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My advice: use amazing players when you can…and believe me…these libraries posturing as “EXCLUSIVE FROM NOW ON”…Don’t worry…if the track is amazing…they will take it in non-exclusively!
While I agree that greatness matters, I’ve not seen (in *MY* experience) libraries who have committed to exclusive only change their policy because a track is great. It usually makes things too complicated to make exceptions. Most often, they don’t pitch one track at a time, they send hard disks or other media with many tracks and the terms generally have to be the same for all of them.
I’m sure anything is possible and I certainly don’t claim to know everything or be sure of everything.
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When writing for the general library market, in the absence of a special request or target (such as 60 seconds for advertising), over 2 minutes is usually best. If we’re talking instrumental, that gives time to develop structure such as A-B-A or A-B-A-B and provide edit points for the sup.
A good total length varies from 2-4 minutes with a sweet spot around 2:30-3:00. What matters is that you are sustaining interest throughout. If not, cut it. And GUIDELINES are not rules in this discussion. (They ARE rules if specific library or end user requirements)
Remember that the most critical thing is to grab the listener’s interest right from the get-go. Like most music execs, music sups are impatient, busy people and if they don’t hear something of interest in 15-20 seconds, they’ll go on to the next track.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a placement whereby the music used wasn’t from the start of my track. The exception would be if it had a cool sting ending and they either looked for that or the library sent them a sting edit.
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No panic here… There is one reality that sometimes needs to be dealt with now. Some networks and/or TV production companies are saying they will no longer accept non-exclusive music. So, in that case, perception is reality. If they believe there is a problem, there IS a problem, at least from the POV of you getting your music on THOSE shows. Of course, if those shows are in the minority enough, it might not be a problem.
We also know that some libraries believe there is a problem and again, perception is their reality. If the two libraries (one starts with “J”, one with “S”) that get the majority of my placements stop pitching their non-exclusive catalogs (admittedly, it hasn’t seemed to happen yet), then I have to concern myself.
Anyway, it’s not just OUR perception of the situation that matters. It’s that of everyone in the industry– music sups, libraries, etc. as well.
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Again, to reiterate a point I think Michael made… We’re not talking about whether or not to have music in non-exclusive libraries that re-title. The issue at hand is whether to have the same cue in *multiple* re-title libraries. Everyone has to do what they are comfortable with, weighing pros and cons, potential risk vs. benefit, etc. We don’t know what we don’t know and we can speculate endlessly as to what will happen over the next few years.
I have to wonder why the re-titling libraries don’t form an organization, like the PMA, to set standards for themselves, and for writers. More importantly, I wonder why they don’t band together to develop and promote the technology suggested above, that would preserve their business model. Perhaps they don’t look at the “big picture” as much, and /or consider the common good of the industry.
I had the same thought. For one thing, they could have agreed on a standard for how they re-title such as Original Title – Tag so that at least when music sups get music from mutliple sources, it would be more obvious and easier to sort out. It might prevent sups from (sometimes) listening to the same cue more than once… same title (execpt tag), same composer = same cue.
Of course, that could be *very naive*, especially assuming how end users would react or feel comfortable. But the thought that they should form an organization and set standards crossed my mind.
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I interpret Semi-exclusive as “exclusively represented” in the library music business by one library, but the composer of the cue can can also privately shop the cue themselves. The writer can not send the cue to another library, and after an agreed period of time, 2-5 years usually…the composer get’s the cue back and once again becomes sole owner of the cue, or agree to sign on for another period of time.
I think you are combining two different concepts into one here. Yes, your description of semi-exclusive as far as only one LIBRARY representing the cue while the writer can shop it on his/her own is correct. However, whether or not there is a reversion is a different concept. There are semi-exclusive deals out there both with and without reversion clauses.
I hope I don’t have to change my name to “Bad Advice” now, LOL! 😀 😉
@wilx2… That’s just a matter of wording which can vary. With composer’s share most often being 50% of the total, it’s not hard to translate between composer’s income and total income.
