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@Redster, I do agree that music producers should not send their music to multiple USA based music libraries servicing the same USA TV production clients. Music Producers need to be aware of who their library services. Not all libraries have the same clients. I still see no conflict having music with a USA library, while simultaneously attempting to create another revenue stream from a music licensing platform in say Germany, England, or Australia, for example. Different country, different market, different buyers. NE deals also allow for original creators to control their presence on Streaming platforms as well as Content ID. Finally some of us are pretty well connected ourselves and why shouldn’t we be able to license a track directly to a client if the opportunity arises?
Example, an old advertising exec friend calls me and asks if I have a track for their spot, should I really be guiding them to my library to source the music and cut my pay by 50%?Redster, I hear your side of the argument, but you also have to realize that composers potential earnings are extremely limited and constrained if they put all of their music into one music publisher/ library and disallow multiple revenue streams. As a music supervisor, you should be advocating for the original creator first and foremost. I have to believe that you want musicians, composers, and songwriters to succeed. Please tell all your colleagues that the only way we can really succeed is through multiple revenue streams. I have written this over a dozen times on MLR, but without multiple distribution channels, and multiple licensing platforms peddling my music, my income would probably be 20% of what it is today if I stayed exclusive to just one music licensing platform.
With more and more libraries going either lower level (RF where they’re lot obligating people to fill out cue sheets if stuff hits the air
Dreamuse, I do not know of any reputable companies moving to subscription and not obligating TV production companies and TV networks to fill in cue sheets. I am not sure if this is 100% true or not but several years back on MLR I recall someone stating that a show can not even go to air on major TV networks like ABC. NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN, MTV, etc. unless the episode has a cue sheet prepared. Additionally, “royalty free” is a choice a composer makes. We all know by now that the top performing licensing platforms all allow us to display our PRO affiliation, IPI #’s.
Basically “performance royalty free” only exists if a composer choses to not affiliate and not display that info on sites like AJ. That in and of itself is an insane strategy yet so many music producers still think that some how, some way by not affiliating with a PRO, they have some sort of “competitive advantage” in the market place. I guess they think that because they are not affiliated with a PRO, that makes their portfolio more attractive and less stressful to license from the buyer perspective.
NE is the best deal and most fair deal for music producers. It allows for maintaining total control of your catalog now and forever. Publishers and Music Licensing platforms (Brokers) are needed to herd up and service customers. They get their cut. In fact they get paid first so they should be extremely happy. “Smart money” knows that ownership is the key. “Smart money” knows that one day, they may be able to sell off an entire catalog and walk away extremely wealthy:
Also Dreamuse, I try not to write tracks with two year shelf life. In my experience, my 15 to 20 year old tracks can see just as much use as the tracks that are 3 to 10 years old. In fact, sometimes it takes my new tracks two years just to gain some traction. I am playing the long, patient game. That’s what’s worked for me. I will never know what would have happened had I had the chance to send my music to extreme, umg, bmg, wc, apm, and those types of catalogs, but my hunch is that I would have earned a great deal less and a lot of music would remain left to just slowly die off.
…and let’s not forget about how so many of us get royally screwed by the “direct blanket license” deals where we are completely cut off from compensation due to this bogus workaround. I am sifting through Tunesat today and see lots of my cues getting used on HGTV sgows. Library is paid via “direct license blanket” access. Composer? NOTHING, no compensation! My music adds tons of value to these shows by underscoring dozens of scenes. I am not getting paid. You bet, I better own my music!
Just taking these past two days of work as an example where I have been working away on a new track. I came into the studio this afternoon to have a listen to where i left off yesterday and my first thought was “wow, this is sounding really nice and I can’t wait to put the finishing touches on this.”
I can not imagine then pulling mixes, rendering a master plus alt mixes, cut downs etc, Then a few days later imagine delivering the tune to a library to exclusively represent the track, take all the publishing on it, demand that they own the master in perpetuity. I mean, how insane is that ???? Yet some guys seem to be just OK with this type of deal. It’s just completely insane.
watch this one too.
