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As sad as it is, I agree with Music1234 that in general, stock music licensing sites do not value or care about writers (whatever they may claim to the contrary) and see them as a cheap commodity to be exploited.
Sometimes there is a company which is an exception to this and they really do care, but what I’ve seen over the years is that they either end up selling to a bigger, impersonal corporation, or they don’t do well because sadly, to compete they have to be as ruthless as the others.
Some of the things which have happened to me in the music library business have been, in my view, pretty deceitful and underhanded.
Something like a music library composers’ union could help, but I don’t see how to set one up when there are so many writers who would take deals we wouldn’t. It’s a difficult situation but the only way I see us all getting somewhere, is joining together and presenting a united front to the libraries.
Oh my god.
LAwriter: Thank you for telling us about Westar. That is absolutely disgusting behavior on their part. I just cannot believe what happens in this business. Really, you’ve done us a service telling us about this.
And to think The Music Bed is moving to a subscription model now too. This is very concerning for the future.
I think naming the library would help us too, if it’s allowed.
I agree that the subscription model in this new form is the death of production music. Backend is on the way out (thanks to Netflix etc) and if the front end goes then we’re finished as far as I can tell.
No, I don’t believe it’s common practice, although I expect libraries would like it to be.
I wouldn’t suggest falling for their line about it being an accounting problem. There is absolutely no excuse, ever, in my book, for a library to pay you 0% of sync.
Sync fees are over 80% of income for some composers I know. I’ve heard that the writer’s share of back end is what is dying these days (Netflix, Amazon etc) and sync fees might be all that’s left.
To be honest, I find it pretty sad when a library offers 0% on sync with what seems to me like a pathetic excuse about it being too difficult to run a report and send you your cut as the reason for this!
Maybe asking for gold with everything you listen to is a bit much when you ask us to work but don’t want to pay and only share commissions after the fact.
I’m so glad someone said this.
Yes, I feel the writer’s views are a bit.. I’m not sure, contemptuous? Probably a result of being worn out by years of listening to submissions, as others say.
This business model already exists, as I think Art mentioned earlier in the thread.
Also, I’m with Mark, although my figure would be lower. To give up all future licensing income, and all back end writers share, I’d want at least $20k per track.
Others will hopefully post too, but I would say that things are much, much harder than they were, even a few years ago. It seems like there is an enormous quantity of music and a huge number of good composers. I have tracks with a few of the top libraries but as of the last year or two, they won’t even talk to me anymore!
Just to confirm: you can submit by track right? So you could leave all exclusive tracks off and just send Adrev other ones?
Sounds pretty interesting.
So any video that uses your music, which is made by a client that purchased a license for that music – those videos will be whitelisted and unaffected? If that’s feasible it does sound very interesting.
I guess this would only work for non-exclusive music, since exclusive deals involved signing over some rights and some publishers probably use Adrev already.
So the A&R team want a percentage of the writer’s broadcast royalties? That sounds terrible to me and I probably wouldn’t sign if so. I’ve never had any company take a percentage of the writer’s PRO royalties.
What is the ‘service’ they’re offering? Is it above and beyond publishing?
How will it be a 1/3 split if there are 4 interested parties? Is it Composer 33%, Publisher 33%, A&R 1 16.66% and A&R 2 16.66%?
Is this a UK company?Although some of the genres exist, I still think the reply was sarcastic. Also, thinking about it.. are they really not looking for any other genres? That seems very unlikely.
And yes, very unprofessional.
That is very strange and an unpleasant way to reply to someone.
Do you mind me asking which was the library you’ve been accepted into?
It looks sarcastic to me, which is very weird. Why would they waste time doing this?
Which library was it?Yes, I definitely think that an additional fee should be charged for this. And I think that you should charge based on the worth of the stems to the client and also on how long it takes you to do them, but obviously you may want to consider what the client is willing to pay.
Edouardo:
I also do the same on checking no samples are in isolation – but by samples I mean phrases or perhaps a percussion loop etc. An individual piano line even if played on a sampled VST instrument to my understanding is fine in isolation. Is that what you meant too?
Hi Fredrik, welcome!