[Music1234]

The point of this discussion is not about “bottom” and “cheap” (even though some of these subscription offerings are too cheap). It’s about companies basically stealing intellectual property, offering a way to sell “subscriptions” for access to massive catalogs made up of hundreds of artists’ works and basically selling a collection of works as if it’s “their property”.

It is impossible to implement fair accounting to writers under this model. I have been studying it daily and it will never be fair. Why?
Some writers have more tracks than others. I may have 400 another guy may have 67, another may have 873 etc.

Some tracks are better than others and “in demand”.

How do you distribute subscription revenue to 500 to 2000 different writers? You can’t! plain and simple. There is no logical formula to distribute revenue fairly unless it’s on a license by license basis. 1 sale = 1 royalty paid to 1 writer.

A company like epidemic sound can do whatever they want. They bought all the music from willing composers. They own the content.

aj and p5 do not own any content. They are brokers, and that is that. How music bed is pulling this off is beyond me. If anyone has the news please pass it on.

[Music1234]

boinkeee2000 e-mail Art, I will send him the companies names I know of. By know means is it a “norm”. I personally vetted 2 companies as to how a writer would be paid and the answer was always “we won’t know until all the monthly or quarterly revenue is tallied up, pooled together and…and…hmmm…they really don’t know!…”

Read my earlier posts, one company proposed 80% of the revenue stays with the house then 20% goes to the “royalty pool” to pay writers.

This company also never sent an “opt in” e-mail, nor did they publish terms of service for contributors opening an account or had an account opened. They also conveniently stripped away statement data during the transition to the new model. This was a company where I quickly reached $500 a month in straight up licenses sold in the 50/50 model. Unfortunately, that only lasted 2 months, they changed the model where essentially they were saying “all the music is now 80% ours and we’re only selling subscriptions.” At least that was how I interpreted what they were proposing. Read my my post in the other thread.

The reason I am so angry about this and keep writing about it is because they get away with it! There are still many writers or songwriters that simply do not question the change, do not take the time inquire about royalty payments, and allow their music to be dealt. It’s almost as if they’re saying “well gee I send them my tracks and they are live on the site, let’s just hope for the best…some money is better than no money.”

Really man, this is what is happening.

I have another company who just posted a little subscription plan into his site. This is a PMA library that registers all titles with PRO’s. I immediately wrote to him and said if you move aggressively into this subscription arena delete my music, you can not account to hundreds of writers in this scheme. His response was that it’s an experiment and my music would not be part of the offering. Rubbish! I don’t believe it. If tracks are in the search engine, tracks are in the search engine.

Guys and Gals, we need to get ahead of this immediately. I am sounding the major alarm bells. If we don’t start becoming a loud unified voice, get petitions going, even possibly bringing awareness to lawmakers, we will get crushed by this kind of model.

These models amount to overt intellectual property theft from my perspective. Companies have always sold licenses on 50/50 basis…some 40/60, some 60/40 and even 70/30. 1 track at a time…a royalty paid for every sale.

Clients seemingly are asking “can’t we just pay 1 annual fee and get access to everything?” It’s just absolutely absurd. These companies do not own the copyrights to all the music in some cases!

Take a company like AJ – OK so the client wants a deal..here’s what they need to say “Deposit $3000, you will have a balance, spend away on tracks, each time you license a tune, your balance will decline down, when you hit $0, deposit more money.”

Yes it’s time to organize, take action, get petitions going and inform lawmakers. This needs to be stopped. Any company that owns 100% of the copyrights and has total control over the assets has every right to do this, but not with NE music that is simply brokered for a commission on stock licensing site.

[Music1234]

A united front to yourself is a good start. Just merely saying – my music is always for sale, and never free, and never part of a scheme where accounting is impossible – is a good start.

[Music1234]

to Michael’s point, it does happen in the voice over business. It is very hard to find good talent willing to do the work for under $100 to $150 an hour. They can be found but the product will be inferior and the person doing the work will be bitter about it. There is over supply in that area of media production too, but those folks keep prices up. VO folks know how to value themselves better than musicians. Everyone reading this, start placing a value on yourself. It all starts there. Stock music licensing sites and Music Publishers do not value writers, they just use writers as a cheap commodity to exploit in high volume for big profits, but writers allow it to happen.

