Help! people of Taxi

[am281]

long story short i was a member of taxi,got some of my music forwarded but no call backs, emails or anything. I started focusing on school and less on music. I think a year and a half has gone by now i had put my dreams of getting my music into to tv/fim on the back burner BUT

Totally out of the blue i received an email from a Content Manager from Fashion One, it seem legit http://www.fashionone.com/ looks like things might be moving forward BUT its been a while, I know vary little about licensing contracts etc. iv never been in this type of situation before im a noob They are interested in 2 of my songs one of witch is copyrighted not individually but under an album (i don't know if that's going to be a problem) and the other is not copyrighted at all but is originally composed/produced i just never got around to copyrighting it.

here is a snippet of the last email i received

"completely yours including music rights, etc and in case my management would be keen to license your music or probably commission you to produce music for our channel, will you possibly agree on granting the license/rights exclusively to us or do you prefer to retain the ownership of your musical works?"

any help or advice would be greatly appreciated

thank you for your time everyone

[Russell Landwehr]

Hi, "am281". Interesting name... Your parents were flower children?

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and nothing I am about to say should be taken as legal advice, just my opinion on the way things work.

ok... now...

This is the result of your Forwards in June of 2013? cool

Whether or not the copyright to your songs are are registered probably doesn't make a difference in this instance. The things that really matter is if your "Master" is wholly owned by you or not, and if you have signed these songs to any other agreement.

It looks to me like the company is interested in the songs and is inquiring about their status. It also looks like they are interested in aquiring them "exclusively" but will settle for "non-exclusive" if they must.

If you are going to sign them exclusively to this company, there should probably be an up-front fee involved. However, If you go the exclusive route, the fact that they are released in album form needs to be addressed and carved out of the contract.

It's really such a shame that you are unprepared for this. Regular Active participation in these forums, and Regular Watching of TAXI TV would certainly find you with a greater understanding of these subjects.

Recently there were two VERY INFORMATIVE episodes of TAXI TV that have information about these things you bring up. The episodes also have information that probably doesn't deal directly with what you are inquiring about, but still, watching the two episodes is well worth the 3 hours of your time.

The episodes I am talking about are titled TAXI 101 and TAXI 101 part 2.

Here are the links:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/57265142
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/57486905

Good Luck.

Regards
Russell Landwehr

[am281]

thanks man that was helpful.