The Pros And Cons Of Non Exclusive Deals Aaron Davison 4/4/2011 A question I get asked a lot is whether or not musicians should sign exclusively with publishers interested in pitching their material. Conversely, I'm also asked whether or not there is any sort of downside to signing with non exclusive publishers, libraries and the like. Should you as a musician just simply pursue as many "non exclusive" companies as possible and sign your songs to as many of these companies as possible? Planting more seeds is better than few right? Well...maybe....maybe not. There are a few factors to consider... The Upside: First, let's start with the positive aspects of signing with someone non exclusively. The obvious upside is that when you sign non exclusively with someone you're still free to pursue other leads. You're not "locked in". If another opportunity comes along for one of your songs and you haven't signed that song exclusively to someone, you're still free to use your songs for whatever projects you see fit. This is clearly a good position to be in. There's nothing more frustrating than knowing one of your songs would be a perfect fit for another project but not being able to act on it because you've already committed to working with someone else exclusively. Secondly, there is something to the idea of the more seeds you plant the better. By working with multiple companies, you'll at least in theory have your music presented to a wider array of opportunities. Since music licensing is a bit of a numbers game, this is usually a good thing, at least in terms of exposing yourself to more potential opportunities. The Downside: The downside to non exclusive publishing/library deals isn't immediately apparent. But there is a downside and it's an issue that more and more is important to consider as you go out and pursue licensing opportunities. The problem with non exclusive deals is that it has created an environment where there are now many companies with access to essentially the same music supply. Why is this a problem? For a few reasons. Number one, the fact that so many places have similiar or at least overlapping catalogs of music has greatly diminished the leverage that these companies have in the marketplace. If a music supervisor can get the same track from a dozen different libraries, why do business with one versus another? If you can't compete on quality then the only thing left to compete on is price. As any good student of economics will know, when supply is greater than demand, the price goes down. This is exactly what's happened when it comes to licensing fees. Many shows that used to pay a thousand dollars or more several years ago now pay as little as several hundred dollars or in some cases don't pay anything at all upfront! They don't have to because there are so many songs and companies chasing the same opportunity. It could be argued that shrinking music budgets have caused the amount of licensing fees to decrease, but I don't buy that. I think this is a simple case of supply and demand. Secondly, the only way to do a "non exclusive" deal is to re-title the original track and re-register it with your PRO and attach a different publisher to the new, re-titled version. There is a little controversy about this practice and I've read many mixed opinions about companies that do this. To the best of my knowlege there is nothing illegal per se about doing this and in fact it's quite common. The problem arrives when there are multiple publishers pitching the same song to the same project with multiple titles. It creates confusion and wastes time and again diminishes the value of the music being pitched. In Conclusion There are no one size fits all answers to this issue. I don't think it's prudent to simply avoid non exclusive companies nor do I think it's wise to only sign exclusive deals. I always tell clients that they're better off having two or three companies on their side that are actively pitching their music, working with them, helping them move their career forwards, etc.. than to sign with dozens of places non-exclusively that may or may not pitch their music. Focus on building strategic relationships with the right people. How? Feel people out, find out what projects they've worked on and where they plan on pitching your music. Get to know the people that are a part of your team. Focus more on finding the right people to help you license your music and don't worry as much about whether they are exclusive or non exclusive. Publishing In The Context Of Music Licensing Aaron Davison 3/22/2011 Whenever a song is aired in a television broadcast the song, assuming it is properly registered with a Performing Rights Organization, generates what is called a Performance Royalty. The Performance Royalty consists of two halves, one half is called the writer's share and the other half is called the publisher's share. If you have not assigned your publishing rights to a separate publisher and the song is aired on television you would receive both halves, or in other words 100% of the performance royalty. If, on the other hand, your song was placed through a separate publisher to whom you have given your publishing rights to, you would receive half of the total performance royalty and your publisher would receive the other half, the publisher's share. It´s important to point out that music publishers who work in the music licensing industry typically only keep publishing for songs within the context of TV, Films,Video Games, Advertising, etc. In other words, within the niches they are pitching your songs to. Additionally, when you assign your publishing