[Music1234]

I suppose there still is some positive news:

https://www.ascap.com/newsletters/member-services/2018/04-19-financial?utm_source=ASCAP&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=member-services&utm_content=member-services

If only writers would just stop giving away their music for nothing, and if only publishers would somehow stop thinking that the music they have is only for them to profit from. No one has ever answered the question as to how contributing writers get paid under a model that suddenly shifts to subscriptions. How do you manage the accounting? Any idea?

When a publisher licenses a composition to a licensor it is clear as day who is getting paid: the composer will make money and the publisher who sold the license will make money.

When a publisher sells an annual subscription fee for unlimited access to an entire catalog, it would seem to me that only 1 party will make all the revenue – the publisher. The problem is that these rights have not been granted to the publisher.

It’s as if publishers are now saying “we own this content, and can do whatever we want with it.” They don’t own the music in most cases from my perspective.

[Music1234]

LOL! Let’s not forget about passive losses. You write a few tracks and they never make a dime. LOL!

[Music1234]

“Passive income” only becomes a reality once you quit creating entirely and just ride out the future earnings of your catalog. If you consistently put in full time labor each week, you are doing so knowing that the work you do today is to create “future earnings”. Just because we collect performance royalties or royalties from direct license markets from tracks made 2 to 10 to 20 or even 50 years ago, I do not see that as passive income. It’s just income collected from work done a long time ago. It’s income collected from actively and currently marketing the tracks.

If we are still “at it” each week, putting in full time effort so we can collect checks and royalties, we are not making passive income. Once we retire and quit entirely, then all future royalty income will become “passive” income. That is my personal philosophy.

By the way, I personally know many musicians and singers getting sweet pensions from the AFM and SAG unions for work done in the 60s 70s 80s and 90s…Is that considered passive income too?

Sadly too, I know many very talented live performing musicians who really don’t know what royalties are. they teach and wait for those calls for live show bookings. It’s hard to do both. I could not imagine writing production music all day then running out the door to play a live show 4 to 5 times a week. You’d run yourself into complete exhaustion I’d think.

[Music1234]

Maybe you are right. Everyone and their mother wants to be a film maker and youtube star. If it’s that easy to find 10,000 subscribers for $135 a year creating $1,350,000 a year in revenue, it’s something for us all to consider.

I still don’t get the concept of “no worries about PRO royalties for worldwide broadcast, we’re ROYALTY FREE”

That’s just plain ignorance.

still SAD Paolo.

LA writer, you and I can always combine forces and undercut everyone with our catlogs. Let’s charge 99 cents a year and shoot for 3 million subscribers! We can split 3 mil a year!

[Music1234]

I literally had a conversation with a company based in Nashville yesterday, not about joining as an artist/ contributor, but inquiring about being a buyer account holder.

For $135 annual fee I had the rights to do the following:

1. Download the entire catalog and anything added throughout the year.
2. Use the tracks for local, regional, national, worldwide TV advertising campaigns…did not matter, no extra fees applied.
3. Ditto for TV shows and Films, of course internet media.
4. Never, ever be concerned with filling in cue sheets…all usages were 100% royalty free regardless of how the track was used.

Now if this is not nuclear destruction and total insanity what is?

How are they pulling this off? Well appearently most of the tracks are being produced in house by salaried writers and “close friends”. I get that but let’s run some numbers;

If you find 1000 subscribing customers (This is HARD to do) you have $135,000 in annual revenue. 2000 customers = $270,000 in revenue…and so on.

These kinds of numbers are just peanuts if you have to spread the revenue to 10 to 20 people. Let’s not forget about the costs to maintain and develop a site, process credit cards, do marketing and sales, and so on.

Why would a company come in and drop a nuclear bomb on themselves and everyone else and set the bar so low?

I asked “Can I use a song on a major brand in a worldwide TV commercial and not be concerned with anything other than my $135 annual fee? and will the writer collect performance royalties from a PRO?” The answer was “Yes you can, and no the composer will not collect performance royalties because our offering is royalty free.”

