1,729 thoughts on “General Questions”

  1. Hey guys – Im wondering if there are any similar libraries to Premium Beat, in terms of income and ‘model’. I had great experiences with PB and would want to have some of my tracks with another company like that. Sorry for not renenweing my membership yet, Art, will do soon. Hope this post is ok..

  2. Does anybody know if royalties are paid in the US for a radio commercial? Also, what about a TV commercial in a foreign country?

    • Euca, I’m trying to figure the international commercials out as well. One of my tunes is being used in a very popular current TV ad in India. The producer is a very well known and accomplished, but he had never heard of a cue sheet before! We got a decent upfront on it. From what I’ve heard, India does not currently pay royalties on television programming or commercials. We may get royalties in some of the other countries it may air in. Good luck!

    • Hey euca,

      Sorry, no royalties for radio commercials, but that may change.

      I’ve done a ton of music for Clear Channel that has been used in radio commercials. If they paid royalties, I’d be a rich man. 🙁

      I have gotten royalties for foreign radio and TV ads (a few years after the fact)

      Cheers,
      Michael

      • Thanks Steve and Michael. Bummer on the radio ad! I guess time will tell with the tv commercial. I had a cue picked up for one that will run in China, maybe a couple years down the road I’ll see something. I did get a decent sync fee for it, so I’m happy.

  3. Just a heads up US based composers.
    I’ve been advised that the IRS is cracking down on underreporting of income via third party sources, like Paypal. Because many of libraries pay with Paypal or a similar service, this is likely to effect us.

    They are specifically including “hobbyists,” whose extra income might normally not be reported.

    PLEASE check with your accountants.

        • Just curious, what accounting software do you use? I just use a spreadsheet which I give to my book keeper at the end of each year?

          • Hi Emmett, I use Quicken Home and Business. Once a week I make sure to enter all my receipts and any income. I make sure every transaction is assigned a category. When tax time comes I can easily tell what I spent in any given tax deductable category.

            • Same here. Been using Quicken since the 80s and do exactly as Michael does.

              My only complaint with Quicken is that now that they are pretty much the only one left for this type of software it’s gotten a bit flakey and tech support is not very good. My automated download of PayPal transactions stopped working and I have to enter them by hand. The other automated downloads work fine though. Still it makes tax time so much easier!

    • How much money do you have to make before you have to pay taxes? Does paypal issue an annual earnings statement like the PROs do?

      Say you make $100 from a royalty free site. Would you pay $20 to the government? What about state sales tax? Is the government really trying to crack down on those earning less than $1000 a year in sales?

      • Hey synth, I’m not sure what paypal needs to submit if you receive money from a library or a PRO but I do know if you get paid from credit cards and e-checks they need to report anything over $20,000.

        I would assume it’s $20,000 total for any payments received.

      • Paypal sends you a 1099 (misc income) at the end of the year and they report that to the IRS. Doesn’t matter whether you owe money or not you still need to file, AFIK.

      • It’s a 1099-K form they send you. I just checked my email from paypal and it is anything over $20,000 including goods and services.

          • Yes Art correct. I should have been more clear on my post. I meant that Paypal sends the forms also to the IRS for anything over 20k. You are correct, all income should be reported, better safe than sorry! I apologize for the confusing post.

          • Well how do you document that you got money through paypal without a statement from them? If I got paid cash for producing a song, how would I document and report that? It just seems unreasonable that the IRS would tax such a low amount of money. A few hundred bucks really isn’t significant income.

            I would never suggest cheating on taxes. But I do not understand how the tax laws work for undocumented income. It would be a good idea to talk to a tax person, but that costs a lot of money. I usually do my own taxes with Turbo Tax and I don’t want to pay some tax attorney hundreds of dollars just to end up paying less than $100 in taxes. Just seems unfair. Sorry about the rant, just frustrated. 🙁

            • “Well how do you document that you got money through paypal without a statement from them? ”
              You do, you can download a statement from Paypal just like any bank showing all of your transactions for any specified amount of time.