rights to a music publisher working in the licensing business, you are usually only assigning them the publishing rights as they apply to the specific recording of the song that you are entering into a publishing agreement for. This is what´s called a Master Sync License. If you´re song ended up being re-recorded and released on an album, or even if it was the exact same version of the song for that matter, you´re TV/Film music publisher would not be entitled to publishing rights for this song for either radio airplay or CD sales under normal circumstances. Of course, if you signed a contract that stipulated that your publisher was entitled to these rights then they would be, but this is not common practice for music publishers who specialize in TV and Film placements. Hopefully this helps clear up the publishing issue a bit. For some reason publishers seem to get a bad rap. I think this probably is related to horror stories we´ve all heard about famous musicians entering into bad deals where they unknowingly signed away huge portions of their income. In my experience though, I´ve actually had the most success working with publishers who already have the necessary relationships established within the industry. And at the end of the day, music publishers, just like you and I, want to get paid. Fair enough. What Happens When You Sign A Deal With A Music Publisher So, you've done your homework and you've researched numerous places to submit your music to. Let's suppose that all your hardwork pays off and you land a deal with a publisher, for example, who wants to represent your music. What happens next? Well the first thing that is going to happen is you will be presented with a contract that grants the rights to your new publisher to "shop" your song to various outlets on your behalf. There are different types of deals. The first deal I signed granted my publisher exclusive rights to pitch any songs I licensed to her within the TV and Film industry for perpetuity. In other words my publisher is the only publisher that represents the songs I signed to her and any money that is made as a result of these songs being broadcast in either Television or Film my publisher gets a piece of - forever. I still own the copyright, but my publisher gets a piece of any royalties generated within the context of TV and Film placements. At the time I felt like this was a fair trade off, since I had NO contacts within the music business worth speaking of. And I'm actually still fine with the arrangement. My publisher simply has many more contacts than I do. But I am careful about signing similiar agreements with some of my newer songs. There are other companies that are fine with representing your music on a non exclusive basis so it's ultimately up to you to use your discretion and make deals that make sense to you. Just be aware that both types of arrangements exist. What happens after you've signed a deal with a publisher? Well, then you sit back and wait and hope they place your material for you. Not everything gets placed though, so keep that in mind. Some of my songs have been picked up right away, some have been picked up more than a year after I've signed them and some have never been used at all. Self Publishing Your Music If you don´t assign your publishing rights to someone else, you, the songwriter, are by default the publisher of the song. If you place your music without the aid of a separate publisher you will be entitled to the entire performance royalty that the song generates, which includes both the writer´s share and the publisher´s share. This sounds good in theory, but in my experience it is a lot harder to place music without the aid of an established publisher with the necessary relationships in place within the music business. If you are going to go the route of self publishing your music it is important to know that if you use ASCAP to collect your performance royalties you will also need to have a publishing company established through ASCAP in order to ensure that you get paid for the songs that you place. When songs are registered with ASCAP there needs to be both a writer and publisher listed for each song. If you are functioning as the song's publisher you will need to also set up a publishing company through ASCAP in order to list yourself as the publisher. This is easy to do. Just fill out the publisher application online at www.ascap.com and pay the necessary filing fee. If you are a BMI member you are allowed to list yourself as the song's publisher without actually having a publishing company established. Additionally there are a growing number of libraries that will place your music, Music Supervisor.com for example, that don´t take any publishing royalties and only keep a percentage of the licensing fees they are able to generate on behalf of the songwriters they work with. I encourage songwriters to pursue these opportunities as well. The more seeds you can plant the better. But with that said, I have personally had more success working with more hands on publishers that do keep the publishing share of royalties that my songs generate for placements they make on my behalf. A Shortcut To Getting Your Music Licensed? Aaron Davison 3/12/2011 1) They write great music - Great music is clearly subjective, but when I hear music that gets licensed it's usually at least "very good". Now clearly not all songs that gets licensed are masterpieces, sometimes a song is simply a good fit for a scene. But most songs that I hear being licensed are solid songs. They're well produced, well crafted songs that work. 2) They're persistent - "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" is what my publisher always says. Nowhere is this adage more true than in the music business. The musicians that I know who are licensing their music are persistent and they have stuck with it, in some cases for more than a couple years, before they found success. