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The only time I would audit is if there was some very good evidence/signs that u were owed some serious $$$$. I was part of an audit once in which a composer felt he was due money. The library had distributed some money from blanket licenses etc. to it’s composers based on how many tracks they had in the library and he was given appx $20-40. I guess his ego told him that that couldn’t be right so he went ahead with an audit. Our accountant had to spend lots of time which was of course was paid for by the library owner. In the end it turned out the Composer’s music hadn’t even been used for anything not even in any blanket license deal so the $20-30 he got was actually “free” money. On top of this he kept calling library staff on their cell phones on Saturdays which meant they weren’t even getting paid for the time they spent talking to him. Needless to say he was dropped off the rooster immediately and I think anyone involved would warn any future companies they might work for about this guy. The library owner probably spent well over $1000 in salaries dealing with this audit plus the salaries he paid his staff to process/pitch and host the composer’s music which never made the library a penny.
The truth is that most composers are completely delusional over the what kind of profits the average library has.
So that’s my experience but I would love to hear an audit success story related to the music library industry. (The Sly story is not related in my opinion.)
there is also one prominent member that’s notorious for taking half the writer’s share.
Yes, there is a several members who takes writer share which is the reason why I have a hard time taking the PMA seriously. OK if the board weren’t aware of this but I know for a fact they are aware of this and still accepted them into the organization. Which to me makes it a lots worse. One specific writer/library owner has gotten several BMI awards too related to having “composed” many many tracks which irritates me insanely.
In order to clean up our industry we got to clean up the organization who is supposed to further our course. Maybe then I’ll consider a membership to support them.Macent1 is correct. So a specific problem I had when I negotied my fee for producing a album for an Artist was that the manager and rec label found a bunch of prodution music cues online in a online store which made them doubht if I was the right person (because of the genre) for the job and I’d imagine seeing music on sale for $$$ in a stock music store when Im trying to get $$$$$$ is not too impressive. This made me worry about what projects I might miss out on and if I’de ever know about it. Also an agent or library who trying to pitch your music/talent face the same challenge. As we know there are some libraries that don’t want to work with composers that work for NE libraries too. So that why I prefer to wrtie for libraries that have closed systems.
Also yes epecially if u do work for the bigger buy out libraries with high buy-out fees, they will google you.
BTW if it helps to understand my view, I was on staff fulltime by mutiple US based Libraries for 11 years before becoming a freelancer.
I personally dislike when libraries have composer names listed publicly in an open to all platform. It makes it harder to negotiate fees for high end projects ex producing a record or scoring high end projects, when they can google your name and a some old comedy cue pops up in a stock music store with prices listed. Especially if they are used to working with music that is produced like real records and not familiar with library music.
A library once made me “Composer of the month” with a picture and write up and I was completely horrified and pulled my catalog (which also included some old crappy cues). 🙂I really appreciate the anonymity of MLR which helps us discuss things more honestly I think but I also respect everyone who is open with their Identity.
My buddy is a promo producer, he worked for one of the big networks mentioned on Bmi’s website. He informed me that it’s usually the engineers responsibility to create and file the cue-sheets in that world. After my buddy left the network, the engineer admitted that he has not filed a single cue sheet for 7 years and apparently this is very common. Sad but true. We need to raise hell about this with PROs and libraries need to put in a clause in the agreements that require clients to give them a copy of the cue-sheets.
That’s awesome Mark, very much looking forward to it. I was about to install your beta version but I’ll guess hold off a bit then.
The php database set up seemed a little confusing to me but I guess its the same way you instal word press, going into your severs control panel and generate a new database on the domain you want to use….anyway thanks again Mark!Regarding import format, I believe .CVS is the most universal format as it can be used by excel and various txt processor. Soundminer would be a nice feature but you can wrangle into and from that format with CSV in excel anyway so if you were to pick only one of the formats, defiantly pick .CSV
I would love to beta test at some point but very busy at the moment, is there a link where we can quickly take a look at how it looks installed?
Thank you very much for doing this Mark!Reminds me of the endorsing trend on LinkedIn, people you’ve never meet endorsing you for something in hopes of you endorsing them….I’m gonna start endorsing people for BS and fake endorsements 🙂
So I guess it installs like a plug in? If so, does it slow down loading performance of the site? Thanks!
-“can make their original content available for licensing simply by adding the “license” button from Getty Images Music to their SoundCloud player”
Instead why not just add some tags yourself that says something like “To license this track contact the artist @….etc”
If someone finds your track on sound cloud and wants to license it, why send them to Getty? Unless you just want to have them to handle the admin perhaps but the job of a music licensing company is to GET the clients either by having a an outlet where clients frequents or by pitching your music. This way the client found YOU without Getty’s involvement so why not just handle the licensing yourself. And then you don’t’ get the devaluing of your music by being associated with Getty Images Music 🙂 but that’s another discussion…
“I’d also be interested in the question of “What would be a fair price to pay someone?”
Me Too!
Yes what ypb2857 said, but also add to that they might not want you bothering the client, Especially if it was 20 sec in a reality show as part of many cues that was placed. wasting their time when they have already paid. Would you wanna use the services of an auto shop if you find out that all the mechanics was also gonna get your contact info and might even call you?
Also wanting to know what all the details is such an ego thing for the composer and a shame if a client or library or even PRO have to waste money on paying the staff to answer such questions. If all the composers ask for this info it would definitely cost the library money. Look it’s production music nobody cares who trigger that SD2 sample with those strings.
Write another cue instead of worrying about this…:)