A Milestone! (Tunesat Detection #2000)

[Casey H]

BTW, I do not try to beat the system by having multiple accounts with different email addresses. That's a violation of their terms of service and IMO highly unethical. I don't know if their TOS precludes stringing multiple songs together but is certainly is against the spirit of their rules.

As songwriters, we wouldn't want our libraries and/or publishers to play games with what we signed on a contract. I believe we should live up to that same standards. Do onto others...

Casey

[irthlingz]

Congratulations, Casey! So you have 2000 detections on no more than 50 tracks?

[cosmicdolphin]

That's a violation of their terms of service and IMO highly unethical.

Maybe If they had a more ethical pricing structure ..

[boinkeee2000]

casey, what's your percentage of detected/missed placements per tunesat?

[Casey H]

casey, what's your percentage of detected/missed placements per tunesat?

It's impossible to know. Since ASCAP pays on a survey basis, not based on each actual broadcast, nothing to compare to. I don't think about it much. For me, it's just a toy to SOMETIMES get a heads up that a track of mine was used, especially if it is something new. Once a track is getting rerun over and over like on a reality show, it's certainly anybody's guess.

It did help me 1-2 times on placements that had decent pay. One sizable Y&R placement was detected but I never got a cue sheet. I was able to go back to the library who then investigated and got it fixed. Last fall, it picked up a 1 minute placement on CNN Headline News for which I still don't have a cue sheet. I need to keep an eye out on that one (it's at the 6 month point now) and if the cue sheet doesn't show up in the next 3-6 months, talk to the publisher. Luckily, I saw the library name in the end credits of the show.

As many of you know, ASCAP (don't know about BMI) will not accept a Tunesat detection as proof of usage. So the main value is having info to go back to the publisher with. This isn't always possible with cues in multiple re-title libraries, of course.

YMMV
Casey

[Casey H]

That's a violation of their terms of service and IMO highly unethical.

Maybe If they had a more ethical pricing structure ..

HA! Their pricing structure is outrageously high, out of reach for anyone who doesn't make a ton of money in this business. But they are in business so there obviously are people (publishers and very high earning composers) who pay it.

But without getting into an argument, an outrageous pricing structure on something people are not forced to buy is not unethical. It's theirs to set based on supply and demand. If a car dealer is charging $20K over list price for shitty cars, it's still wrong to steal the cars. As composers, we want our intellectual property respected and not abused, not have our contracts violated in ways which limit our pay, etc. A visit to MLR will show you composers bitching and moaning all day about how they and their works are treated. But then they have no issue violating their agreement with TS because it's convenient.

Casey

[aswann]

Had my 2000th Tunesat detection, a milestone! I started with Tunesat 8 years ago.

Of course that amounts to $11.53 in royalties, but still!

Casey

Congrats Casey!! That's amazing! So happy for you!

[Casey H]

Had my 2000th Tunesat detection, a milestone! I started with Tunesat 8 years ago.

Of course that amounts to $11.53 in royalties, but still!

Casey

Congrats Casey!! That's amazing! So happy for you!

The 2000 detections or the $11.53 in royalties?

[cosmicdolphin]

If a car dealer is charging $20K over list price for shitty cars, it's still wrong to steal the cars.

It's not a not a very good analogy though. If I steal the car, they can't sell that actual car to someone else now because I have it.

But Tunesat already offer a free account, so what's difference between 5 different composers all having one or one composer having 5 ? Zero difference to them as company. It's all semantics. If I open 5 Free Tunesats, it doesn't prevent the next composer from opening one too.

As you probably know the audio you upload isn't stored, it creates a fingerprint which is converted to a number string so they take up such little server space, there's virtualyl zero cost to them other than the fixed costs they already have for setting it up.

As composers, we want our intellectual property respected and not abused

I'll tell you what we do as composers. We sign our hard work away for FREE in the hope it will get used, we have music in promos that we don't get paid for , and we have to put up with all sorts of poor practice when it comes to our performance royalties which directly affect our income.

Maybe TS charge what they do to the people who can afford it because they know all the little guys will abuse the free accounts but that some of those will end up as the big fish in the longer term. Call it a form of marketing.

[irthlingz]

That's a violation of their terms of service ...

I just spent some time on their TOS page trying to find this provision and did not see it. Maybe I'm just missing it? There's a lot there, naturally.

https://tunesat.com/tunesatportal/home/terms