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I barely make any money from licensing music, so I can’t say I have much of a dog in THIS race. Yet it is still so depressing. I USED to make great money in post production, but that has fallen off a cliff due to previous strikes, looming strikes, high interest rates (no more cheap money), massive piles of layoffs in tech and beyond and to a small extent (at this point, I believe) AI. The FB groups I follow for post production has numerous inquiries about making extra cash, changing careers, etc… These are seasoned pros. Personally I will start driving for UBER next week and I have over two decades of experience (in post – even more experience in driving cars ;).
With AI being exponentially increasing its abilities, I feel like the sooner we have mass unemployment in multiple sectors it will work to everyone’s advantage. Tiny groups of musicians on their tiny violins = lots of eye rolls. Tens of thousands of people on unemployment = government paying attention (after they have had their afternoon naps).
Just sent a message to my rep. A little Hail Mary for the creatives of the world.
You could sign up with IDENTIFYY. I can see what tracks are being used on YouTube through their website.
Hey Alan, it depends on the job. I’d say 50% of the time I go and search for tracks and other times the producer or creative director has done a search and sends me tracks.
Not sure if it’s different in other areas of post, but as a video editor of 25 years, we are not looking at LUFS. We drop the track in and immediately turn it down at least 10dB and see how it sounds with the VO (I do mostly ads and promos).
“high bar of followers and monthly views to qualify.” – GOOD POINT! I forgot about that. And anyone who is so popular on YouTube to be above that bar is probably savvy enough by now that they are getting their appropriate music licensing ducks in a row.
EDIT : I see that my question below is already being discussed in this thread –
I considered signing up with Identifyy, but I’m assuming that it would cause hassles for any tracks that get purchased off of an RF site, correct? If a track is on Pond 5 and someone purchases that track with the intention of putting it in a YouTube video and monetizing THEIR video, it would conflict with Identifyy trying to monetize the video because it has MY track, wouldn’t it? And I definitely don’t want to deal with whitelisting every instance like that. Am I misunderstanding?
Hey Scott, sorry, I ended up writing a book…
From my experience with creating promos, branded content, commercials, etc… the producer, creative director, myself, whoever … will download a bunch of watermarked tracks from one site. If the ad agency has a relationship with a library, they go with that one. But many do not care where it comes from.
The watermarked tracks would generally come from the one site. If I clicked and was sent to another site to download or buy, I would abandon that library and move on. Maybe it’s possible to have watermarked tracks come from the main site and then the jump only happens at payment? That would be better but still unacceptable. Many projects I work on need multiple tracks. So imagine needing four tracks and you had to buy them at four different sites entering your payment info four times.
I just got an email from Audioo for lifetime membership for $199. I’ve checked out the music and there are plenty of tracks on there for an ad agency to get their money’s worth. WHY do composers allow their music on there has been debated on MLR quite a bit. I don’t get it. But, it’s super easy to deal with for sure. So the site needs to be easy and convenient.
What I would love to know is how hard it would be to create a site that is largely automated. I have no idea if this is possible since I’m just savvy enough to run a square space page.
* Each composer has their own login to manage their music, enter their payment info, answer questions from potential clients, etc…
* If a client searched for happy corporate music, it would pull up music from all composer’s tracks with those tags.
* Watermarked tracks could be downloaded easily with one click.
* All tracks would cost the exact same amount that would be agreed upon.
* A client chooses 3 tracks from 3 different composers, loads them in the cart, pays for all 3 as a single payment, and that payment is automatically split in 3 and deposited into each composers account.Issues I can think of off the top of my head:
* Can payments be split out to multiple accounts. I have no idea if that is possible.
* Client had tracks from multiple composers and they wanted to know if they could get custom work done. The email would go to multiple composers and the client would get multiple answers and be annoyed/frustrated. This is not a big deal probably but….
* The small number of tracks would be a BIG turnoff for many clients. We all know how many tracks libraries have. Obviously the more composers, the more tracks, but also more management and then the automation part might not be feasible.
* Tagging. What if a composer is over tagging and causing their dark tension tracks to show up in happy corporate searches? Who is dealing with that? Maybe just limit tags to a small enough number that it would be impossible?I could go on. My thumbs hurt…
I’ll message you in the next week. I’ll be traveling for a few days.
Hello Art
Thanks for the input and I can see that coming up. Especially if it was having any success. Ultimately ALL libraries are elitist unless we are talking Pond 5 and similar, right? So whatever the filter is…it’s a filter.
I’m imagining a discussion of how things would work and an agreement on the structure. But the managing of the library still seems like it would be some work. I’m thinking every composer would manage their own tracks under an agreed upon structure/ setup.
Hey Scott,
I work in post production and we are always grabbing production music from pond 5, audioo, premium beats, etc… I can refer a client to my music, but I only have 100+ tracks of varying genres. And if we are looking for a corporate acoustic pop track, and I have 8 of those, we can try all and they might not work. And even if they do choose a track of mine from Pond 5 or wherever, I’m not getting all of the money.
So if I was partnered with 3 or 5 or ??? Composers on a site where 100% of the track cost goes to the composer, it’s a win. I might not sell a track of mine, but the client would be happy they found something and be more likely to come back. Obviously the big sites have thousands of tracks, so it’s hard to compete.
It would be worth advertising to the buyers that ALL of the money they are spending is going to the composer. Many don’t know/care that the $30 they spent at Pond 5 is being cut down to $5-10 for the composer.
This is just random thoughts in my head. I can see a big issue being managing the site and someone would need to do that and then they would need some kind of compensation and there are probably lots of things I haven’t thought of. Anyone reading this who wants to shoot holes in this idea PLEASE DO! It will only help flush out the possibsilities.
This is something I’m curious about as well since I feel like I’d rather partner with a few composers (strength in numbers) and try to build something together.
@Ver,
I have about 50 tracks (each with 60, 30, underscore, loops, sting) in varying styles that are with AS and in the Viacom deal. They have been there for a year and not a single bite of any kind, Viacom or otherwise. For reference, I’ve been accepted into 5 Exclusive libraries, so my music is at least good enough in that regard.@beatsqueezer
I wouldn’t worry about it. Just master your tracks as professionally as you can in the ballpark of what you hear out in library land. As a video editor who is getting piles of library tracks to go through and pick for a promo or tv spot, I’m not concerned about LUFS.The music will be mixed under the VO most likely and if the tv spot is going to broadcast, the mixer will mix everything to the spec of the distribution network.