How Much Per Minute?

[prez]

Got an email today from someone who wants me to put together a one minute track which he needs for a business presentation. He wants it to be a full buy out (they want copyright assigned to them) and I'm up in the air on my price. I'm still going to offer him more than one option which will be less if it's not a full buy out but a license for the music so I could use it for other possible submissions.I have an idea about how much I'm going to charge but I'm curious how much each of you would try to charge for something like this.Thanks.Jude 2

[mazz]

Why would they want the copyright if it's only for a business presentation?

[prez]

I'm not sure buy my guess is:1. He doesn't know how the business works and thinks he needs to do that.OR2. This is an ongoing thing that he will be using over and over for the same presentation.OR3. He has plans to use it as a presentation first then for other things later.Whichever one it is, I'm going to suggest a reasonable license period in a couple different breakdowns. I'd be willing to sell it for full buy out but that price shoots up. Just want to give him some options and was curious as to the price some would charge given a similar scenario. I know this is on limited info but work with me. Jude 2

[suzdoyle]

Hey Jude (hmmm, makes me want to sing Beatles songs);Some good resources for what to price music work for are:1. Commissioning Music: A Basic Guideavailable at www.meetthecomposer.org 2. Film Music Magazine 2006-2007 Film & TV Music Salary & Rate Surveyavailable at http://www.gmostore.com/cart.php?m=prod ... ail&p=13-- this one in particular lists what to charge for each type of use, and how to charge by measure, or by note. Hope this helps. Suz

[suzdoyle]

Oops. The first link should be:http://www.meetthecomposer.org/resources.htm

[ernstinen]

Yea, I don't like the "buy out" idea either. But if it's just a business presentation, I doubt you'd get much if any ASCAP/BMI money anyway."Buy outs" for BROADCAST music is a VERY bad idea, because composers make most of their $$ from ASCAP/BMI etc.I haven't read Suz's links, but when I studied film scoring at UCLA the going rate was about $500/minute at the time, I believe.HTH,Ern

[prez]

ERN: Yeah. I'm simply not keen on buyouts and I won't do it for a broadcast. Period, paragraph. Especially now since I'm pursuing this pretty full time. I presented him with a couple options without actually giving a price yet. We'll see what he says though I have a feeling he's just trying to get something for cheap and momma didn't raise no fool.In other news...SUZ: I've just gotta start putting that biblical reference up. My name is P.R.E.Z., not Jude 2. Jude 2 in the Bible says this:Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. You're not the only one that has ever done that so don't feel bad. God bless.

[mojobone]

Is the client regional, national or international? I'd go with $250 for regional use, double that for national/international. Mind you at that rate, I'm not giving away material on the level of "you deserve a break today...", nothing hooky enough to be an audio logo should ever be a buyout, (at least not for half a grand) but a minute's worth of not-terribly-original industrial training film quality music needn't demand royalties in perpetuity, IMO.