Dreamuse, I hear you about making comparisons of paths we followed. I just always knew in the back of mind that it’s truly vital to maintain “total control” of literally every composition. If we can get every music producer on the planet to recognize this “ownership” issue, we’d all have a more secure, sustainable future. The problem is that every time a music producer gets a brief, they feel “important” and “wanted” and “desired” and in the “inner circle”…so they feel all warm and fuzzy inside for about a day or two. Then what do they do? Well they just hand their property over to someone else to own and control then hope some back end goodies arrive in a year.
What a pathetic approach to doing business.
The deal should always be this:
sure I’ll write a cue that I own forever, you can try and broker it to your client for the sync fee cut, but ultimately I own and control this composition and sound recording. You can represent it for defined period of time, but eventually I can pull it from your shelf whenever I need to.
If EVERY music producer worked under these terms and these terms only, we would never have to discuss this issue again. If you read the link to the article I posted and I will post it again here, it’s really ignorance that has been the biggest enemy to business deal structures. Young artists simply do not know how to make money with music creations. It takes them a long time to figure that out. Fortunately, we have the Your Music, Your Future movement, so everyone read this, share it, re-post it, send to your musician friends:
I will never, ever give up total control of my music catalog ever, under any circumstances whatsoever. Why? because the catalog itself is the only money producing asset I have. Once you give it away to others in an exclusive deal, well….It’s gone! Why would anyone give their music to others to own and control? That is all I have to say about this issue.
Read this young composers and new media composers entering the space. The quote that stands out is this
“Young composers are the most at risk of being exploited, eager as they are to get work and build their careers,” said Darlow. The next generation of composers face a bleak future, where they no longer own their rights and their works generate no income for them.”
And indeed I could not agree with this statement more
” Copyright has been central to my living for about 39 years and I would not be here talking to you about this without it. The residual use of all the songs and pieces of music I have written over the years have been central to my income and enabled me to sustain a career. It is up to those who have been fortunate like myself, to not give up our rights and be vocal about it.”So there you have it. Do not give up your rights to your creations and we all will be served better. Ownership is everything, ownership is…well.. Everything
OWNERSHIP IS EVERYTHING!
Do you all get it now????
LA Writer, maybe we just need to Spam and repeat this message 50,000 times a day until everyone is brainwashed into understanding this. It’s shocking how I feel like we still need to “sell” this idea to people.
Kery, when you sell/ license your music on direct license sites you are the author and owner of the sound recordings and the site is just acing as “broker” of the transaction. If you sell a sync license, the broker takes a cut of the transaction.
If you sign with music publishers who feed TV shows there are many options out there:
Exclusive in perpetuity– You can only deal the track with this one publisher, forever, and generally you are transferring the master ownership over to them.
Exclusive for a period of time with a reversion clause – You can only deal the track with this one publisher, but after say 2 to 5 years, you can also remove your music from the library
Non Exclusive in perpetuity – You can license your music on this platform, but also on other platforms, BUT you grant this publisher NE perpetual rights to deal the track, you can not ever remove the track from their library
Non Exclusive – you can sell on this platform and others and generally speaking you can remove your property from the platform or library whenever you want to, for any reason whatsoever.justamusicgui1990 , I am not an expert in what you are doing because I stopped making efforts with songs with vocals a long time ago. Everyone develops their own strategy and finds their niche and people to partner with.
I too happen to agree that ownership and control of large catalogs of say 500 to 2000 tracks or more, is extremely important moving forward. There is a reason why everyone wants music producers to sign deals where they hand over the master sound recordings.If you can connect directly to shows, that would be a way to go. It’s hard to give advice in a public forum because there are many details that one would need to discus and find out before any concrete advice could be given. this is a very complicated business and what works for you, may not work for me, and vice versa.
As one example of the approach to “holding out” and “staying patient”…5 years ago I wrote a rather basic, happy folky, feel good acoustic instrumental tune. The track is nothing extraordinary, but still, a useful “feel good” vibe. The track did not do much in terms of setting sales records on various stock music sites, but sure enough, it’s now on a national spot and I am very pleased that I own the master, and control all the cards on the back end as writer and publisher. Patience ownership, and control, eventually pays dividends.
