Newbie Question

[Inkstringer]

Hello Everyone,

My name is Chris Nelson and I am new to Taxi. I recently had a forward to a music library that has been around for a while. After signing an exclusive contract for the one song, they evidently reviewed my Spotify and social media accounts and asked me for ALL my music and needed it "by the end of the day" for submissions. Being new to this, I said "yes" and just signed another contract for all my songs. My questions is, I also have now some interest in a country music singer recording one of my songs. Did I shoot myself in the foot by giving everything to the music library for TV, Music and advertisements or can I still do a deal for someone to record and publish / perform the song? Thanks to all! I am sure this questions has probable been posted and answered, so please forgive me if it has.

[AlanHall]

... and just signed another contract for all my songs...

So you sent the publisher a list of all the songs you've written, by name, and given then the rights to these songs? If that's the case, you simply need to write more songs that you can shop around to artists. Or direct the artist to the library that is now administering your music, for any songs now under their control.

If I'm understanding this correctly. It almost sounds like you've agreed to let this publisher have all your songs that you have written or ever will write. But I'm sure that's not the case.

[VanderBoegh]

So all the music in your Spotify & social media accounts (I'm guessing that may be the lion's share of your entire catalog?) is now signed to an exclusive deal with this publisher?

First question: did you actually SIGN the contract listing all these tracks specifically by title?

If the answer is YES, then it's as you feared.... you've most likely shot yourself in the foot if you want to now take one of these songs back and have it recorded by a country singer. However, if this is all recent, you may be able to send a polite email asking that publisher to simply remove that particular song from the contract. But if all this took place a while ago, there's a chance all that music is now in their searchable database of music and/or has been pitched to shows already. If that's the case, it's much harder to pull a song. Look at the contract and see if there's a reversion clause, and what the timeline is to exercise that option (if they have a reversion clause). You may have to wait 1-3 years, but there may be a way to get your music back.

Second question: did you actually DELIVER the music to the library already?

If you haven't delivered the files yet, this is a much easier solution.... you simply don't give them the country song, and you ask them to scratch it off your contract.

Third question: have you read through the contract and / or asked the library owner about having an artist re-record a song?

You may get lucky, and the library owner may say, "that's no problem, as long as I still have the exclusive rights to THIS version". Every library has different deal points and different approaches to situations like these. Your best bet is probably to find out directly from the source.

I made a similar "mistake" in my early years.... I had a forward turn into a deal. The publisher then gave me an open-door invite to submit more. I sent him links to about 50 tracks. To my surprise, he said he'd take ALL of them. Imagine my excitement!! Well, I sent off those 50 tracks, and that library went on to be the single biggest dud of my career. 12 years after signing that deal, I believe I've made a whopping $20 total from them. So, there's a lesson here - which may be too late to impart into your situation - BUT, just because someone desperately wants your music, doesn't mean it's a good opportunity. To me, when you said this library wanted all your music "by the end of the day", it just screams red flags to me.

Hope that all helps,

~~Matt

[Inkstringer]

So, I originally sent the music library one song that was forwarded from a Taxi listing. They contacted me immediately after the Taxi forward asking to do a contract for the song. Around two weeks later, they contacted me saying they had listened to some of my other songs and they were highly interested in those. They asked me to forward the .wav files and lyrics to any song I recorded. That was a total of 12 songs. After receiving my files, they sent a contract over the same evening to do a contract for all of them. Of course, me being relatively new to all of this and excited that someone was that interested in all my songs other than spotify / pandora / apple listeners, I signed the contract. There is no reversion clause, and they wanted my songs that day as they had "immediate deadlines" for clients looking for music in my genre. I am not regretting the decision, just seeing if I had jumped the gun and given up other options for the songs. I'm receiving royalties from all the music app streaming and social media platform streaming. I record at least two songs a month, so will have options for those songs. So it appears if Taxi has listings for labels looking for songs for their country artist, I should avoid sending my first 12 songs for consideration in the future. Thanks for educating me!

[Casey H]

The library asking for ALL your songs with "immediate deadlines" raises a bit of a red flag for me. The best libraries are more selective than that, you might get a request to sign 3 out of 10. And very few will seek out your other tracks on social media. There can be exceptions. And it could be you had a ton of great tracks in a similar genre they want to focus on. But it does raise some suspicions on my part about them. Are they very new and in a catalog building mode?

