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With platforms like audiomodify.com, you can easily experiment with music and bring your creative visions to life!
Wow!!! Go figure. All this time I’ve been experimenting and bringing my music and creative visions to life with hard work, my fingers and my soul. Brave new world!!!
“As well, music is changing style & form MUCH to faster than “coders” will be able to keep up.”
Except that it’s not “coders” keeping up. It’s exponential machine learning and the machines teaching themselves that can learn and operate at magnitudes faster and more efficiently than the human brain – 24/7/365. Honestly, it will be waaaaaaay faster than all the LA wannabe’s who are intent on copying the next hot thing. 🙂
Now, creativity, that’s a different conversation.
“I’m sure writers and PROs won’t let that slide without any compensation for songwriters.”
Are you really sure? Cause from my perspective, musicians are the most stupid of all businessmen/women out there. We’ll give anything and everything away just to feel like “we made it”. We’re done for. It will take governments a decade or more to even START thinking about this, and by then, most musicians will have given up and moved on.
Say goodbye…..
JD – I would absolutely be communicative and get everything out in the open. You WILL have to sign a contract stating that the music is original. By definition, from what you have mentioned, it is not. Perhaps you can be covered under a traditional cover that is “arranged by”. I don’t know. A music attorney should probably be retained if you really want to protect yourself.
The library might say “no problem, we will protect you against copyright infringement claims”. At which point – get it in writing in the contract. I can’t tell you how many times I have been told exactly that, and I have never had one of them put it down on paper. They want the composer to carry the weight, and indemnify the library. This is a tricky business, and there are sharks swimming in the waters….
Good luck!
Yeah, to clarify, when opening a publishing company with BMI (and I presume ASCAP) you will submit your requested name, along with a couple of alternates in case the name is already used – and they will search worldwide for any other companies with the same or very similar names. They want it to be OBVIOUS where the ownership / money streams go. You cannot have the same name. There’s a good chance they might even disallow “firepen publishing 2”.
It is a tightrope for sure – there is no doubt about that. Personally, unless you have REALLY great E&O insurance (and then even if you do), I would err on the side or more originality and less authenticity. These days, many publishers of iconic pieces get a good portion of their income not from sync placements, but from cease and desist letters to libraries. And worse case – copyright infringement lawsuits.
It can even get into the “intent” of copying something – though the notes and/or harmony may be different. La Grange is a good example. ZZT was originally sued for “the lick” which was an iconic standard blues lick – and they won. But down the road, that doesn’t stop their publisher from sending cease and desist letters and/or suing other music libraries for the same thing they got sued for and won.
This is the one HUGE reason I no longer provide “sounds like” meta data to music libraries. It paints a huge target on your back. I am also very careful when I receive briefs requesting “songs that sound like….”. Publishers LOVE to request that, but will rarely indemnify you on paper from possible infringement lawsuits. Words are cheap and mean nothing.
Rhythms, harmony, melody, structure, bass lines, production style, intent – they all come into play with copyright infringement. For me, there is nothing worse than getting that letter or call that you’re being sued. I’d rather not write the music to begin with. I run as fast as I can whenever I realize I’ve gotten “close” to something I don’t want to “copy” – even when completely accidental.
Actually, there is one thing worse – waking up at night dreading the day that a letter may show up. No thanks.
PS – even with Netflix, Disney, and others reporting only “1” performance per line item piece, I still have close to 200 Million performances reportedly streamed this last quarter. My guess is that if they all reported ACTUAL shows / films streamed, and each song per episode / film streamed, the numbers would be significantly over 300 Million across all reporting streaming services. I’ll not state the actual payout numbers, but for that many performances, it’s beyond dismal.
It’s quite a bit less than 1/10th of what a Spotify stream pays. Which of course is $0.004. Fun, huh?
PPS – these are US based only. Not international.
“but it’s a way to illustrate how ‘millions of hours viewed’ statistics can be misleading”
Ya think??? 🙂 :). Their entirely opaquely and secretive performance royalty reporting is misleading. Virtually every other streaming service is up front with their “views” / “counts”. Not so with Netscape. As of last royalty, they still report “1” view / count per line item while Hulu, Amazon, Discovery and almost every other streaming service reports 10’s to 100’s of thousands of views per line item. Obviously Netflix is not getting one view/count per line item on every single piece of music placed, so they are purposefully obfuscating the real numbers for their own reasons – whatever those may be. The above link that Chris posted is a puff piece of promotional doo doo…. Worth virtually nothing.
Little by little streaming services are becoming more transparent and paying out more, but Netflix is dragging their feet – kicking and screaming.
The “shows” mentioned on the report that I have significant music on are doing approx 50M hours of streaming. My “actual” streams are still being obscured by Netflix as “1” per quarter. With of course an abysmal payout.
“About Compression in the master: somewhere between -15 LUFS and -10LUFS”
Remixers generally hate over compressed music and struggle with getting it to sit under dialog. These days I deliver at -14 to -13 LUFS.
But there are a million reasons a piece might not get accepted. At one point, P5 rejected a TON of music I submitted at 48k. Go figure. This was a long time ago, but it was a pita converting everything back to 44.1k and re-submitting.
I’ve also had non acceptance for having a B3 in the track. That publisher was out of their mind though, cause everyone knows that real B3 / Leslie RAWKS!!!!
“Details regarding compensation and royalties will be addressed as we progress”
That would make me very wary. How about they share that data BEFORE you submit so that you can make a decision whether or not its worth your time. Sounds scammy to me.
Thanks for that. Kinda interesting. Kinda depressing.
The data is appreciated, but it’s a far cry from being specific like other streamers are. Best as I can tell, the shows I’m heavily involved in writing for are in for 30-50 million hours of streaming. And still, the payout is pitiful. I wish they would release data for each episode playing.
From what I can tell, this data is more helpful for folks who are just wondering which shows are popular.
“Often being a little fish in a huge pond isn’t the best option. The best ones for me have been smaller, more boutique, ones that have good relationships with a number of TV and film music sups.”
I would agree with THAT ^^^^^ too!!
I quickly skimmed it. Will analyze it more later. My first impression : it was exactly like I was listening to a career politician trying to convince me how great the upside is, all the while double dipping behind the scenes to enrich themselves. Of course, living in the US, I’m not biased or anything….. 🙂 🙂 🙂