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the music licensing business is competitive and there's a lot of competition. You have to have a high degree of "stick to it-iveness" to be successful in music licensing. So quit whining about how you haven't found success yet and keep writing great songs and marketing them every day. Or quit. But don't whine! If your music is great and you stick with it you'll find and audience for it! 3) They Do Research - If you write great vocal jazz music but you're sending it to people who are looking for modern rock tracks, it doensn't matter how great your tracks are, they're not going to be a good fit. The artists I've seen succeed over the last few years have all been very diligent in researching the needs of the publishers and supervisors they've submitted to. By targeting the specific places who are actually looking for the kind of music you're making you'll GREATLY increase your odds of licensing more of your music. It's called market research and it's a necessary component of any business, the music licensing business is no exception. What Kind Of Music Is Best To Submit To Publishers And Libraries What kind of music get licensed? In short, all kinds. Virtually every conceivable style of music get licensed and regardless of what kind of music you make, there are probably opportunities to license your music in TV shows, Films and other mediums right now. But with that said, there are some styles of music that get licensed much more than others and different places have different needs for different styles of music that change on an ongoing basis. A question I’m often asked is what is the best kind of
music to submit to libraries and publishers when first making contact with
them. There’s no one size fits all
answer to this question. It depends on both what kind of music you make and
what kind of music the places you’re submitting music to need. If you’re an artist and you write original
music that is all essentially in one style, then unless you’re submitting for a
specific project, simply start by submitting three or four of your favorite and
best produced tracks. If whoever you’re
submitting your music to likes the initial tracks you send them, then almost
invariably they’ll request that you send more. If you write in a variety of styles and you’re not
submitting your music for a specific project then send three or four tracks in
three or four different styles and when you submit your music include an email
or cover letter indicating that you write in a variety of styles and have more
music if their interested. If the tracks
you submitted aren’t needed specifically for anything, but the recipient of
your music likes the overall quality and sound of your tracks and gets the
impression you have additional music in styles they need, they’ll most likely
invite you to follow up and submit additional music at that point. The point is to the best of your ability to try and
put your best foot forward and also be as relevant as possible musically to the
places you are submitting your tracks to. If your music is strong and is
something the library or publisher you’re submitting to has a need for, you’ll
be invited to move forward by first submitting additional tracks and then most
likely signing some or all of your songs. When you’re at the point of sending additional tracks
I suggest inquiring as to whether or not there are specific projects they need
music for and if so what styles of music they’re looking for. That way it’s clear you don’t want to just be
a passive artist in their catalog, but that you want to be an active
participant in your own career. How To Be Successful In The Music Licensing Business
Aaron Davison 3/3/2011 Do you sometimes feel a little lost as you're pursuing a career in music? Do you get confused as to what steps to take to move forward in your career? Do you wish there was some sort of a map or a formula that you could follow that would guarantee success? The music industry is much different than more traditional career paths in that there really isn't a clear path to take that will guarantee success. It's not like becoming a doctor or a lawyer where you go to medical or law school, study hard, rack up debt in student loans and at the end become a doctor or lawyer. The music industry is much different in that you have to find your own path. What works for others that have come before you might not work for you. You have to find your own way. However, just because there aren't guarantees that doesn't mean there aren't things you can do that will greatly increase your chances of finding success. One way you can gain massive leverage is by simply taking action, consistently, every day. So for example, in the context of music licensing it's rare to just pick up the phone, ask a supervisor what kind of music they need, send it to them and then... voila... your music is instantly licensed and a check is on the way. It doesn't usually work that way unless you're really lucky. Here's a more likely scenario: You submit your music to several different places. You wait and don't hear anything right away. You submit your music to a couple more places. A few weeks later you learn that you've been accepted into on the of the libraries that you submitted to originally. You get excited so you submit to several