This approach works for me. It may not work for everyone.
justamusicgui1990, If you are doing “in the box” 4 chords only pop songs with no live instrumentation in 8 hours of time, you should still earn at least $1500 because you are also writing lyrics, and recording vocals.
I’d be willing to bet that most TV show placements you are securing are the instrumental versions, but I could be wrong. The opportunity cost and your risk is “what will my track earn on stock sites in youtube micro stock sync fees as well as broadcast license sync fees in the $250 to $3000 range?”
These tunes you are writing may go on and sell every week, but they may sell once a month or even once a quarter. We never know. What I know is that I am willing to wait and see what happens before I run and grab that quick, short term $650 advance fee and give up ownership and control.
BTW: Does this publisher share sync with you 50/50? or are you forfeiting future sync fees in exchange for the $650 advance? and are you transferring ownership of the masters to this company in perpetuity?
Maybe there are some geniuses out there that can write, record VOCALS, mix, and master hit songs in 4 to 8 hours, but even if you CAN work that well, that fast, is $650 really enough?
This kind of production would cost $10,000 just this one song. Check this out, it’s pretty amazing what these Russian folks did. This is an incredible song, and mix, executed with a room filled with virtuosity and excellence.
justamusicgui1990, I just like having full ownership and control of my catalog in perpetuity because it allows me the flexibility to pick where and how to distribute and license my music to buyers. I also feel as though I can eventually earn the $650 back from sync license sales. “Eventually” can be 6 months, but it may also take 3 to 5 years. It takes a lot of time and effort to write, record, mix, and master a great song. I just don’t think $650 is enough incentive for me at this point in my career.
Hey Joel, to be clear, I am not trying to scare anyone from signing up to Jesse’s sync academy. I guess I am just surprised that 5000 folks have even when the odds are 2% success according to his data. I 100% agree that he lays out an intelligent approach to those trying to get into a library that feeds TV shows and TV networks. T**i does this too. They are on youtube every week educating music producers on how to move your career forward with music libraries who service TV shows, video post houses, and advertising agencies. And indeed, this business requires mountains of patience as it will take most 5 years to 10 years to create a situation where they are potentially making full time income.
Anyway, anyone reading MLR should be able to find all the knowledge they will need to get going. But here is my advice; you will need 5 to 10 years to get to full time income, and you will have to compose, record, mix and master a minimum of 500 really useful tracks to get there. You should expect make very little in the first two to three years. If you sign all of your music to an exclusive library without compensation or an “advance fee” and others refer to them as “consideration fees” and you lose control of your own catalog in perpetuity, I do not think you will ever get to a full time income.
I see these markets as changing constantly, and nearly anyone looking to stay active producing music for a living has to be agile and have several bodies of water where they cast their lines.
You are absolutely 100% correct, if you do not create multiple revenue streams for your catalog, you sure do need revenue from several bodies of water. You need to fish in ponds, lakes, rivers, oceans, canals, and even deep puddles if need be. Some may disagree with me and that is fine, but (in my very experienced opinion) if you continue to sign deals with exclusive publishers and eliminate your ability to find multiple revenue streams for your music, I really believe that you will never achieve full time income.
Here is a dose of reality BEATSLINGER:
2% success, yet they keep signing up for his “school”.
I checked out Opensea.io and all of this just seems very confusing at this stage in the game
and then based on this explainer video below, it seems like not only will it take perhaps a day or two to set up an account, a crypto wallet for ethereum, etc.etc….It seems like it would cost a music producer/ original creator $57 just to get one track on the open sea platform. Then there are no guarantees anyone will buy or see your music asset, and then you have to be comfortable getting paid in ethereum and not $$$$Dollars, or fiat money
So yes this seems really cool and futuristic, but I personally feel as though there is a lot of risk (time lost and money lost) getting involved in this “minting” scene. “Minting” is bringing a music track into existence on the blockchain, but it costs “gas” to do so.
At first glance, I am wondering if we’d be better off just investing in ethereum and seeing how high that goes, as opposed to creating an NFT to sell in our “collection”.
I will keep an open mind about all of this, but wow….. does this process seem extremely complicated.
And indeed, I too am very concerned about criminals stealing music and then “minting” the tracks as NFT’s on the blockchain.