            • Login into to PayPal and click on My Account-> Overview. To the right under Quick links is “Tax Documents” but 2011 is not up yet. Also under Report they have a new one called 2011 Summary. You can also download a CSV file, import into Excel or Open Office and use the SUM function. If you have any transactions that can be deducted, such as transaction fees, deduct them from your gross.

  4. Would anyone care to recommend a successful library that specializes in or has a heavy focus on “Meditation” style music? I have a top notch composer friend with a recently completed project…

      • Thanks Art. I thought of that one but was turned off when I read “Can not register the tracks with a performing rights society”. I just looked closer at the MLR comments and now it appears this isn’t true?

        I don’t think I could recommend a library with that as a restriction. Can anyone say for sure? I looked on their website but that information wasn’t available. Thanks.

        • Another option might be Audiosparx. I think they may have that genre.

          Also Cari Live knows a bit about Ambient. You might try to PM her or e-mail Guy at Ambient.

    • Hey Michael,

      Ambient Music Garden specializes in that kind of music. We discussed their “NO PRO” policy in a few other threads. They market mainly to non-broadcast users, like massage therapists, doctors offices and spas. They are one of the libraries that guarantees their customers that their music is TOTALLY royalty free. If you’re looking for backend this is not the library for you. If you are a PRO member you can put music into AMG if you agree enter into a direct license with their clients, i.e., waive your PRO royalties. This is not much of an issue, as I mentioned, because their client base is non-broadcast.

      That being said, they are still promoting Christmas music on their home page, and have not answered recent emails. I would be concerned about the inactivity. Perhaps they are just backlogged. You may want to PM Cari Live. I think she does well there. Maybe she knows whats going on.

      Cheers,
      Michael

  5. Alan, still can’t respond directly to your reply but I’m glad you brought up Muziko. I just finished a new piece and tagged the mp3. I wasn’t aware Muziko doesn’t want that. I’ll have to make an mp3 without the tag for them. I think I’ll just skip the tags.
    Thanks for the info! Glad I posted the question if only for the Muziko info.

      • Hi Art,
        I wanted to respond to Alans post this morning. I saw it in my emeil so I clicked the link which took me to the MLR site. Once here, I saw his reply on the left side under “recent posts. I clicked his name like I’ve done many times in the past to take me to the actual posting but it didn’t appear.I still can’t find it. However, I also received your post in my email box, clicked on it,was taken to the MLR site as well but once I clicked on your name it did take me to the actual post. Strange.
        Still can’t find Allen’s post though.

        • Yes odd. One of the things I checked a number of times (with this new theme) was the ability to click on the name under “Recent Comments”, on the left hand side, and make sure that it would take me to the right comment. It’s worked every time for me, at least so far. There may still be a conflict between the “Recent Comments” plugin and the “Edit Comment” plugin. Hopefully not.

          I have noticed from time to time if the comment you are trying to go to is on a new page (only ten comment per page) it might not take you there. It’s always something! 🙂

  6. Do you guys always (or never)insert id tags on your mp3 submissions or does it conflict with whatever libraries that only take mp3’s do with it? The MLR jukebox is really the only time I ever inserted did it but made me wonder if there’s any real advantage since most libraries want .wav anyway. Apparently there’s no way to do the same thing with .wav files that I can see in Cubase. Just thought it’d be better to find out now than after I’ve done a large amount of cues.

    • @ Pat,
      I only put Title, Author and Genre. Mainly because my name will show up in a browser (though that my be bad in my case, ha). I put a few tracks in Muzico and they specifically state no mp3 tags of any kind. The mp3 only go to the submission process for most of the libraries I work with, wav fils for the accepted cues.

  7. I’m curious about how some of you approach giving titles to your cues. It has been stated that something descriptive can help to get a supervisor’s attention, which makes perfect sense.

    However, I’m wondering if that could sometimes work against you. For example, say you have a piece that you think evokes a romantic mood and title it to suggest that, but to someone else it might be perfect for a funeral scene. Could you miss out on a placement because a supervisor looking for the funeral scene either doesn’t listen to the piece or hears it differently because of the title?

