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A cue sheet is the SOLE document that can enable a royalty payment for music in a film/TV/video program. An Inaccurate, incomplete, unauthorized or missing cue sheet is the #1 reason that such royalties are NOT paid. All PROs worldwide deal with cue sheets, and it’s crucial that stakeholders verify that sheets are timely submitted. Furthermore, it’s important to request of your home PRO to provide you copies of the sheets in which your music is used. Performance data can be arbitrarily modified over time, and there are often different sheets formatted for any number of PROs internationally. There are many moving parts, so it’s important that the source info is complete and accurate.
Please forgive a question from the uninitiated – How would one access this info short of perusing 500+ libraries?
You’re right about the rules, SL. Sorry about that – the whole scenario is kinda FUBAR. However, I’m happy to abide with the keymaster’s wisdom. Good fortune in resolving all this in your favor.
Best, MH
Agreed, Art, in always pursuing back-end. But that’s an unrelated revenue stream to sync and master licensing. Perhaps a bit like using a watergun after a house fire.
My queries to SongLoft would include (with apologies for any assumptions on my part): 1) WHY list with a library that would price abysmally under market? Was there due diligence done re the range of license fees? 2) If the pricing was intentional and not in error, recommend SongLoft PULL all material from that library ASAP for reasons of fiduciary incompetence and posing a danger to themselves and others. 3) If there’s no out-clause for protecting musical works from future abuse, this goes back to due diligence in the first place.
I’m still hoping this was an admin error. In that way, the library could go back to the agency and explain the mistake. The agency KNOWS $250 isn’t remotely in the market and this might be explained as a glitch, just as Walmart sold $1300 monitors last week for $12.95. It was an online mistake and the errant price was NOT honored. I’d sure play it that way and give all parties the opportunity to own up.
Finally, if (and I stress IF) a library is going to go carpetbagging on their fees, I hope SongLoft will disclose the name of the service so others won’t be fracked by such reckless and irresponsible behavior.
– MH
The sync fee before splits was a measly $250.
Hey SongLoft – such a miniscule sync and master fee for a national branded spot is nUtZ. Suggest you contact the library that licensed this and ask ’em what the hey they’re doing. Was this a ‘check-out’ malfunction? Was it a 13-week license or longer? In any case, that service is hosing you, themselves, and others. I’m hoping this was an admin error rather than intentional pricing.
– Mark Holden
Whoa, David – I just noticed the ‘exclusive’ ref to your post. Advise you to never, ever transfer exclusive rights of any kind in a no-fee scenario. Especially on the presumption that the deal is in perpetuity without an out-clause. Yikes, run for your life!
– Mark Holden
Is signing these performances away to an exclusive library, with no up-front payment, totally pointless ?
Yes, pointless based on the parameters of your post. While I’m not advocating giving some library jokers free product, there are other elements you may factor. Should this work be licensed into film/TV productions performed worldwide, every collection society has contrasting policies per their territory. The ‘straight up’ element may not apply, and there may be other income streams that can kick in, such as performers rights and broadcast mechanicals. In theory, SOCAN should pass these earnings on to you based on their reciprocity agreements with sister societies internationally. That is, if there’s a valid cue sheet. There’s a slew of variables. Hope this helps your perspective.
– Mark Holden
Yes, I understand. The next logical step, perhaps an eventuality, will be AI software that will fulfill the musical needs of a film & TV producer. Highly scalable, adaptive and affordable. It’ll score a scene 20 different ways in real time and modify from pref windows on the fly.
Will this really be music? It certainly will be if the producers say it’s music and most people accept it as such. Hey, who would stand in the way of progress? On the other hand, it’ll be a de facto chasm for approximately 800 years of Western music. Oh well, c’est la vie! Not really bitter, just nostalgic. I miss musicians!
– Mark Holden
Your points are well-taken, Michael, not unlike scribes and calligraphers being displaced by the printing press, blacksmiths trying to acclimate to the automobile, or the stenography pool grappling with word processors. History provides countless professional examples.