more publishers, libraries, etc. One of the publishers you submitted to likes your stuff and so you submit more tracks to said publisher. A couple months later the publisher is working on a project, publisher remembers your music and thinks you would be a great fit. Your music ends up being considered but passed on. A few weeks later the same publisher is working on a different project the publisher thinks you would be great for. The publisher submits your music and this time the supervisor agrees and your music gets used. The point I'm making is that success in the music industry doesn't typically have a straight, direct path. You'll probably need to zigzag a little before you get to where you want to go. There are simply too many different elements at play for it to work any other way. You are competing against other songs, you're waiting for the right project to line up at the right time,etc... So how, knowing this, can you expedite your success? By taking action. Think about it. Your action is the one element you can control. It's easy to see how taking more action will potentially lead to more positive results and it's also easy to see that there are many "unknowns" and things that lie outside the realm of what you can control. So doesn't it make more sense to focus on the part of the equation that you control? Therein lies your true power and leverage. Focus on the actions you are able to take and forget about the rest. One of the things I suggest writers do in my program, The A To Z Of Music Licensing, as well as my music licensing master class, is something I call "The 90 Day Challenge". The concept is very simple. Writers pick one new company working in the music licensing business to submit their music to, every day, for 90 days. If you write and produce high quality music and you do this I guarantee you that you will move forward closer to your goal of licensing your music. You could also apply the same sort of formula towards other aspects of your music career to, like booking gigs or writing songs. I heard the idea summed up somewhere recently nicely, you can either wait for opportunities or you can create them. So what are you waiting for? The Two Ways Music Gets Licensed Today I want to cover a topic that has been on my mind a lot lately. As I see it, there are primarily two ways music is being licensed into projects currently. The two ways can be defined as passive and active. Here's what I mean: There are a lot of music libraries these days that have built up massive collections of music that is accesible online for anyone who needs music for their projects. I'm thinking of sites like Pump Audio and other lesser known sites that function similiarly. The way these sites work is that music supervisors who need specific types of songs will log on and search their catalog based on keywords related to the type of track they're interested in licensing. So if they're looking for a song about a break up in the vein of Lady Gaga, they'll search using these terms and a selection of songs and artists will come up who match this search criteria. There's nothing wrong with music that is licensed this way and in fact many supervisors prefer it. They like the efficiency of being able to log onto a secure area of a website and in many cases very quickly and easily find what they're looking for with all of paperwork ready to go. It often makes their jobs much easier. The only problem with passive music licensing is that it doesn't give you much power as a songwriter. What I mean is that once your music is added to a library like this, there usually isn't much you can do to increase your chances of your music being licensed. If someone happens to come across your music this way you very well could license your music as a result. The problem though is that in many cases supervisors are searching catalogs that have thousands, if not tens of thousands of tracks. Maybe they'll find you and maybe they won't. But really there's not much more you can do once your music is added to a catalog like this than just sit back and wait and hope somebody discovers your music. Not exactly an empowering feeling. On the other hand, the other way music is licensed is by publishers, licensing agents and is some cases music libraries that actively pitch music to their contacts. Many supervisors still prefer to receive music this way as well. The benefit of this approach to you as a songwriter is that if you are actively developing relationships with people who are pitching music actively, you have a greater chance of your music being pitched more frequently and ultimately licensed. In my opinion you're better off having two or three very well connected people who will actively go to bat and support you and your music than a dozen music libraries who just passively store their music on their site where someone may or may not find your music. How do you know who is willing to actively pitch your music and who is not? It's sometimes hard to know in advance. But make it a habit to get to know the people representing your music to the best of your ability. Ask lots of questions about what projects they're working on, where your music is being pitched, etc. You can pretty quickly figure out who is willing to work with you more actively and who is not. Always let people know you're willing to do music on spec, if you are. Sometimes projects won't be presented right away, but if you're diligent in building up solid relationships you're going to go a lot further a lot faster than by just sitting back and hoping someone finds your music.
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