    I would appreciate any thoughts on the subject.

    • Most music I think is searched by subject not title.
      I try and title a cue that helps describe the mood best I can. You can’t give it 50 titles because there are 50 possiblities of how others interpret it. People aren’t searching by titles anyway. They usually search by category. That said, it’s possible sombody will bypass your cues even in the correct category because your title sucks so bad. Even than it might not be that your title actually sucks but that someone elses is more of an eye catcher. So to your question, you have control over how catchy your title might be but not how other people see it. Just come up with a suitable one and if it’s creative too, that much better. I sometimes have more trouble putting in the best category a cue than I do the best title. jmho.

    • I try to include style and a mood but it’s a best guess and I think my guesses get better the longer I do it. I have a track called “Happy Hip Hop” that I’ve sold over and over again but only on one particular RF site. It’s a nice little track but there are plenty of those out there. Is it the title? I don’t know but something is working for that track.

  8. You gotta love kids. I was telling my 13 year old daughter about my latest sale. It was on revostock and I told her my cut was only $2.50

    She thought that was great. When I asked her why, she said that most songs cost only 99 cents (iTunes).

    I guess it’s all in how you look at it 🙂

    • ” It was on revostock and I told her my cut was only $2.50″

      😆 that’s a great story!

      Question though….Revostock sells that low?

      I guess they’re off my list.

        • So your $2.50 cut came from a limited usage license?

          Just trying to figure out how you only ended up with $2.50

          Thanks,

          Michael

  9. What is a “microstock” library? I noticed some libraries don’t want to deal with you if you’re in a “microstock” library.
    What’s different about a microstock library. How do I know if I’m in one or not?

    • Since no-one has answered, I’ll take a wild guess 🙂 Maybe they mean the real cheap RF ones like Audiojungle.

      • That’s kind of what I was thinking. These libraries that sell tracks for $9, even $5 and you can buy photograghs and id cards too. lol

      • Again I agree. I’ve seen pond5, audiomicro, istockaudio and jewelbeat as microstock libraries. Guess I’ll have to check them out just to see the differences between them and the “other” libraries.
        Thanks for the input guys.

          • mmm. Must be another characteristic tht makes it a micro I guess.
            I think I’m going to email this library and ask what they consider a “micro” to be.

          • I emailed Soundtaxi and they answered that they consider micro libraries as “very cheap music libraries.” They didn’t realize you could set your own price at pond5.

            • I’ve set my prices from $39 to $49 at Pond5. One cue in particular sells a lot there and has made it into shows on ESPNU, NBC and CBS Sports because of the sales there.

              • @Art, How did you find out what the uses were? I’ve had several recent sales on Pond5 and can’t find info on how or where they were used. Thanks

                • It’s my best guess. I use different titles for RF sites, that cue is only on a few and that title showed up on cue sheets. I’d had about 30 sales on Pond5 for that cue and very, very few on the other sites (maybe none).

                  • I’m pretty sure that placement came form Pond5, Art. I have also had placements on those programs from Pond5 sales.

  10. Hi!

    Is anyone here a member of Writertap?
    I’ve been contacted by them and asked to subscribe. Their site looks very proffesional.
    But I’d like to hear from anyone who’s actually using the service if it actually is.

    • I was contacted by them too. I don’t know anything about them (sorry), but I’m not interested in paying any fees right now, so I’ll pass. I actually thought that their website – while pretty to look at – was rather sloppily written, with lots of typos. It didn’t create a very good impression for me.

      • Looks like another company like Taxi and Broadjam, both totally useless imo.
        Never pay for a lead or so called opportunities.. they’re fake, they’re only after your money.

        Erwin

        • Erwin,
          What is your opinion on paying $2-$5 to submit to a Film Music Network opportunity. I’ve done a couple of them. One of them sent a automated responses telling me my track was listened to by the client.
          I’m just curious of your take on FMN
          -Alan

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