As far as whether you can pitch one of the songs for a country artists, it depends on the contract. Sometimes the exclusivity only relates to sync uses and you are free to do anything non-sync related. I suspect that's the case here since they weren't concerned that your songs are released on Spotify, etc. But check the contract and ask them.

In any case, the deal is made and best of luck!
Casey

[Inkstringer]

They are a reputable library that has been around for over 20 years and have placements in a lot of high grossing blockbuster movies. And your point is exactly what was stuck in my head, the music is already streaming publicly everywhere (music apps / social media) / 2 on the radio, so why would they care about anything other than the sync. The contract of course is a lot of "legal speak" but I will read through it again to see if it talks about "sync" only. Thanks for your input.

[Inkstringer]

The contract states, "Composer(s) listed will retain total writers rights and attribution of the Composition(s)" but it appears they have rights to any "performance" of the composition. All very confusing as I read through it again and again. It's a learn as you go process for me so I really appreciate all the expertise here. I guess I assumed that all these companies are screened and there was no real need to worry about "red flags".

[cosmicdolphin]

Well, I sent off those 50 tracks, and that library went on to be the single biggest dud of my career.

Yikes ! PM me that for my 'avoid' list ...I have a couple of complete duds too, but I don't think I gave them more than 20 tracks

[cosmicdolphin]

The contract states, "Composer(s) listed will retain total writers rights and attribution of the Composition(s)" but it appears they have rights to any "performance" of the composition. All very confusing as I read through it again and again. It's a learn as you go process for me so I really appreciate all the expertise here. I guess I assumed that all these companies are screened and there was no real need to worry about "red flags".

They can be confusing, I usually paste them into Chat GPT now and ask it to summarize them for me, plus you can ask it specific questions.

Worst case scenario though it's only 12 songs, as you get faster you can probably knock out one per week without too much sweat.

[RPaul]

After signing an exclusive contract for the one song, they evidently reviewed my Spotify and social media accounts and asked me for ALL my music and needed it "by the end of the day" for submissions. Being new to this, I said "yes" and just signed another contract for all my songs. My questions is, I also have now some interest in a country music singer recording one of my songs. Did I shoot myself in the foot by giving everything to the music library for TV, Music and advertisements or can I still do a deal for someone to record and publish / perform the song?

I should preface this by saying this is not legal advice (and I'm not a lawyer).

Since you've already released the song, anyone can record and release it as an audio recording now, subject to dealing with the reporting and payment side of statutory mechanical license provisions in copyright law. The licensing will, of course, go through the library as the publisher of the song if you've signed the publishing for the song to that library. Unless this is a sync-only deal, you almost certainly would have signed the publishing, and copyright control, to the song to the library. Even if the library doesn't have active efforts in the song (i.e. separate from the recording) exploitation area, they'd have to at least accommodate any statutory mechanical licenses since the song already had its first release in recorded form.

Mind you, there is no statutory sync license, so, if the artist also wanted to make a video of the song, they'd have to deal with the library for that.

What you wouldn't be able to do is pitch the song to other publishers, for example of the traditional song publisher type, since the publishing is already tied up with the library. (To get that, they'd likely have to buy out the publishing from the library.) And, if you're pitching it to artists directly, you'd need to be aware of the potential that the library might not make it easy to deal with more typical song publisher activities if they focus solely on sync.

However, if a major artist were wanting to record your song, and the library owns the publishing on that song, they'd be pretty stupid to not at least come through on the basics of licensing the song for whatever needs came up. Mechanical licensing might be automatic, but they could get money from the sync side through the other recording, too, if that major artist's recording were used instead of yours. And they might be able to get more money out of a placement of the song side only in the case of a major artist's track's being used since the artist's record company would probably be demanding more money than could be gotten for a lesser known artist's recording of the same song. Also, having a hit with a major artist (if that ended up happening) could mean more demand for the song, and, if a movie or advertisement couldn't license that recording at a reasonable price from the major artist's record company, it could be they license your recording instead. And, as long as the song is being used, the library and you end up getting the (song) sync fees; it's only the master use fees (i.e. for the recording) where there would be options.

Did you shoot yourself in the foot? I suppose that largely depends on what results the library gets for the songs and recordings you've signed, including, if those songs have potential for major cuts, whether they will either actively exploit the songs to try to get such cuts (maybe unlikely for a sync library) or at least do a good job in addressing such opportunities that happen to come to them (or that you refer to them if you're getting interest). If the songs had not been released in recorded form previously, though, I'd be more inclined to be concerned since there is no statutory mechanical license for a first cut, so the publisher has to be cooperative in that case.