Never, ever…and I mean never sign an exclusive contract unless you will be given some kind of compensation or guarantees of placements.
I would say that holds true more if the deal is exclusive in perpetuity (e.g. no reversion in 2, 3, or 5 years). It is not realisitc to expect in today’s market that you will get upfront money JUST because a deal is exclusive. I agree, however, that giving away tracks forever with no payment isn’t generally a good deal unless there are special circumstances.
Also, you used the term “semi-exclusive” to describe exclusive deals with reversion. My understanding is the term “semi-exclusive” means the deal is exclusive only to film/TV pitches or only with respect to other music libraries. Deals like these can be good for some because they can put tracks in a library and still pitch directly to sups, sell their tracks as artists on iTunes, etc.
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What’s the definition of a ‘pay to play’ site? There are some sites whereby submission fees are involved and the sites are very legit. Most of my library contracts (and resulting placements) are a result of paid submission fees.
In any field, there are legit and not-so-legit players. I recently licensed music for an ad campaign via a so called ‘pay to play’ site.
I know we can’t get into specific names here and I don’t want to start that type of discusssion. Just wanted to say I can’t see painting with a broad brush.
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Even in the non-exclusive market, the library owners/representatives whom I have had contact with have been very helpful, personable, appreciative, accomodating, etc. I have seen no treatment that would warrant an “Us VS. Them” mentality.
Yup, that’s the point. 🙂
Without the agressive tone of some of the posts I see here… When people talk about a-kissing, not bowing down, not being taken advantage of, etc, a red flag goes up for me as far as the professionalism of that composer. Too much attitude for my taste.
If you KNOW that any of the libraries involved has a fairly short response time, it would be better to go one at a time with any of those first rather than deliberately create a situation you could avoid. Also, if you have established relationships, they often respond faster and you may want to check with those first, unless you are purposely seeking to branch out.
In general, when there are long response times anticipated, I see nothing wrong with submitting a track for consideration to multiple exclusive libraries and then making a decision based on the results. If you sign the track with Library A and Library B contacts you after, you can politely tell Library B the track is no longer avaialble and ask if you can submit other similar ones. As long as you are polite and professional, it should be fine.
Follow the one simple rule… Just don’t be a jerk about it.
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I think there’s a plug in you can use to fix the “Just Awful” tracks.
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This is one of two libraries many of us know that do a lot of blanket deals with cable shows and recently started putting more emphasis on exclusives. One of those libraries barely takes any more non-exclusive tracks into the catalog.
Like many of you, I continue to get placements from my non-exclusive tracks with these libraries. But it’s hard to conclude from that because everything changes slowly in this business. Music sups might still be looking at hard drives full of tracks they were sent months or years ago without regard to exclusive or not. The question is as those batches age out, will things change? IF there *IS* a shift back to exclusive, I don’t think it will happen overnight.
I used to think the exclusive vs. non-exclusive issue was only for the bigger network placements. Over the last year, however, we’ve learned that the blanket cable deals may have even more problem as end users don’t want to pay blanket fees to multiple libraries, only to find many duplicate tracks– very cost inefficient and they have heavy duty budget pressures..
So, we don’t really know. I did directly ask a principal in one of those 2 libraries about the future of the non-exclusive side of the catalog and he said some clients insist on exclusive, some don’t, but he does see a trend toward exclusive developing.
Again, keep in mind that if things are changing, it could be happening slowly and spikes in a given direction may or may not be meaningful. Hard to say…
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Our resident music attorney, MichaelL, will hopefully chime in but… My *GUESS* is if you had tracks in an exclusive library that goes out of business or is OBVIOUSLY not able to live up to their side of the contract in good faith anymore, there probably is a (reasonably) simple way to declare the contract null and void. I would think this would be especially true if there was evidence they were no longer a functioning business.
However, I am NOT an attorney and this is a guess.
For many reasons in addition to this one, it’s usually a good idea not to have all your eggs in any one basket anyway.
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