Music royalties and middle men ...

[Evanstaul]

I wanted to buy some music from [sounddogs.com]. You have to pay for the music initially, and I guess if you use it commercially you have to pay royalties depending on the composer's rules. I asked the company for the royalties rules for some music I liked, which varied from flat fees to "per units sold" fees.

They said I would pay the royalties through them, not directly to the composer. Is this a normal practice?

[ErikH2000]

Sure, it's common to find companies brokering music like this.

You can also hunt around for musicians and deal with them directly. It's just a question of how much work you want to go through. If you'd like a large repository of music to listen to with ways to contact musicians directly, try dmusic.com and ampcast.com. The downside is you'll wade through a lot of mediocrity.

If the composer's name is listed, you can always try Googling for him. I.e. you will find Bjorne Lynn's music being brokered all over the place, but you can also get direct contact info with some looking.

-Erik

[Tom Gilleland]

Business Tip #274:
Don't pay royalties, pay fair flat fees instead. Directly to author if possible.

Tom :)

[cliffski]

I thought sounddogs music is just an up front charge. you are talking about specifically commissioned music I presume?

[Evanstaul]

Its from sounddogs, the site says royalty free, but its only for very few of them. You have to pay initially then if you use it commercially it needs royalties.

The whole royalties thing seems based on the honor system or is there some check? I give whatever amount of my sales, then if there is a middle man, how do I know if they are paying the artist? Could they be making up the royalty amount? I was kinda led to believe the music was royalty free (or it wasn't clearly marked) so I was wondering if the site is trustworthy at all.

[Robert Cummings]

I think it's possible to check how many units are sold retail, probably not possible to check for online sales.

[tentons]

I decided not to use music from sounddogs because of their usage terms. I'd rather not have to worry about royalties after x amount of sales.

[digriz]

Best bet is to work out what sort of budget you have and then approach some people to see what you can get.

There are a multitude of musicians on these forums who can cater for all tastes and budgets. I think you'd be surprised what you can get for your money.

[cliffski]

Im at the sounddogs site:

Q. Please explain the license.
A. You can use the sounds within any multimedia production for the purposes of synchronization. Examples of usage: Computer games, television shows, films, music, e-cards, flash animations, theater, etc. If you plan to broadcast the project, cue sheets must be filed and some additional fees may be required. Please contact us for details.

Q. What does royalty-free mean?
A. A standard, non-license fee agreement to utilize the sounds within any multimedia production.

Where are you reading that you must pay royalties?

[Evanstaul]

I read the same thing, I don't really understand "purposes of synchronization" and it also says "additional fees" when broadcasting. So I emailed them directly and said I was making a small game, that I would sell, with some of the music I would buy from them, are there any other fees other than buying it on the site and they said there was. They gave me royalty quotes for the specific music I was interested in. The highest was $3000 per song for unlimited units. And I wanted atleast 3 songs from that artist = $9000 :(

[AnthemAudio]

You typically need to purchase a synchronization license to put any music to any visual medium, be it a movie, cartoon, commercial or game. But you would buy that directly from the owner of the composition. If you only buy the mechanical license you can only rebroadcast it alone but in any context.

Me? I'd be afraid of letting a 3rd party control my sync licenses. Not entirely against it...just afeer'd.

Tony

[cliffski]

I think they are confused, thier licence specifically says you can use it for games. You arent 'broadcasting' anything. I don't think you need to pay royalties on top of the initial cost. That seems mad. At the very least, their FAQ is gibberish if they expect people to pay 'royalties' for games, when it seems to expressly state you dont need to.

[Davaris]

I spoke to them about this a couple of years ago. They said sound effects were the listed price, but music is different. You have to pay the listed price + the royalty. You have to contact them about each music file you use.
In the end I decided it wasn't worth the hassle.

[cliffski]

hmmm that's totally insane. I guess I'll have to get my music elsewhere. They arent vaguely making that clear.

[tentons]

Sorry. I was thinking of www.shockwave-sound.com, actually:
A limitation of our standard license is that you may only sell or give away up to 5,000 copies of any product containing our music. To make more than 5,000 copies of a product containing our music, you will need a Mass Production License, which is detailed here.

Mass-production license is not required if you have only purchased sound effects from us. The Mass-production license requirement applies to music tracks and music loops only.