New Library

[pveniot]

Hi,
We, as musicians composers, get a lot of advice as to be be professionals and have ''smooth'' relationships with
business partners, aka music libraries, music sups, sync agents etc...

But what if you have a library owner that asks you for 3 albums of differents styles, about 30 cues and alt mixes...
He always said they sounded great...
All signed exclusive contracts but nothing is online yet after 6 months.
His library is inexistant in all google searches!

Should I consider them contracts void and null?
(No, I don't have money to hire a music business lawer!)

I put all my work to give him quality music that is hard to source in many ways:
Classical baroque music, ethnic Japanese and Chinese traditional cues.


Everytime I send an email, it takes months to get a reply, when I insist on an answer,
'' Well, I am very busy, cannot respnse to all my emails...''
and some irrelevent stuff, I spare to tell you.

Yes these where taxi Forwards.

I feel that these hundreds hours of hard work are going to waste if I don't do someting.
I can give you his/her name privately if need be.

What would you do in the same situation or what did you do when confronted to something like that?

Hoping to get
Thanks for your time

[Telefunkin]

what if you have a library owner that asks you for 3 albums of differents styles, about 30 cues and alt mixes...

Count yourself lucky! Its a chance to get get 30 tracks out into the world and potentially earning.

He always said they sounded great...

Some libraries are very particular and will request successive edits until they're completely happy, whilst others prefer not to engage in lots of re-work (at both ends). Maybe your tracks really did sound great, and if so, well done!

All signed exclusive contracts but nothing is online yet after 6 months.

It happens. I've heard of longer waiting times and have experienced it myself with a couple of places. I've had a library release several tracks after 15 months, and another (a Taxi client) has been almost 2 years and I'm still not sure whether the track they accepted has been released yet. At the other end of things I've had tracks accepted, released within a few weeks and then placed with a matter of days. Libraries move at their own speed, not ours.

Everytime I send an email, it takes months to get a reply, when I insist on an answer,
'' Well, I am very busy, cannot respnse to all my emails...''

He might represent a single library to you, buy you might be 1 in several hundred composers to him. Personally, I'd rather he was looking for opportunities for my music than answering emails with writers, but yes, it can be frustrating.

His library is inexistant in all google searches!
Yes these where taxi Forwards.

Just curious... how do you know your tracks have not yet been released if you can't find the library's web site?

Also, didn't you check out the library before starting work for them, or before signing contracts? I'd at least want to look around at what shows/channels/movies they've been feeding, as well as listening to some of their tracks and reading what it says about the company, its policies and its staff. Its always worth doing a bit of research like this before signing contracts.

That said, Taxi (ML) assures us that all libraries are vetted to make sure they are legit, so they should exist and you should be OK. I suppose there's the remote possibility that the contact was not from the library that received the Taxi forward, so my suggestion would be to give Taxi a call and ask if they can tell you who ran that particular listing so you'll know whether or not they are the same entity. If they are, then its simply a waiting game, but that's not such a bad outcome.

Should I consider them contracts void and null?
(No, I don't have money to hire a music business lawer!)

You signed contracts which are legal documents, so IMHO it would be a bad move to consider them null and void. Seeking legal advice might be the best way to go, but only in the worst case where you really do have to go that far. There might be a 'get out' clause if the library makes no attempt to exploit your tracks, but I'd suggest doing a lot more digging before you even think about that. You might just find out that everything is in hand and progressing, albeit slowly.

I feel that these hundreds hours of hard work are going to waste if I don't do someting.
What would you do in the same situation or what did you do when confronted to something like that?

As above, check with Taxi to get some reassurance that the library exists and is legit (along with the name of the contact you've been emailing). If everything sounds correct (which I suspect it most likely is, although I can't be sure) then bide your time and write some more music while you wait. There really is no more you can do to rush things along but at least you'll know that things will eventually happen, and can decide whether or not you'd like to work on more music with that library.

We, as musicians composers, get a lot of advice as to be be professionals and have ''smooth'' relationships with
business partners, aka music libraries, music sups, sync agents etc...

Regardless of what happens (even if its bad) this is still good advice if you want to keep working within sync.

I hope you sort this one out. Good luck!

[Casey H]

I would contact Taxi and ask if they know what's going on with the library. They vet their clients very well but occasionally circumstances with a client change down the road. If you have questions or concerns, it's very likely you are not the only one.

There's a very good chance that all is well and the person is just very busy. And I've seen libraries take an incredibly long time to actually put the new tracks in their catalog, whether on-line or not. This is especially true when they do albums as they may have specific timing as to when they release various albums.

Let us know how things go.

Casey

[cosmicdolphin]

For context I'm still waiting for a Taxi friendly library to release an album which I delivered 3yrs ago this month ( and the owner has appeared at the RR so not like they are some random unknown publisher )

I get that it's highly frustrating and I've come to the conclusion over a number of years the at the best libraries to put my music into which earn the most backend also seem to be the most efficient at onboarding the music and getting it into the hands of their clients.

6 months isn't that long in the grand scheme of things but I would be put off by the lack of response. You should have signed a contract, so if you are minded to pull them out either go through it to see if there is a non exploitation clause as I have seen them in some of my library contracts or paste the contract into ChatGPT or similar and ask it if there is one. ( great use case for A.I LLMs )

Mark

[Casey H]

I don't think 6 months is long enough to say it's non-exploitation. And getting all legal on them will make things worse, don't recommend it. After 1-2 years, if nothing is happening, maybe ask them nicely if you could pull the tracks and cancel the contract. But first, deep breath. Talk to Taxi and see what they know. And other members.

[VanderBoegh]

I can understand the frustration, but 6 months really isn't long enough to gauge success in this industry (especially with so many shows & productions being put on hiatus during the strikes that have lasted the past 5+ months).

My big question for you is: How much music have you written since delivering these? My advice to everyone is ALWAYS to write so much material that you don't remember what you made 6 months ago. If you're approaching this business from an output-oriented mindset, then you should have a pile of tracks that you've accumulated or signed during the past 1/2 year. Focus on those, and what you are going to make this week, rather than risk burning bridges over something that's already signed and out the door.

And CERTAINLY don't break the contract you signed, or consider it null & void. You signed it, so just move on and hope for the best. I've had tracks sit idle in libraries for years and years before finally seeing action on a TV show. Happens all the time. That's why you just need to keep making more and more music.

~~Matt

[cosmicdolphin]

I don't think 6 months is long enough to say it's non-exploitation.

The ones I have say 6 months

[pveniot]

I can understand the frustration, but 6 months really isn't long enough to gauge success in this industry (especially with so many shows & productions being put on hiatus during the strikes that have lasted the past 5+ months).

My big question for you is: How much music have you written since delivering these? My advice to everyone is ALWAYS to write so much material that you don't remember what you made 6 months ago. If you're approaching this business from an output-oriented mindset, then you should have a pile of tracks that you've accumulated or signed during the past 1/2 year. Focus on those, and what you are going to make this week, rather than risk burning bridges over something that's already signed and out the door.

And CERTAINLY don't break the contract you signed, or consider it null & void. You signed it, so just move on and hope for the best. I've had tracks sit idle in libraries for years and years before finally seeing action on a TV show. Happens all the time. That's why you just need to keep making more and more music.

~~Matt

Hi Matt, I wrote 257 cues/songs since 2020, I have about 25 placements and 100 tracks signed with differents editors.
These are also very hard to produce... especially the classical ones where the performance as to be on par...
Thanks for your reply

[pveniot]

Trying to delete previous replies...

[pveniot]

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