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sure thing – http://www.markpetrie.com/contact/
Getting just half the fee and no writer’s share – geez man if I had less morals I would hire an army of composers to do just that! Sorry if this is uncomfortable, but I consider such a deal predatory and highly unethical. And sadly, unsurprising. But it is worse to hear a fellow composer doing it to another.
Whenever I’ve been lucky enough to write for a library that pays a good fee ($500 or more), the royalties have almost always eclipsed those initial fees after a couple of years. Keep in mind that the upfront money is somewhat of a sucker’s game, it keeps you in a perpetual cycle of having to churn out a lot of music because you’re getting none of the licensing (or in your unfortunate dealings, none of the royalties either).
Of course, I understand completely that upfront fees are vital for cash flow. I took mostly upfront paying deals for at least the first five years of composing full time (still got the writer’s share mind you), because even if you’re getting into the royalties and licensing side of things, that residual income takes years to develop.
There aren’t many libraries that pay $500+ per track, but the bigger ones still do. I wouldn’t recommend everyone to such libraries (who are very picky), but your music is of such a high standard that I think it’s just a matter of them hearing your work. I hesitate to mention names on this public forum but a good starting point would be West One and their associated libraries, APM and theirs, and MegaTrax.
Ha exactly! I think the same thing when I watch something like ‘Love it Or List It’ on HGTV where they practically use the same EXACT line up of cues for EVERY episode.
Hey Ilia, I think your stuff is more than good enough!
Stop ghost writing on library gigs, that’s crazy 🙂
I hope you were still splitting writer’s share?Some US based libraries still don’t send tax forms. I’m not exactly sure why, but accountants have told me (I’ve gone through several) that not only do we have to send 1099s to anyone that made over $600, we also have to have ITINs for each international composer to avoid a 30% withholding tax.
Maybe it’s a easy way to filter out those libraries that are serious and intend on actually making you money, and those that aren’t.
I’m sure you know this stuff, but just for composers starting out and reading this, I want to clarify:
Libraries that insist on exclusive deals aren’t all the same.
Some, like the ones you’re talking about, focus on performance royalties – usually from reality TV shows. Those libraries don’t bother with fees (competing companies that gave all their music away for free, like JP, long ago drove those down to nothing).
Others are almost entirely focused on licensing, and any performance royalties are a bit of gravy on top of the big ticket fees they charge for needle drop use of their music. The standard is really high for these companies because they deal in the hyper-competitive niches like trailers and commercials.
One way you could weed out the not-so-serious exclusive companies is to focus on those with an upfront fee. I think it’s a bit crazy to give anyone in the reality TV side of things ownership of your music for free, unless there’s a fee (even a small one – like $100 a track), or you know them well and they have a great track record. Even better would be a small fee AND a great track record 🙂
Cable TV can really pay off, and sometimes I’ve seen it make more than network royalties (on a per cue basis), if the library you’re writing for isn’t a massive depository of music, and they’re the main supplier of music for a show. It’s a bit of luck too – you never know if a show is going to make it big and get re-aired constantly.
What kind of good reason would it be? What kind of benefit would you be able to pass up that extra 25%?
I agree with the comments made above, that 50% should be standard. I’ve been lucky enough to get 60%, or even 70% before, in special cases.
Getting in with a big library is a lesser reason to accept 25%, because it’s not really fair in my opinion. A better reason would be if they offered some kind of upfront fee – even a small $100 – $250 a track fee.
Hey Carles – the abbreviations are for popular libraries that I think you’ll find on the ratings page.
You’ll find, SS, P5, ML, CM, AS etc up there : )For example I worked with an excellent composer and my clients were paying top dollars for his music until one of my client came back to me and said that he heard some of the same tracks he licensed from me in a RF library. Not only I lost the client but through the eyes of this client I was overcharging him. How can I justified charging $1000-$1500 for an internet license to him when the same track was available for $30 in a royalty library?
As you’re in the business of charging healthy license fees (which is great!), perhaps you should have just avoided this issue completely by being exclusive. I don’t think any library can be non-exclusive without the risk of being undercut in price.
RF libraries are a god-send for composers starting out in their career. The expectations aren’t as high as other types of libraries, which helps them to get a foot in the door and to start building residual income. I think to try and scare them off is mean spirited. Besides Jean, your lowest tier fees aren’t much higher than sites like AS or even ML, and it’s no secret that the VAST majority of RF customers are only going to use their purchased music one time.
Some of the most successful composers in the higher end of licensing (trailers and commercials) still supply their older (or rejected) tracks to RF companies. Some of them are listed by name, yet I don’t see any problem for them – as long as the tracks are not also in the catalogs of companies that are commanding large license fees.
Perhaps it’s helpful to break down the PRODUCTION MUSIC category into:
– large ‘label’ owned companies. Sometimes a smaller library might not be owned but in partnership with a large label (APM does this a lot with smaller libraries). The deals are often buy-out / work-for-hire, where you will get writer’s share royalties but they own the music and keep all licensing (some different deals do occur though). The upfront fees are good, typically around $1000 a track. Expectations of musicality and production are very high.
The advantage is these companies are massive and have people on the ground in all major markets, maximizing your chances of making international royalties.– smaller companies, you could consider these ‘indies’.