It’s a paradigm shift as one thing largely replaces another in terms of demand. Some values remain, others are modified, some are virtually lost. It can be as fundamental as ‘adapt or perish.’
Still, I’m not at all keen on hearing a John Williams score produced on a workstation.
– Mark Holden
Hey Jesse – without more specific circumstances, it would be difficult to answer your question with any credibility. Let me recommend you contact PRS and have them advise you definitively based on complete information.
Mark Holden
Oh yeah – standards, practices, copyright law and behavior can vary wildly per territory. The 50/50 split I was referring to (customary between a U.S. writer and publisher) was specific to public performance royalties. But it would also affect sync & master licensing for a U.S. composer if he or she signs a work-for-hire (WFH) agreement assigning those rights and income to the employer. A U.S. writer can sign away mechanical earnings, public performance rights and any other benefit of U.S. copyright in a WFH. Of course, such deals can be illegal in parts of the EU and elsewhere in the world.
As it relates to performance detection, an employer may object to a composer embedding a watermark or having a track fingerprinted because the master recording AND the underlying work would not be the property of the composer if copyright and related income has been contractually assigned to the employer. I’m trying to be as clear as possible.
On a different matter, ASCAP has a fingerprinting system as described in the article links earlier in this thread. To the best of my knowledge, MediaGuide is deployed primarily for radio detection – but if anyone has any additional info in that regard, I hope they’ll post.
Finally, I don’t mean to infer any innuendo – just trying to be precise.
MH
I’ll do my best to address your question, but as you noted, you excerpted another composer’s observations from an interview and I can’t speak for that person.
However, I believe one of the things the composer was alluding to was the fact that the customary 50-50 writer/publisher split of royalties in a US work for hire (WFH) agreement is just that – a custom. There’s nothing in law that requires a copyright owner to honor that practice in a WFH agreement. In many instances, composers are being asked to split a portion of the writer’s share with the legal owner or surrender it entirely.
With nothing in law to prevent that subjugation, and with little or no industrial advocacy or collective bargaining for score composers, I think that was the thrust of the interviewee’s “twisting in the wind” concerns.
As I’ve written before, people without representation tend to lose their rights.
No insult intended to the PMA and other organizations who really are trying to build advocacy.
Hope this helps!
MH
There’s an article on the fundamentals of watermarking and fingerprinting I penned for Film Music magazine, posted at http://www.filmmusicmag.com/?p=653
Additionally, an article on TuneSat posted at http://www.filmmusicmag.com/?p=3052
This effort to automate music performance detection has a fascinating history that’s still in play, both in terms of advocacy and resistance.
Mark Holden
Thanks, Michael – it might be a quirk – but I’ve been denied online account access via my ASCAP member ID or any other designation. I don’t recall the exact screen message but it equated to ‘ineligible, not a member.’
But I’ll investigate further. Thanks again!
Mark
Greetings to Art and all– my first time posting at MLR.
There are some quirks in resigning ASCAP “with rights,” aka leaving your writer catalog where it is. You would be designated as a “member-in-interest.” Speaking from experience, your works will no longer show-up from a search of your name on ACE, the ASCAP public database. Bear in mind, the works are still searchable by title – but from a search of you as an author – no matches will show. Poof! The disappearing writer.
I find this to be particularly punitive when a producer or supervisor searches ACE to confirm my resume credits only to find nothing, even though ASCAP administrates the performing right for hundreds of my titles remaining at ASCAP.
Another aspect for a migrating writer is lack of access to online statements or any other account documents pertaining to your works via the ASCAP website. All this appears to be policy, but if anyone has info to the contrary, please speak up. To anyone considering resignation – is ASCAP disclosing these factors to you?
There are other things that can go funky whether you leave your catalog or take it with you. Foreign PROs can be pretty slow on the uptake and your earnings may be sent to your former OR new PRO. Worse case, none of the above should your royalties go into suspense. Make certain of the responsibility dates of the old and new PROs if your catalog migrates with you. Preferably in writing. This is just business.
Hope this helps!
Mark Holden