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I agree that this can be perceived as price fixing, but at the same same time, why couldn’t the PMA develop a price range for certain sync licenses?
Price-fixing is competitors working together to unduly influence the pricing of a market. Even a guideline could be construed this way. And even if there was such a thing, many libraries would deliberately undercut or price above as a competitive distinction. There are a few libraries who make their pricing public…
Didn’t our friends at Omnicom do this?
Omnicom is a single end-user and doesn’t require libraries to meet any price. Libraries are free to price as they like or be placed into one of several different pricing tiers.
SAG is a union whose members are individual people, not corporations. Totally different legally.
My final suggestion is that we also strive to eliminate the term “royalty free”…it is beyond misunderstood and is flat out wrong.
Yes! Talk to the people who are using it to describe their music!!
Also, the platforms (e.g. Netflix, Amazon, etc.) on which those cues are played, aired, streamed, whatever, would still have to have a PRO license that creates $ for composers. Performance-free means they wouldn’t.
Or psychologically worse, if your music did end up on a Netflix series you wouldn’t get anything from ASCAP or BMI while the music around you did!
There is a massive difference between a RF library not requiring its clients to report usage to the PROS and a library requiring a composer to sign away those rights.
There are lots of ways a RF work performance could be picked up and paid out by a PRO even without any reporting involved. Fingerprinting, YouTube Content ID, etc.
NYC – so noted! I’m a Brooklynite myself…
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I hear where many of you are coming from.
The PMA does have a whiff of “traditional” about it. It did start as a publisher organization. We did and do actively discourage some business models like performance-free libraries (as distinct from RF) because we truly believe they are shrinking the pie at the industry level, though not necessarily for any one or ten, or twenty composers in particular.
I would kindly ask everyone here to distinguish any personal experience with any specific PMA library from what the organization is trying to accomplish. I KNOW THIS IS HARD SOMETIMES! The PMA is a non-profit organization and the board & committee members work very hard for very free to try and keep our industry sustainably healthy.
OK, moving on to some specific points raised…
The PMA does offer discounted health insurance, as well as discounted E&O insurance.
Standardizing rates on both the buy and sync side could get the organization into anti-trust trouble. Collective marketing and licensing could also be problematic for the same reason.
The mentoring point is a great one, and we believe we are taking a step in that direction with our conference this year in LA by having a large number of composer-focussed sessions. If any of you have specific suggestions for the future, please let Art know!
Check out the schedule here: http://pmc.pmamusic.com/
It includes –
Recording, Mixing and Mastering for production music;
How to write a successful library track
A Demo Derby
An SCL panel talking about ALL the different business models
How To Handle Covers and Remixes
And bunch of others….We created the PMC as the world’s first annual conference dedicated to production music and it provides an opportunity for all of us – friends & competitors, writers & publishers, PMA & not 🙂 – to get together and hopefully educate or challenge or inspire each other.
As a publisher, I want to keep values healthy. As a writer, I want to create interesting music and contribute meaningfully to all kinds of projects to the best my abilities. And I want to keep doing that! In the future!
Whew, that’s it for now, and thanks to those who made it this far.
Hi all,
I’m PMA library owner / board member as well as an active composer, and at the risk of getting a beatdown am voicing my own opinion here…
First of all, a huge thanks to Art and TAE Music for putting this out there as well as shepherding the passionate discussion.
I understand where lots of you are coming from on the issues raised in this and other threads. The industry is moving fast and there is certainly more than one “right” way for our community to move forward.
I’m not really sure where to start, other than the PMA is simply doing what it can to promote and protect the value of production music everywhere.
Our community faces a variety of structural headwinds, from the commodification of production music, to the PROs trying to navigate a digital landscape while being handcuffed by the DOJ + an outdated consent decree, to a market that increasingly reduces our creativity and effort to a simple #of-tracks-for-how-many-$ calculation.
The PMA is reaching out to writers since we are all in this together.
As the industry evolved we noticed how many composers were also starting libraries, doing sync deals on their own etc. and it just makes sense for everyone in our community to share what’s working, what isn’t and how best to move forward. We’re not out to “business-model-shame” any composers, just hopefully get a discussion going and sort through some facts and ideas together.
It is difficult enough to convey the value of what we do to broadcasters, digital platforms, agencies, PROs, etc., etc., etc., as a group without splintering into self-defeating factions.
An example:
Recently, a major network decided it was going to take a share of performance royalties for any library music it aired simply because it could. The PMA took a behind-the-scenes stand and that network did not move forward with that plan. That benefitted everyone in our community, whether PMA member or not (and many affected weren’t…).
There are other examples, including working with the PROs to implement fingerprinting detection for commercials and promos, a solution which actually led to many non-PMA libraries getting royalties in part at the expense of PMA libraries!
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@Edouardo Just a clarification: WFH libraries do take copyright and control of the work, BUT a legitimate one will never claim to be the creator or erase/replace your name from your music.
Many EX libraries even promote the names of their composers on the release art. e.g. “Dawn Awakens – A sonic journey by Steven Stevensonson”
Good luck!
If the exclusive library is paying you upfront and it’s a work-for-hire, then they will own the copyright. That’s pretty standard. Am surprised they will let you take it back, unless you are writing it for free.
Here’s the copyright office on it:
What is a work made for hire?
Although the general rule is that the person who creates the work is its author, there is an exception to that principle. The exception is a work made for hire, which is a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment or a work specially ordered or commissioned in certain specified circumstances. When a work qualifies as a work made for hire, the employer, or commissioning party, is considered to be the author. See Circular 9, Work-Made-For-Hire Under the 1976 Copyright Act.
More here: http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-definitions.html