Music Agreement for an indie movie...

[Pinkstar]

I love writing and composing, I love blogging and promoting, I just can't stand dealing with contracts and agreements I read it and feel like reading a foreign language. I wrote a very simple agreement and their lawyer thought it needed to be more detailed. I attached what they sent me. I'm reaching out to the Taxi Pro's who have way more experience in this than me; basically all I want to do is keep my rights and possibly benefit from it if it becomes the next big thing. Any suggestions? Thanks!JVB

[kevinmathie]

Hey JVB,The contract looks pretty good to me. It basically gives them a non-exclusive license to use your music in their film, states the amount they'll pay you, and adds that if a soundtrack is ever going to be created, you'll negotiate a deal with the soundtrack distributor. So, the movie folks are claiming no ownership of the music at all in the contract.There's one thing I'd add to the contract, though. In all your contracts with film/tv companies, I'd add a requirement that the film company must file a cue sheet with ASCAP or BMI (whoever you're with) listing you as the writer and publisher of the song, along with all the other details that the cue sheet asks for. It won't cost the film company anything to do that, and, in fact, if you're with ASCAP, you can download the file yourself, fill out the info, and email it to the film company, in essence doing all the legwork for them. BUT, the film company has to be the one to then email that cue sheet on to ASCAP. (You can probably do the same with BMI, but I'm not with BMI, so I don't know that for sure).This is so that, in the event that this film ever gets air time on cable, or whatever, you get paid. If no cue sheet is filed, then ASCAP/BMI won't know that you are the one who wrote the music, and won't know to send a performance royalty check to you.Kevin

[mojobone]

It was kind of a pain tracking down a program that could read that file, (had to download and install a program, then an update, took all of ten minutes-what a hassle, heh) so I made a PDF for our Mac and Linux friends.

[suzdoyle]

(Thanks for translating the file to .PDF, Mojo!)I would also add the name & contact info for the party granting the license and the one providing the music, and that this contract does not constitute forming a partnership. ,Suz