I asked “Well how does the artist get paid?” The response was most of our writers are salaried staff.

So not only is this company setting the bar at essentially nothing, they are completely ignorant when it comes to basic knowledge of PRO’s. And this is coming from folks in “Music City”?

I just don’t know what to say…really…it’s just sad. Already today I sold 1 license for $125. I can get their entire 3000 track offering for $135 a year. And anything they add to it for the next 52 weeks.

Oh and, If I don’t hear anything in there that i may need….they will write a few for me at no extra charge. LOL!

I have to say too…there were some good tunes in there. This was not casio synth crap. Some songs sounded like major label recording artists “Music City” quality. SAD.

Yes, we have reached a point of total insanity.

[Music1234]

I apologize Art. I got a bit carried away when the gates were opened to name companies. I used to be quite hard on music dealers in forums too, as I was always suspicious of their model and ethics…well …look where they wound up? bankrupt.

Let me post an an e-mail response by a woman at SF (Who by the way no longer works there) when I asked “Can you explain how writers will be paid? Let me also say, that surprisingly, I was doing very well there when music was sold on a license by license basis. It really was NOT in my interests to lose a decent revenue stream. Sorry to have a loud voice on this very important issue. I just want to be able to earn a living long term writing music for TV, Film, Advertising and Internet media. So please read this explanation of writer compensation in a non exclusive “subscription model”. Pay very close attention to what I bold below.

There have also been changes to our Terms Of Service.

Here is how this change will affect you and your content:

We are returning to a pooled royalty accounting method. “SF” charges an annual or monthly membership fee for music use, video hosting, and slideshow creation. Annual fees will range from $300 to $500 (initially, then will become $500-$700) and monthly fees will range from $40 to $60 (initially, then will become $50-$75) (locked in for 12 months). Music use will represent one quarter of the overall fee, for which rights owners shall receive 80% (50/50 master/pub), prorated amongst all titles used in a royalty period.

Royalty pool example: Member pays $500, $125 allocated to music usage, $100 is entered into the royalty pool for payout based on overall usages within the pool.

Why the change? We feel this new model is necessary to remain competitive in today’s market. Some of the expected benefits of this change will be the increase of users to our platform. This increase will certainly be beneficial to all parties. While change is never easy, we do believe it’s the best way to serve you and our growing audience.

Buyer pays $500 – $400 goes to the house and $100 is “pooled” for writers to share in some sort of convoluted prorated revenue share plan! Are you kidding me???
80% of the revenue to the house and 20% for writers to share?

Does this example raise enough alarming awareness about these models?

What’s incredibly amazing is that some how, some way, there still is music on that site.

They also deal major label music but if folks want to buy a Jason Mraz tune, they have to buy 1 single license. So the philosophy is “for major label artists the customer still needs to pay up, but for all other non famous composer (our handy free slaves) we will just pool them all together as weak handed pawns and strip away 80% of that revenue for us! We’ll pass a few pennies on to them when we see fit.

Sorry, but that is how I interpret this subscription deal.

RESIST!…And YES RESIST POND 5 and AUDIO JUNGLE and MUSIC BED

The owners of these companies are making millions yet they want more for themselves and less for the writers.

[Music1234]

And really it’s just about getting writers: both young one’s and new one’s trying their hand at music licensing to listen. It often seems like for every writer who may listen to the resistance movement, there is one who does not understand, does not speak English, or simply dives in and hopes that what they agree to will some how work out. Everyone who is hearing us, speak spread the words of wisdom and warning. If you want a fair shot at making a living in stock music licensing long term, you better resist subscription models with everything you’ve got.

Pay attention, you may even have tracks at a company that switched their model without you knowing. SONGFREEDOM is one. Get out of there if your tracks are in there. [Removed by moderator]

If you have catalog in Music Bed threaten to pull out entirely. Perhaps they are offering monthly guarantees to their best writers.I don’t know. Start asking questions.

RESIST.

BE PRUDENT.

