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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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One thing some people don’t consider is if your backup drive(s) are physically in the same location as your DAW (e.g. internal or external in the same room), fire, flood, theft, etc can make you lose everything. So it’s important that at least one backup is offsite– either a drive stored elsewhere or web-based.
I’ve opted for one daily external HD backup and one cloud service which runs in the background.
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Same here… I have a cue on a season 2 episode but no payments on this ASCAP statement… Damn… one less cuppa coffee this quarter. 😉
I’m sure it’s doable and others have mentioned there are folks doing it. Two big challenges I see are (1) Exclusivity. You can’t have composers pitching the same tracks to the same libraries on their own. (2) How do you get paid? It would be difficult to run a business based on placement results (e.g. % of sales) only since these vary so much and take years to develop. Composers are reluctant sometimes to pay upfront with no guarantee of results and no one can make a guarantee. If you wanted to share in publishing, that would be problematic since the libraries themselves generally want the publishers share. Asking them to split that can make things complicated for them.
I ran a small business years ago where I dealt with many songwriters and composers. Most of the time it was smooth and easy but sometimes (just look at some of the posts on forums like this one)Â the bad situations made it very difficult. Just getting people to sign and return contracts was a pain at times.
And never underestimate how many hours of work are required before you even see a penny. You have to be thinking long term, 2, 3, 5 years in planning.
As I said upfront, I’m sure it’s doable and with the right creativity, business skills, and approach, there is a business model out there.
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One thing you can at least TRY is ask the company offering you the exclusive deal with 5 year reversion, if they would consider shortening it 4 or better 3 years. It never hurts to ask… Worst case, they say no. Some are more flexible than others in terms of changes to contracts.
Of course, many libraries use 5 years because that is the number that truly makes sense for their business model. It IS a slow moving world for what we do.
Best
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Nope, not Mega Tracks… 😉
I’ve only heard of one such situation and if it’s the library I’m thinking of, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. 🙂
Art
So how exactly does this work with respect to AS? I don’t recall any correspondence from them regarding this (I could have missed it). Am I supposed to do something to make it happen or not happen?
Totally lost and confused.
😉 Thanks!
As with #tag’s post, this is all new to me and I don’t understand what this is all about. Could someone explain what PPC is as it relates to composers on AS?
All Greek to me right now…
Thanks and Happy Holidays to all!
😀 A
Thanks and Happy Holidays, Michael! 🙂
Question for MichaelL… (And it IS a question, not a statement.)… I always understood that you don’t copyright TITLES, you copyright the underlying work. Obviously, there are many copyrighted songs with the same title.
So, I’m confused as to why your track in multiple re-title libraries would have any impact on a copyright infringement claim. There is material on deposit with the LOC that shows exactly the music, lyrics, etc. If a library place your music on a TV show under some title that doesn’t match the copyright title, wouldn’t the acutal music itself be the item to consider?
Just curious…
And given that you need substantial damages to file a copyright claim lawsuit, I think many songwriters and composers just plain worry too much about this. We have to weigh the cost of filing fees against potential earnings. If I were to file every track as an individual item, I’d spend $35 each. Not very cost effective for an extremely low risk scenario.
Thanks Michael. I always appreciate your input!
Happy Holidays!