Happy Ears

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Viewing 15 posts - 46 through 60 (of 64 total)
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  • in reply to: PRO Backend Rates for network and shows #21555
    Happy Ears
    Participant

    bump

    in reply to: It pays to audit, Happy for Sly #19729
    Happy Ears
    Participant

    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.)

    in reply to: The Big Music Libraries #19734
    Happy Ears
    Participant

    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.

    in reply to: Composer links for MLR members? #19675
    Happy Ears
    Participant

    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.

    in reply to: Composer links for MLR members? #19663
    Happy Ears
    Participant

    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.

    in reply to: BMI payment for promos #19460
    Happy Ears
    Participant

    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.

    in reply to: Free Music Licensing Software in Beta Testing #17950
    Happy Ears
    Participant

    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!

    in reply to: Free Music Licensing Software in Beta Testing #17323
    Happy Ears
    Participant

    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!

    in reply to: fake soundcloud users? #14207
    Happy Ears
    Participant

    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 🙂

    in reply to: VaultPress – Best WordPress Backup #14206
    Happy Ears
    Participant

    So I guess it installs like a plug in? If so, does it slow down loading performance of the site? Thanks!

    in reply to: Soundcloud partners with Getty images music #13158
    Happy Ears
    Participant

    -“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…

    in reply to: I Need A Catalog Manager! #12992
    Happy Ears
    Participant

    “I’d also be interested in the question of “What would be a fair price to pay someone?”

    Me Too!

    Happy Ears
    Participant

    Thanks for the input Art and that might be a good work around idea woodsdenis!
    Seems like I didn’t make myself clear enough in my initial post.
    Sorry about that.
    I never meant to say anything about changing the 50/50 split ratio between me and the lyricist’s writer shares and the respective publishing shares. (remember synch fee has 2 parts, one for the master and one for the writers/publishers.

    My point here:

    “Also we have an artist who might use the song on her album, what kind of revenue sources are we looking at then, assuming they are using my track with the artist just replacing the current vocals and what would be fair splits among writers in that context?”

    In the record industry it pretty common to give an artist some writer’s share if they include it on their album. (started long ago with Madonna and continues today with people like Beyonce) The artists who is interested in our song was recently in a major singing contest on national television and have some major stuff going on.

    So my point is:
    What is a fair writers/publishing % to give out to the Artist? ex 10% to the Artist then 40 & 40 to me and lyricist if included on the album? and if they use my track and someone else produces the Artist’s vocal on top of my produced track. What’s fair in terms the master recording/production income such as a fee the label would pay to own the master share?

    @Desire the “young lady” is a non musician, middle aged poet (10 years older than me) and a stay at home mom who I invited to write lyrics for this song because I liked her poems. She is completely delighted to not only have a professionally produced/written song featuring her lyrics but good prospects of having her very first song placed on a real record with a nationally know Artist!
    And yes all thanks to my 25 years experience of writing/producing music and the network I’ve build up in the music business

    BTW You got a pretty lively imagination there, Let me know if you want her address so you can put on your shining armor and go save her from me “taking advantage of her” I’m sure she would be very happy ha ha Just kidding.
    But Joking aside.
    I’m mainly trying to find a fair income split for both me and the lyricist so I can use that going forward, she will probably agree on most anything I suggest but I really want this to be fair for her too, so I was looking for input since I’m mostly familiar with the instrumental production music world.

    I was also looking to see if I’m ignoring some kind of additional producer income, especially in the “record label” world…..

    Lets look at some of the income flow for a Beatles song on their album.

    “Beatles Song 1 on some Beatles album”
    Writers and their respective publishing shares are equally split 50/50%
    Then George Martin as the producer is paid by the label to create a master recording that the Label now owns (I assume if the Label nor the Beatles were to pay George Martin he would be the owner of the recording?)

    Then the label pay the publishers the mechanical royalties for units distributed who then pays their writers.

    Then the Label also pay the Artist (in this case the same as the writers) some kind of royalties for units sold?

    Secondly:
    and if a music sup on a show have $10000 in total synch fees for “Beatles Song 1” Label gets $5000 for the Master fee and Writers/Publisher gets $5000.
    Is it common for a label to share their their master Synch fee with the Artists?

    The third scenario is if no Artist is in the picture for mm and the lyricist’s song. (Aka called the hot innocent underwear model”LOL)
    If a music sup offer me and the lyricist $1000 to use our song.
    I’m 50% writer/publisher and the 100% producer of the song and (derby the owner of the recording since this is a separate thing from writing).
    The lyricist is 50% writer/publisher of the song
    What is the fair split for a $1000 divided among me and the lyricist?
    (Would love it MichaelL with the lawyer background chimes in.)
    Thanks guys!

    Happy Ears
    Participant

    bump

    in reply to: Why do companies not like telling info on placements #11950
    Happy Ears
    Participant

    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…:)

Viewing 15 posts - 46 through 60 (of 64 total)
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