The re-title game is over

[Cat Herder]

Bruce that is exactly what the biggest problem is. And you asked the magic question that the networks are asking. Who owns copyright? an How do I clear this? This is what they are in an uproar over. The problem as they see it is that it is easier to just eliminate the non-exclusives who are the only ones doing this. Again, not all non-exclusives do, but most do. You have to ask youself; What would I do if I were a music supervisor. The idea that eliminating libraries somehow equates to throwing good music out the door is completely untrue. The exclusives (and one non exclusive that I know of) carry a much higher caliper of music. And even if were equal, they do not need over a million titles to find the highest quality. That said I can confidently state that the exclusives have in excess of two million tracks available as it is. It is kind of a no brainer. It has not come to full implementation, but how far down the road is that?

[Hookjaw Brown]

On the question of copyright, Paul McCartney mentioned that every time he performed "Yesterday" he had to pay Michael Jackson a license fee since Michael Jackson had bought the Apple catalog.

On Digital Finger Print, Cloud Computing will demand that all songs be identified with a unique digital fingerprint. Gracenote is very actively pursuing this. When I upload a freshly written tune onto iTunes, it queries me for the title and gives a list of possible matches. This list has become much longer over the last year. Gracenote is the company in charge of Digitally Fingerprinting all music on iTunes. I have to enter correct meta data which then is stored by Gracenote.

I can see a Music Editor using a query engine to find all the titles a tune has, if it has been re-titled.

Run faster, keep up!

[Casey H]

Cat
With total respect, I must say...

You're scaring the bejeezers out of folks who have signed or are considering signing with a non-exclusive libary! The library Bruce was offered a deal with is an excellent one that makes money every day for composers, many of whom are Taxi members. I know because they've placed my music on 8 TV shows to date.

This issue is NOT, NOT, NOT whether it's OK to sign a track with a non-exclusive, re-title library!!! The issue is whether or not to ever sign the same track with more than one such library. If you avoid the latter, you will not have any problems.

And reversion clauses have always been standard operating procedure with exclusive publishers (long before there were music libraries!) for decades. There is NO releationship between reversion clauses and non-exclusive re-titling. Most qualified music attornies would advise against signing an lifetime exclusive contract without a reversion clause. (Yes, there are very reasonable exceptions to that).

You are basically trashing 70-80% of Taxi's film/TV listings and scaring Taxi members.

Casey

[Cat Herder]

Casey, with all due respect in return I don't see why that should be the case. I have stated, and Walton stated that the non-exclusives that Michael does business with are of the best quality. I never suggested he was making a bad deal. So what should we do, leave them uneducated as to the biggest pitfall in this business at this time. So I will state my position one last time, because it did drift from my original intent. And let me be clear, they should be scared if they are navigating this road alone. Review my points:

1. Non-exclusive Re-title libraries are on the way down to dealing only at the lowest broadcast level.
2. Re-titling your cue to place in multiple libraries is a suicide move.
3. If you sign with a non-exclusive, know who they are. There are a few reputible ones. Many of them are transitioning now.
4. If you sign a non-exclusive deal, treat it as exclusive.
5. If you sign a deal that takes copyright, it is by defination Exclusive. You may have some wiggle room there like we offer our writers.

Anything else is just rehashing the obvious. There are long time members on this forum who know who the cooler cats are, they will help you privately. I will happily scare people all day long if it helps guide them in a more positive direction. Afterall those who are scared are the ones who should be. It is up to responsible experienced writers to help these new writers along. I have seen people spout all over this and other forums that they should place their cues in as many libraries as possible by re titling, and seldom see as much opposition as I have see in this thread. Those who know me, and many do, know my intentions. Those who are scared Casey, are the most vulnerable. This is all I can say on this subject without allocating some very valuable time to it. Maybe a debate at the Rally would be good. All this said, do you seriously ignore what the network executives are saying? I mean, if your house was on fire would you just go upstairs and take a nap. There are things you simply cannot ignore. This isn't Congress.

