Demo House Productions

[Milly]

Hi All

So I am new to the forums and have introduced myself in the General Hangout section.

Something that was mentioned was that as my songs were produced by a demo house in Nashville that I probably cant use them for FILM/TV opps as they are, is this just through Taxi?? Or what's the reason for this?

The main reason I ask is that, I am thinking of joining Taxi but if my tracks aren't up to scratch for opportunities such as artist opps and TV/Film opps then I'll have to rethink, as I want to get the most out of my membership!! As I don't live in the U.S I wouldn't get the benefit of the Rally (which everyone talks about!!). I am not asking whether I will have any luck getting forwarded or definitive answers like that, I know there is a lot of "square peg in a round hole" for film/tv opps and whether an artist is looking for a particular theme on an album, for example, but is there a standard/studio quality to the work submitted through taxi i.e are demos acceptable such as mine!! I do hope this makes sense!!

Just to add, one of my songs, has been selected recently (non exclusive contract) on another music site (similar to taxi.com) and this was for film/tv/retail placement and this was one of my "demo" tracks???

You can check out my music if you are interested on www.reverbnation.com/milly4

Looking forward to getting your thoughts!
Cheers
Milly

[Kolstad]

Hi Milly,

There's a very good Taxi FAQ on business terms here http://www.taxi.com/transmitter/0908/mu ... g-101.html

There are two copyrights with music. You need to distinguish between the (c) the copyright which covers melody and lyrics, and the (p) which covers the audio production (also called "the master" in the FAQ).

In Nashville, studios often do "songwriter demos" for very reasonable rates, because they are just used to pitch songs to a&r, publishers and artists. This is non-commercial use, because the audio doesn't make the songwriter any money. But for these low rates, the songwriter doesn't always get to own the rights to the master. You have to ask the studio what their policy about that is. Often musicians and singers share their talents in their downtime for the benefit of songwriters, but that doesn't always mean that this work can be used commercially. It's about intellectual property rights.

"Owning" the rights to the master (the production of your copyright) means that you can exploit it commercially. Like sell it on iTunes, pitch it to music libraries ect. Sometimes studios will agree to release it for an extra fee. Sometimes they can't, because their musicians has just signed a record deal, or want to, and will not accept to have masters on the commercial market, that they don't own. Sometimes they will, but only Union scale. Sometimes they'll agree to work-for-hire. Imagine having a bunch of Carrie Underwood demos on your hand, and then suddenly she's no. 1 on the Billboard charts! Of course you should not be able to exploit your 500$ demo and make millions.

But even union scale releases of the master can be an issue in film/tv, because that allows the musicians to get royalties from their performances, which no library will touch. So, you need unconditional work-for-hire releases in order to pitch the music for specific library listings. You have to read the Taxi listings carefully, because some listings are artist pitches or to publishers, for which songwriter demos are fine, but other listings are directly to libraries or music supervisors, for which you need to own the master. I believe in most cases they explicitly write that you need to "own the master" for those listings.

It may also be that your Nashville studio release the master by default, so that you already own them. But you need to know which is the case.

I hope that's helpful. I write this to share my own experiences as a songwriter and former Taxi member, so I'm no lawyer I should add.
So others with more clout may chime in.

[Milly]

Hi there

Thanks for the reply and the info, perhaps I should have mentioned this in the beginning, I solely ALL rights to my songs/masters. The producer I use is a "work for hire" basis, with no writing/master rights/credit..again I hope that makes sense. So once the track is complete I am free to do whatever I want with them commercially etc...

So that being said, where does that leave me with the original comment about not being able to use demo house production tracks for tv/film, I take it that is not the case??? Now that I have clarified all rights belong to me!!

So I suppose my original question, are the quality of my tracks sufficient for submission to TV/Film opportunities via taxi.com???

Many thanks......and patience!
Milly

[eeoo]

If you have work for hire contracts for your producer and all the musicians that play on it you shouldn't have any problems, pitch away!

And yes, I would say your tracks are broadcast quality (BQ), they sound great!

eo

[Kolstad]

No worries, the info might be helpful to someone else reading the thread.
I agree with Ethan on the rest.

[Casey H]

If you have work for hire contracts for your producer and all the musicians that play on it you shouldn't have any problems, pitch away!

And yes, I would say your tracks are broadcast quality (BQ), they sound great!

eo

I just want to make sure you have work for hire contracts for all the MUSICIANS, not just the producer. If your agreement only is with respect to the producer and doesn't cover the musicians, that would be problematic.

Best,
Casey

[Milly]

Hi Casey

Thanks for the post and the concern, the producer is the musicians, he pretty much does it all..that's what great about using him, so I think I am covered!

Cheers
MIlly

[Rossmusic]

Ideally, you want a contract that specifically states you own the Master.

That's not so much to protect you from a claim from the demo people - which wouldn't be anything I'd worry about as rule - but for third parties who may insist on it.