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When I first started licensing my music out on RF marketplaces around 3 years ago (as this was the model I chose to focus my efforts on, catering mostly to the YouTube community), I honestly couldn’t believe my luck, as sales were very good, pretty much right from the outset.
I was fortunate enough to find a good selection of my music within popular item and best selling item categories on several of these sites, and continued for a good couple of years. Alongside this, uploading just a couple of cues a month would almost guarantee good traction and additional revenue, in a relatively short period of time.
How things have changed since then.
Since around last September last year or so, I’ve been watching a steady and continuous decline in RF license sales across a selection of these once-popular sites, with a couple of these sites no longer generating any income at all; despite an increase and regularity of uploads. Uploading music these days has become akin to throwing a rock into an ocean, regardless of how popular that music may potentially be.
I’ve put this down to a combination of two main possible causes; over saturation of the RF market, and more notably Google search algorithmic changes, with ContentID/YouTube centric RF music sites now appearing higher up in search results. I also believe the roll out of YouTube’s free music library has had a marked impact on sales, as users don’t have to go through the rigmarole of getting their videos cleared for monetisation with a license.
Whilst I’m still enjoying regular sales on a small handful of these RF sites, I’m not particularly convinced that things will return to how they once were, and personally I’m now in the process of looking to shift my sights elsewhere and consider other options.
You do not have permission to view this content.You do not have permission to view this content.You do not have permission to view this content.@More advice: Speaking for myself here really, but I’d say most authors on AJ are hobbyists and do not work in a professional capacity. Maybe a handful of top authors, but that’s it. We’re just doing it as a form a passive income alongside our main day-jobs and to vent some creativity.
And therein lies the problem. Most authors are probably completely unaware of this industry and where and when their music is used (especially as as AJ do not disclose who purchase licenses or where they’ll be used). We just assume they’ll end up on a kid’s YouTube video or a VH project and that’s that. $8.50, thank you very much.
It’s only in the last year or so, when I accidentally discovered Art’s great resource here that I became truly aware of the bigger picture. Looking at those links you posted confirmed that most of us RF marketplace composers are really worlds apart from commission composers, in both terms of experience and skill. These guys have got it down to an art-form, whereas I still consider myself a noob who can happen to pull off relatively convincing Edge/George Formby impressions that’s found a use. To be put in the responsible position to taylor make a spot of music for a very specific purpose, never mind a nationwide advertising campaign, would be horrifying to me!
Hence why I create and upload the music when I get the time, then let the public decide whether they want it or not without me having to do much else. It’s certainly less work and stress for me, but I’m sure there are many composers on the RF marketplace scene that are very capable and willing to perform such a role and getting that 10 to 20k fee per spot.
@More Advice: I should’ve also mentioned here that I’m actually a non-exclusive author, so my cut percentage on AJ is at a much lower 33%. Yes, I’m very aware it sounds pretty terrible at first glance, but I also sell on a host of other RF marketplaces with similar sales. The keyword here again is sales in volume. And this is the market I’ve chosen to operate in, rather than creating music for the larger, boutique libs.
I’m not sure that ad agencies are using AJ a lot however. There’s just been a handful of instances whereby people have heard exclusive AJ music on advertisements, and naturally caused some concern with authors – and rightly so.
I completely agree with your thoughts on this, however one thing worth noting is that RF marketplaces such as AJ most likely originally set up shop with a very focussed market, such as small/independent production outfits and members of the general public looking to plop some music on their YouTube cat videos. I really don’t think they anticipated large corporations and/or agencies taking advantage of such a model (most likely as a result of very high-quality music being made available), so in that respect they have to sort their act out in order to cater for such usages.
More often than not, the style of successful music on these RF marketplaces is very, very narrow indeed (usually in the form of plinky plonky ukulele and/or delayed guitar harmonics ideal for homemade videos), so I don’t think all the networks and agencies will be heading there in droves anytime soon as they just don’t offer the variety (yet!).
Interesting, Matt, So the video creators, in a sense, borrow a watermarked track on AJ to create the item they are selling? (because it enhances their image??)
Then, the buyer who browses visuals hear the track, like it, and then buy it?
So it is video folks, to a certain extent, providing free promotion of composers’ music on AJ?
That’s right. A lot of the videos created and sold on VH are for corporate use, so naturally fit very well with the majority of music sold over on AJ. As I mentioned, if a VH author places your music into their project and it goes on to sell very well, you can benefit greatly. The customer will just directly visit your item once they’ve purchased the visuals. However, I should also mention here that it’s also seen as a bit of a no-no to directly approach a VH author asking them to use your music on their project. From what I’ve heard, it’s generally seen as an irritation and regarded as spam. It’s best to let them find your music naturally, and work that way.
With respect to standard vs extended license sales, I’d say that roughly 90% are $17 standard licenses. But with the model I’ve attempted to tap into, I rely greatly on volume of license sales, currently selling anything up to around 300 licenses a month on AJ.
One of the payoffs of working in this model however, is that I’ve had to sacrifice registering certain tracks I have in my AJ portfolio with my PRO, at least until AJ reconsider the rulings. There’s been a lot of chatter and cries for change on the forums there recently regarding this very topic, with the apparent use of $17 AJ music by ad agencies on large campaigns, so it will certainly be interesting to see how that pans out.
Thought I’d chime in here, as I’m an AJ contributor and currently have a few tracks in my portfolio consistently selling well there.
One of the main things worth noting here that not all sales there result from a straight search. AJ is very closely linked to one of Envato’s popular sister sites called VideoHive selling AfterEffects templates and stock footage.
It’s from here I gain the vast majority of my sales. The VideoHive authors will often use a watermarked version of your track on their preview, with a direct link off to your own item. By doing this, the customer remains in the Envato ecosystem as it were, and just purchases the accompanying music that was used on the VH project. Add these sales to those that come from an organic on-site music search, and believe me they do tot up, especially if your music is used on a very high selling VH template.
Regarding Envato’s statement about top authors earning $20,000 to $50,000 a month, I’m pretty sure this applies more to Envato’s ThemeForrest authors who sell web templates and themes. ThemeForrest seems to be an incredibly popular site and some of these themes can sell hundreds, if not thousands of times a year for around $90 a go, with the top authors taking a 70% cut. With that in mind, those figures probably ring true.
-Matt
You’ll see in this pic…. the fee you are paying is for the right to upload 50 tracks. To use the personal licensing solution, it’s $29.95 per month. Just take a look here….http://soundslikejoe.com/images/random_BlogPic/mlr_YouLicense.jpg
It seems that we get a different deal with YouLicense here in Europe, as you will see from this pic. I think this is where the confusion is. I’m also paying $29.95 for unlimited uploads and storage.
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb159/junoman106/Screenshot2013-02-09at0042402_zpse37ff6f5.png