[Cat Herder]

PS. I am not buying that 70% to 80 % figurem of listings. The only way you know who the lister is, is to be forwarded. And the only way you can know if it is 70% to 80% is to know every listing and do the math. So careful when stating numbers you are unsure of. And the reversion is a pitfall which I do not have the time to disect at this time. Maybe later. There is much there you may not understand.

[BruceBrown]

Lesson learned. Sign an agreement for a tune with a library, and don't pitch the tune and try to get it placed elsewhere.
I can do that.
Thanks for letting me eavesdrop and learn.
Later
Bruce

[jh]

If I was to decide, I would make a rule that if a track is signed with a number
of different libraries, the publisher's share would be split even among the
publishers. That would also mean that the client would have no risk, since
the publishers would also share the rights. And hence, no re-titling required.
So at least it would be "more legal" than it is at the moment. I think that would
encourage all the publishers to go exclusive.

- JH

[davewalton]

If I was to decide, I would make a rule that if a track is signed with a number
of different libraries, the publisher's share would be split even among the
publishers. That would also mean that the client would have no risk, since
the publishers would also share the rights. And hence, no re-titling required.
So at least it would be "more legal" than it is at the moment.

Well... there is nothing illegal about non-exclusive retitling. Taxi wouldn't be running listings with non-exclusive retitling libraries if there were legal issues. Again, some of the largest and most successful libraries are non-exclusive retitling libraries. Retitling was simple created partly as an accounting issue so that the library could get paid as the publisher on the retitled track while still allowing the writer to keep ownership and a bit of freedom to do other things with the song as well (under the original title). I suspect too that maybe they wanted to get away from having to compensate composers upfront in exchange for signing over exclusive ownership of the tracks (value for value).

A track shouldn't be signed with different libraries... THAT (or the abuse of that), not the business model of non-exclusive retitling, has been the problem. As an aside... no publisher would split publishing with another publisher while competing for placements for the same song. Publisher A could just sit back and let Publisher B do all the work (until Publisher B figured that out!).

[Casey H]

PS. I am not buying that 70% to 80 % figurem of listings. The only way you know who the lister is, is to be forwarded. And the only way you can know if it is 70% to 80% is to know every listing and do the math. So careful when stating numbers you are unsure of. And the reversion is a pitfall which I do not have the time to disect at this time. Maybe later. There is much there you may not understand.

Cat
You have to remember that the overwhelming majority of Taxi film/TV listings are either:

(1) Non-exclusive, re-title libraries.
(2) Exclusive libraries with reversion (or a defined term such as 3 or 5 years which accomplishes the same thing).

As you probably know, folks read stuff on here and have all sorts of reactions, some appropriate and some not. It's easy for Taxi to get flooded with phone calls and emails from members who think they are suddenly getting a raw deal.

I know you have nothing but the best intentions We all want to help as many folks as we can.

Peace
Casey

PS I had Carpe Diem for lunch the other day! It was great!

[davewalton]

1. Non-exclusive Re-title libraries are on the way down to dealing only at the lowest broadcast level.
2. Re-titling your cue to place in multiple libraries is a suicide move.
3. If you sign with a non-exclusive, know who they are. There are a few reputible ones. Many of them are transitioning now.
4. If you sign a non-exclusive deal, treat it as exclusive.
5. If you sign a deal that takes copyright, it is by defination Exclusive. You may have some wiggle room there like we offer our writers.

Now that is a nice list that provides in a nutshell what a "newcomer" should be aware of. I'd only add to item #1 that the non-exclusives are still very strong in cable and advertising (and corporate and other things).

I think the issue that Casey was having and I was having (and others who emailed me but steered clear of this thread) were the phrasing of some things you said. The title of this thread "The re-title game is over" has an immediate finality to it and by using the word "game", intimates that it may be a scam of some sort. A thread title like "Some information about retitling" would be perhaps, well... less severe.

Also, you've said some things here like...

What ya going to do with all the music you have in non-exclusives? I think you will be eating it.

That doesn't sound great for a guy like Bruce who is pretty excited about getting his first Taxi deal (non-exclusive I'm guessing). I know that I'm not going to be eating the music I have in non-exclusives but a new guy won't.

Anyway... I can't argue with that 5-point list... it's a good starting place for anyone needing to know what questions to be asking.