They often specialize in one area, like reality TV, commercials, or trailers. Depending on the business they’re focused on, you might have the potential to make licensing, royalties or retail (iTunes) income.The deals are more varied, some still pay upfront for a buy-out of the licensing, but more often the deals are little to no money upfront for a split of the licensing (and you still of course get your writer’s share).
In this category you find some companies that re-title your tracks, so they’re ‘non-exclusive‘ in that you might be able to give the same tracks to another non-exclusive company and/or represent them yourself. Some companies were non-ex then moved to an exclusive business model more recently, as clients got wary of receiving multiple copies of the same music, with just different track names.It’s OK, the big libraries have booths in the post production section, so you can easily go up and talk to someone. The people at the booths are usually in sales, so chances are they’ll refer you to someone at the company that hires new composers. It’s also a good way to see what music is coming out from those libraries, and how the business works from their end.
Smaller libraries go there to meet potential international sub-publishers, so maybe you’ll bump into them too. Then there’s always the chance that you’ll make a great connection with someone on the broadcasting or production side of things, but that’s a bit of a crap shoot – most of the 1000’s of attendees aren’t in the position of hiring composers.
Hey Carles that is a different issue from MASTERS – you should still at the very least get your writer’s share of the performance royalties when you assign ownership of the masters rights to a publisher. There are some libraries (usually run by TV composers) that take a chunk of the writer’s share, but that’s another topic for discussion 🙂
The licensing side of things also has little to do with it – I have signed exclusive deals like this where I gave up all licensing (for a good upfront fee) and also exclusive deals where I got half the licensing.
The publisher is essentially just making sure it’s in writing that they own the original recording.
Lastly, I see this question come up a lot on MLR – ‘EXCLUSIVE’ generally means just that – you can’t do anything else with the music! Unless there’s some exception (like they explicitly state you can sell the tracks to the public, you get the music back after a certain amount of time, or you can use the music within your own projects), consider it SOLD to the client you signed the music over to – it is now their property.
Absolutely. Truly ‘Exclusive’ (not exclusive for a time period, or for just a segment of the entertainment business) would imply that they are going to own the copyright and masters. In the US it’s usually called a ‘work-for-hire’ where you assign all the ownership of the copyright and masters over to the company.
As a Berklee alum, I think I can say that the streets in the Back Bay of Boston are certainly paved with the gold of the students. Insanely expensive these days! Double what it was just twelve years ago. It’s a crime to give a kid more than $100k of debt (let alone 200k at full price) with only a music degree to show for it.
Maybe there aren’t many students paying full price (a lot of scholarship money is handed out each year), or at least not in debt for the full price (I’m sure many have wealthy parents).
That said, I’m glad they’re focusing on paths that actually lead to making a living. The facilities in the new tower are amazing – they actually have a pretty much pro level scoring stage now, something I could only dream of when I was there.
But is true that I have to listen more what’s in the trailer libraries. Perhaps not all trailer music have to follow exactly -that- sonic scheme.
It’s definitely not all ‘BWAAAM – BIG THUD – BWAAM – strings ostinato on D minor pedal’, but that’s the cliched sound that some clients want.
There’s room for really great music like yours to get licensed – think Disney / Pixar trailers, adventure films.
You might be familiar with Thomas Bergersen’s work. If not, you should look him up on YouTube and iTunes. He’s an incredible composer / producer and has had huge success in the trailer world with music that isn’t all mega horns and epic hits. 🙂
You don’t have to stoop to the level of all the cheesy cliches to make a living from this. It might just be matter of making your endings bigger, to satisfy the needs of the client (trailer editor). BTW edits aren’t as important for trailers (compared to other advertising) – we generally bake in easily editable sections with pauses and rises.
G’day Carles! (I grew up in NZ)
Your music is INCREDIBLE. I would pay for an album of your work just for listening pleasure.
Your problem is that you have top notch, A-list level writing (and really good production) but the structure limits the commercial opportunities for it to be exploited. I think it’s an easy problem to remedy though.
‘Trailer music’ as we know it is much more cliched, and less sophisticated than what you can write, but it is structured in a very client / project friendly manner.
I think if you were to tailor your writing to the format of trailers, you would do very well. That basically means a 2 to 3 minute piece in 3 acts:
act 1 (:30 – 1:00) – mysterious, brooding
act 2 (:30 – 1:00) – more energy, some percussion, more melody and harmonic movement
act 3 (:30 – 1:00) – balls-to-the-wall energy with a ridiculous finale
outro (:15 – :30) – similar material to act 1Don’t worry so much about the Position Music experience your friend had. There can be long waits between licenses in the trailer business. I had to wait two years before one particular track finally got used, and then it went on to be one of my most used. These days, over enough time (say 3 years) I probably get a hit rate of around 3 licenses for every 5 tracks. So 2 never get used in a trailer, but with the right library, they still generate royalties from other use like TV shows.
The trailer licensing business is tough, especially for people just getting into it, not least because the demands are so high (but your music is definitely up to par). If you get a track used on a trailer, it can be up to a year before you are paid. This is why it’s wise to have other income streams keeping you going. Once the licensing does kick in, and you’re getting tracks placed on a regular basis, you can comfortably transition to doing that full time.
I would spend less time on the classics – you’re right, most major libraries already have that taken care of, as do a lot of RF libraries. I know Audionetwork recently went as far as to create stems for new recordings of well known classics. What might be a cool, potentially lucrative thing to do would be modern or alternative renditions. You hear these on commercials all the time.