If you believe in yourself and just know you have good quality, get those prices up to $40, $50, $60, $70…It has worked wonders for me.

Cheers…and good luck

[Music1234]

In regards to inability to “search” composer names. A lot of PMA libraries, Pacifica, Riptide, Songs To Your Eyes, 5 Alarm are not listing composer or artist names next to all Spotify releases. Why? They have something to hide. They don’t want writers searching their name on Spotify and finding these releases and then being in a situation to answer quetions like:
How are you going to distribute the streaming royalties? or am I, as writer, going to be paid streaming royalties if a track suddenly takes off and prints millions of streams?

So many of us signed deals pre Spotify so we were never thinking about the streaming markets. And you can certainly bet that they all wish they could just dump their entire catalogs onto RF markets. I just find it so astonishing how certain libraries or stock music licensing sites think that just because they are authorized to license music assets non exclusively, they eventually some how some way seem to think that the music assets are “theirs” to do “whatever they please with”

Spotify? sure…other RF sites? absolutely why not. The whole thing is unethical and sickening, quite frankly, cowardly. How can you look at yourself in the mirror and respect yourself for profiting off of others works?

There are just so many shallow, under handed, and shady things that publishers do these days that it is time to start calling them out. Why would tracks and albums get distributed to all streaming platforms and the Artist (Composer) not be given credit? The only conclusion I can come to is that the publisher simply wants to pocket all the streaming royalties. They say “Let’s just unleash 50,000 tracks onto spotify, even if each one is only streamed 100 times, that’s still 5,000,000 streams and money in MY pocket.”

I can guarantee you that these PMA companies are not buying the tracks either. I have negotiated with many of them over the years. They are often exclusively representing the tracks for either a specified term…say 5 to 10 years (or even perpetually) in exchange fo $0 advance, but why not credit the composer on Spotify? After all, you did not even pay for the composition.

This is why it is so crucial to maintain full ownership of our tracks nowadays. Having the ability to pull out, take your property back, and distribute your music only where you want to distribute really is the way forward.

Subscription models certainly seem to be the death of our business. I will listen to other opinions if anyone has a fair success story to tell. So far all I hear is crickets from anyone reading this thread.

Any Music Bed writers have anything positive to say about that announcement 2 days back at NAB? I truly am very curious. The greed is just out of control. Read the links I posted. music Bed owners worth 14 Million, Audio Jungle/ Envato founder – net worth $185 Million, and so on….Huge numbers, yet no one has money to buy tracks anymore. Who is kidding who in this game?

Solution for writers: raise your prices on RF markets, avoid subscription deals, and stop signing exclusive deals where you give away your music in perpetuity.Then the industry will survive and the craft of production music can continue

[Music1234]

This make you want to vomit. There’s your subscription model Steve! Hmmm, the writer gets 5 cents each time his or her track is downloaded? LOL!

$299.99 / year
3000 Downloads of Royalty Free Music or Sound Effects annually
Only 10 cents per Track
No Hidden Fees
Cleared for YouTube
Customer Support
Royalty Free License
Upgrade, Downgrade, or Cancel at Anytime!

[Music1234]

LA Writer, they are ALL starting to pull this kind of sheet. And indeed it is time for some smart lawyers to start licking their chops because some juicy lawsuits can be filed soon enough for the insanity that is happening in this business.

Sound Ideas has been dumping as fast as they can into envato and the other one we all know about. But LA Writer, they do own the content? do they not? Are you stating that they are doing all this dumping with NE content?

Library owners and stock music site operators some how, some way think they own all the assets they sell. It’s completely ridiculous.

LA Writer don’t worry about a thing, this will not ruin your future relationships, you have nothing to worry about.

[Music1234]

And if he’s worth 18 Million why undercut the musicians and sell subscriptions

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/303899

Whose making all the money? Well this guy is worth $184 Million. That’s right $184 million in cash but that is not enough I guess. He needs to find more pennies to pinch through subscription models.

http://www.afr.com/technology/how-the-rich-invest-envatos-cyan-and-collis-taeed-running-strong-profits-20170214-gucib7

[Author]

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