Production Music Deal

[Fader4D8]

Hey everybody. Does anyone here make production music and look over their own contracts? I make instrumental rock stuff and have a possible production music deal on my hands. I've worked with this company several times before, but this is a job with a lot more work involved and maybe not that much return. I just don't know about it, maybe you could have a look at the details.

20% of all synch revenue and mechanical revenue, 50% of all direct performance revenue, and 100% of the composers share from your performing rights organization.

thanks

John

[Tragabigzanda]

20% of all synch revenue and mechanical revenue, 50% of all direct performance revenue, and 100% of the composers share from your performing rights organization.

Not sure who's getting these percentages---you or the production house. At any rate, it looks like a co-pub deal in which person X would get 20% of synch revenue (meaning up-front synch fees and back-end residuals), 20% of mechanical (you'd likely see this if there was a soundtrack album made; not sure how DVDs would factor in), and the 50% performance share is sort of a non-issue; I can hardly imagine a situation in which your song would be performed (unless you're John Williams), and even if it were performed, performance royalties are so hard to track that they are typically rolled into a blanket license if you're a restaurant or small venue, and really only bring in some good money if you're, say, Pearl Jam covering a Neil Young song at your local LiveNation mega-venue. That being said, there are some arguments going on right now as to what constitutes a performance---is streaming from Spotify and Turntable.fm a performance? Good stuff to keep your eye on.

If I were a music supervisor on a TV show, and I licensed a song by Stephen Malkmus, I would have to pay both the master owner and the publisher; it's a 50/50 split, with the pub share being further divided 50/50 between the writer(s) and the publisher(s); the publisher(s) would then divide their share according to the contractual percentage...

So it looks to me that if the synch fee were $1000/side---meaning $1000 to the publisher, and $1000 to the master owner---and if you owned the masters---you would get $1000 for the master license, and then if you're the sole composer on a song, you would get an additional $500 of the pub share, plus another $100 for your 20% publishing stake. Any back-end residuals would most likely come through your PRO, unless the prod. house is trying to take it all and pay you after the fact. (I would avoid this scenario).

These might not be bad numbers, depending on what sorts of deals they're working with the licensees. Find out...

-Who owns the masters?
-Is there a standard synch fee, or is it a sliding scale? Is this a small, independent production house, or is this Getty Images or something like that?
-What terms and territories are we talking? Domestic? The world? Two years? Forever? Are DVD's and other media rolled in to their licenses?

If you don't own the masters, then this isn't the best deal, but it's not a total ripoff. Are you being paid up front for any of your work, and if so, are you basically signing off on any ownership of the masters as a work-for-hire agreement?

It's a tricky balance to strike, and it's easy to get greedy before you even have a song placed! Find out who owns what, and what media and territories that includes. When all else fails, take it to a lawyer!

[Fader4D8]

This is a smaller publishing library. They own exclusive rights for the world in perpetuity. They have about 30 of my pieces and I make about $300 oer year in royalties. Nothing from ASCAP. This is why I am skeptical.
The way it works I think, is that they sell compilation CD's and we all (composers) make a percentage. I can't help but wonder if I am missing some sync royalties somewhere. Am I just being a turd about this? Should I be lucky to be getting any work ?

[JGriffin]

Should I be lucky to be getting any work ?

This, if I may be so bold, is the question that big record companies who offer shit deals, and local bars that ask you to pay to play, and all sorts of other lizards, hope you'll ask.

Don't ask it. You are selling yourself short if you do. You are well within your rights to analyze whether a given deal is fair to all parties.

[Tragabigzanda]

Well, it sounds like their CDs come royalty-free, meaning that if a production house buys a CD and likes your song for their TV show, they're able to use the song without adding it to their cue sheet (which they would then submit to the PROs, which would bring you royalties).

You need a little more transparency before you make any decisions: Are the production houses required to add your songs to their cue sheets, and if so, does the company that makes the CDs ever check the cue sheets before they're submitted? If the prod. houses ARE required to submit your song on a cue sheet, and the company DOESN'T check those cue sheets, than would it be a problem for you to have a look at a few for shows that you know used your music? If your song's not on the cue sheet, and it's supposed to be, that's a pretty big problem.

Just based on what I've heard so far, I'd say that you don't own any masters, and you're not entitled to any royalties from the PROs---this sounds like the company pays you for your time as a work-for-hire agreement, they put the song on the CD, and whoever purchases that CD has the right to do whatever they want with your music. So then ask yourself: How much time do I put into my compositions? If you're slaving over your tunes and only entitled to $300/yr, then yes, you're geting ripped off. But if you're just tossing them together in an afternoon, creating incidental bits of music no longer than a minute each, then maybe it's not such a bad deal for now, but there are certainly better ones out there...

[Gregg Juke]

>>>>You need a little more transparency before you make any decisions: Are the production houses required to add your songs to their cue sheets, and if so, does the company that makes the CDs ever check the cue sheets before they're submitted? If the prod. houses ARE required to submit your song on a cue sheet, and the company DOESN'T check those cue sheets, than would it be a problem for you to have a look at a few for shows that you know used your music? If your song's not on the cue sheet, and it's supposed to be, that's a pretty big problem.<<<<

+1 on Alex' comments; especially the above...

I don't have direct experience with this situation, but related experience, in that my partner and I have always leased our jingle packages with a large territory, rather than selling them outright. The idea is/was to be able to syndicate later, and also to collect ASCAP/BMI royalties from airplay. In theory, this is no problem, but trying to get the on-air traffic schedules and/or advertiser purchase information (the radio equivalent of film/TV cue sheets) from the broadcast entities has proven to be outlandishly difficult. It's just not within their normal scope of experience in a small market.

So even _if_ you are somehow able to maintain rights rather than a production house buyout situation, making sure you can get the necessary documentation is very important. If the production house can't/won't help you with that, it's probably not going to happen. You won't even have any idea of where your music is being used unless you happen to stumble upon it by accident.

GJ