50% is a hefty price tag but it’s really not. There’s a reason why libraries get that. It’s a ton of work.
I’m not saying anyone shouldn’t seek out ‘direct’ contacts. Just make sure you truly understand all that’s involved.
Hi Noah
Your vocal tracks will generally have different fingerprinting than the instrumental versions, so if you upload only the instrumentals, you could easily miss the vocals. Of course, if they play passages of the vocal songs that have no vocal (e.g. intro, breaks, etc) they might get picked up.Bottom line is you would really need to upload both the vocal and no-vocal versions.
HTH
Yes, Michael, **IF* you have such an agreement. However, if you are the library, you want to cover your ass well. The hassle of someone contesting something later (even if you have a collab agreement) ain’t worth it.
It’s not a given that splits are even but in the absence of OTHER documentation, it would be assumed. A US copyright does not define percentages, it assumes equal shares. You need a collab agreement to document anything other than that.
Companies ask for co-writer’s signatures to guard against future claims/problems. It is definitely the best thing to do. Imagine a library places a track and some co-writer comes out of the woodwork and says, “Hey! I didn’t agree to that!”… I’d be more concerned about libraries that DON’T ask for co-writer signatures than ones that do.
Anyway, I’m not a lawyer but I was going to dress as Michael L for Halloween. 😉 😛
A written collaboration agreement is a good idea though I haven’t always done this with folks I know well and trust (I really should do this more often. I have in the past).
Some of the things to spell out are:
Split on composition
Split on master ownership
Split on publishing
Expense sharing for production
Split on royalties such as sync and PRO
Who can sign agreements for the team
What if a party can’t be reached within N days and there is an outstanding agreement? Assignment of full Power of Attorney for master and composition in that case?One template (May need some modifications) is at:
I’ve heard horror stories of people writing together and then a few years later one of the writers gets presented a deal but can’t even find one of the other writers. Or squabbles down the road about splits once a deal is presented. So getting things in writing early on is a best practice.
Just in case you don’t know, you can’t sign either just the instrumental or vocal version exclusively to a library and then sign the other with other libraries. I’ve seen people get this confused. Your exclusivity would apply to all alt mixes unless you have some written exception.
I agree that the title of this thread makes it all ridiculous as if there is a right or wrong, one size fits all. Different markets, different types of composers, etc… Not even sure why this discussion keeps going.
Nothing to say… Just unchecking “Notify Me of follow-up replies by email”…
Nothing to see here… Move along… 😉
Michael still collects royalties from cues he wrote and were played during the War of 1812. 😀 😉 😛
First, Congrats Kubed on the deal. You are lucky that it didn’t all fall apart and it went through at the right price!
Being in RF libraries, to itself, can’t hurt you IMHO. It’s a market segment like anything else. But competing against yourself with such a wide price difference could (as you found out) be a problem.
We would think that in most cases, a sup considering a $3000 sync deal to use your track wouldn’t also be looking at lower budget RF libraries. That’s usually true– these folks generally don’t have time for that or care to bother. However, something as simple as Google-ing your name can turn up all sorts of stuff. So a sup could Google you for other reasons and all of a sudden stumble on a $3K track being offered somewhere for $49.
I have not followed this advice completely myself but that is where the whole unique title and pseudonym could come in to play.
Or, as Michael said… If you are really concerned, don’t mix your apples and bananas to begin with.
I agree with Michael that the best approach is to have separate music catalogs for different markets, e.g. high end film/TV sync, RF, etc.
That being said, **IF** you want to place the same track in these different markets (non-exclusive deals of course), you probably want different titles and artist names (use a pseudonym on RF) for each usage to strongly minimize the odds of this happening. I’ve heard of folks doing that.
DI:
It is all about the money in the end. The PROs will come to their senses and use Tunesat eventually.
Did you read what Michael posted before you, DI?
Both PRO’s have their own detection technology in development.
ASCAP and BMI are not adopting Tunesat but they will put in place their own versions of detection systems at some point in the future. Exactly how this will shake out for the thousands upon thousands of re-titled tracks already registered, no one knows (Please don’t speculate- we’ve done enough of that).
While it’s true that ASCAP won’t accept Tunesat detections as proof of track usage, detections give a composer info to take to a library (or in some cases the production company) to help investigate further as far as missing info on cue sheets, etc. I have heard of a number of cases whereby a composer had a detection on Tunesat which didn’t get picked up by their PRO and was able to get a library to get it fixed.
Of course, if you have no idea which library may have made the placement, as can happen with the same cue in many NERT libraries, it might not be practical.
In general, if you are looking to only pitch your music to situations whereby you know exactly what the usage is and have right of approval/refusal, the music library world is not for you.
I know we are not supposed to discuss so called “pay to play” services here but Mark mentioned one whose name had a medical diagnostic procedure in it. My OWN, PERSONAL strong opinion is you should not work with this company.
I have come across libraries that allow you to put restrictions on venues like porn, extreme violence, etc. The one that comes to mind right now is Audiosparx. I just can’t recall who the other libraries were.
Some libraries will be OK adding a “no porn” clause to their contract… Especially if they no they don’t go after that market anyway.
Actualsizemusic: What is your goal here? What restrictions are you looking for?
PS Maybe I’d make more money if I had a “Porn Only” clause in my contracts!! 😛 😉
I can’t see how a music library can be very successful if each placement requires the artist’s approval. That is, unless they operate in a small scale niche market (maybe).
The library business generally depends on being able to send potential clients pre-cleared, no-hassle tracks that are ready for use immediately. If a client expresses interest and the library has to then say “no, the artist didn’t approve it”, I can’t imagine that client wanting to continue working much with that library when there are so many others. Chasing down artists for approval can be a nightmare.
I don’t know the specifics of the library you mention that does this but again, maybe in the market THEY play in, it’s doable. Just not usually so.
This is different than a library agreeing to keep your music out of venues like porn, violence, etc. When they send tracks to a client, they often know what type of work the client does and can weed out track that are restricted in those areas. (Even this can be challenging)
There are no absolutes in anything, BTW. 🙂