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Bugging music supervisors on Twitter is no different than bugging them through any other form of communication. If they want to be bothered, they will. If music supervisors do not want to be bothered, they will ignore people.
I don’t bother with social media these days. There is a lot of chatter about nothing. Most successful deals are usually done in person between people that are ready to do business.
This post has taken a turn for the worst. I thought we were supposed to be discussing Fauxmusicsupe. Is there any more relevant info on this guy?
I see little value to a site such as this.
I would rather work and sell my music to an exclusive library that pays money to acquire the track. This way, I would get upfront money and still be able to collect the writer’s share of royalties. That is the ideal business model to me.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to get into the high end exclusive music libraries that offer such deals. I always strive to get into these companies, but I have to be realistic: most of my music is not good enough!
I don’t make bad music, but most of my stuff is not unique enough to compete at that level. This is why my music goes into the libraries that offer me the best chances to get placed. Backend royalties account for 99% of all of the money I have made from music licensing.
Possibly.
I’ll go so far as to say that I think the reason that some people do well in one business model and not the other, is because one is a better venue for pop music, while the other is a better venue for production music. That’s why after following all of this for several years, I don’t think the everything everywhere approach is efficient, or effective, at least not for my catalog.
The more I think about music licensing, I draw parallels to 401(k) investments. the 401(k) was not originally intended to be a retirement investment option. It was a side benefit. But as pensions decreased, the idea of a 401(k) account was sold to the masses as an investment vehicle for retirement.
As the mainstream music industry has suffered from pirating and a decrease in sales, musicians have been sold to the idea of entering into the production music business as a means to supplement or even replace the income lost from mainstream music sales.
I believe that the retitling trend is what brought the music licensing business into the eyes of struggling musicians. Musicians were offered the chance of getting music used TV shows and movies and still being allowed to sell the same music on CDs and on iTunes.
Unfortunately, most musicians learned that this business model operates quite differently from the mainstream music industry. This is why many people that dive into the production music field become disenfranchised and end up even more dissatisfied with the music business.
A healthy dose of education and humility have helped me to navigate this business. This will help most people that come into the production music field.
Sometimes I feel like everyone’s in an indie band, or a DJ, and that’s not what being a professional composer of production music is about. And quite frankly, that’s where a lot of the “flood” in this business comes from, struggling “artists” looking for another way to get noticed vs. production music pros.
This is because indie bands, DJs, and beatmakers are actually encouraged into getting into music licensing. That is how I got involved in this business!
I have read many blogs by music supervisors that sell the idea of music licensing to be an untapped goldmine for struggling musicians. Now that I have more knowledge and experience, I realize that being a production music composer is very different from working to be a mainstream recording artist or producer.
If a consumer finds your music on an RF site and then does a search for that music and finds it for next to nothing on iTunes they can easily buy that version and use it in their youtube video or DVD and claim they have a license. And then you do not have youtube contentID to protect you in that case because you are playing both sides of the fence, and you are doing it for absolutely no profit.
This happens to artists on major record labels everyday.
I see tons of videos on YouTube with nothing more than a picture of an artist’s face and a full version of a new song posted. Sometimes there is even a download link in the description. If someone wants to use someone’s music, it will happen.
YouTube Content ID will not protect anyone. Some people get scared by those notices, but others just ignore them. Those that ignore the Content ID warning will leave the video posted on YouTube until it is taken down by YouTube.
Ya..I know but I try and not bug the libraries or my PRO unless it’s absolutely necessary…I try to figure out as much as I can on my own…just figured someone else may have had the same experience..Jay
It’s not bugging if you have a legitimate complaint.
Plus, does the contract you signed allow the company to make derivative works based off of your original compositions?
If you are the original writer and publisher, no one else is allowed to make derivative works with permission and payment. You definitely need to “bug” someone. That sounds very suspicious to me.
You should contact the library and ask them for detailed info.
That was information overload for me!
You should probably just call PRS and explain your situation. I am sure that they deal with issues like this on a regular basis. They could give you info on copyrights, royalties, and all of the other important information to make intelligent and informed decisions.
This is a great community here, but I think it would benefit you to just work with PRS/MCPS. Good luck!
Yes, I did get an upfront license fee from the placement on network TV. Sadly, it was only one of few. The rest of my trap music placements have just been for backend. I work to make fairly modern music. Even though I do branch out into other styles, most of my stuff is based on Top 40 Radio music.
The way to make money from hip-hop instrumentals is to focus on libraries that get placements on MTV, VH1, and other networks that appeal to a younger demographic.
I work with music libraries, not RF sites. I actually got a Dirty South/Trap instrumental licensed on a network TV show. I was very much surprised at that placement!
I have been getting more Dirty South/Trap instrumentals placed on reality TV shows that deal with Hip-Hop celebrities. I honestly just make what I want to make at the time and send it in to the libraries.
I do not have any formula or strategy. That may sound like a recipe for disaster for those that are seeking to focus their efforts in one particular area. But I do not feel the need to limit my abilities by only doing one genre of music. Genres sort of blend together to me after a while.
I like today’s urban music much more than the stuff I listened to growing up. I am not really fond of rappers or singers of today. But the instrumentals that urban musicians rap and sing over are very appealing to me. I listen to a lot of urban instrumental music on YouTube to pick up ideas. YouTube is a goldmine for those seeking to learn how to produce urban instrumental music.
Scripps does direct licenses. ESPN does also.
This means that the network pays an upfront fee. The network does not pay backend royalties because they do not pay any money to ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, etc. The only money paid is money from an upfront licensing fee.
Who collects the upfront fee? It depends on who these networks get the music from. If they get the music from a library, the library gets the upfront fee. If the network gets the music from the composer, the composer gets the upfront fee.
My thing is that if a library does do a deal with networks that only do direct licenses, why do they not split the fee 50/50 with the composer?
Well, sometimes the networks do a blanket licensing deal with the music library. This means that the network pays one fee to the library for access to all of the songs that the library has. The network can pick whatever songs they want and use them without paying any additional money.
Networks that only do direct licenses should NOT be allowed to do blanket license deals with music libraries. These deals provide all of the upfront money to the library while the composer makes no backend royalty money. That is sad.
@DesireInspires – As long as we’re talking about PROs, ASCAP doesn’t care if it’s exclusive, either.
Oh I know that.
When I meant tracking, I meant from the composer’s standpoint. The same audio file in different libraries comes up as the same song regardless of the title. But if an audio file is only signed to one library, the composer will know what library placed the song.
Disclaimer: I have not used TuneSat.
I guess from a tracking standpoint that exclusive cues would be easier to work with. One cue, one library does make it easier to get info about placements.