Music supes owning their own libraries?

[shanegrla]

I'm fairly new to the tv/film thing, I've only had placements starting in the past year or so, so forgive my ignorance on this. But is this a fairly recent trend or has this been going on all along?

I was always under the impression that getting direct-to-supervisor contacts was way better for us precisely because we don't have to go through a library. (Get more money, keep our publishing, probably get a sync fee?) But I recently got forwarded for one of these, and it turns out the guy owns a library. I guess overall it's probably a better situation than just getting into any old library because it's getting right to the guy in charge of the placements. But they're still taking the publishing and using blanket licensing so no sync fees, etc. The cynical side of me is telling me this is just the latest way that The Man has figured out how to take more of a cut of our money.

Like I said, I'm still gonna go for it because I figure it's still a better deal than just putting the stuff into some library and hoping for some supe to come find it, but I was just curious what everyone else's take on it is. Is this a growing trend that we have to look forward to?

[Russell Landwehr]

Wow, Shane.

Your post reminds me of this thread http://forums.taxi.com/topic58793.html .

Hmmmmm...

This is a spin on that (above referenced) topic that I don't remember reading in the original thread.

Not that I claim to be an expert on the business, but in my part of town we call that double-dipping.

On the other hand, there are still plenty of music supes letting you keep the publishing... but if this is a new trend?

The cynical side of me is telling me this is just the latest way that The Man has figured out how to take more of a cut of our money.

The card-carrying union member in me agrees with you.



Russell

[shanegrla]

Hi Russell,
Thanks for that. Yeah, I think I vaguely remember that thread. Forgot about it. It sounds like a very similar situation, but I don't think it's the same deal Michael was talking about. They were only taking 50% of the publishing there.

I see on that thread you already made pretty much the same point as me about cutting out the middle man.

I also noticed Michael sort of answered my question that many shows and networks are doing this so it doesn't seem to be that out of the ordinary anymore.

just thought I'd check.