Royalty free libraries

[maceman]

Hi Folks,Interesting thread, and good comments by all.. This kind of legal mumbo-jumbo is hard to swallow at best....Anyways, Hey Jude (did i just say that too??? )... the part that bugs me about your posted contract is this part : "whose exclusive rights and/or copyrights are held and controlled in whole by .......(the) Music Library."That part scares me because it sounds like although they say this agreement uses non-exclusive rights to manipulate the music (which is the norm), it sounds like they own your exclusive rights to that music, so i would get that part checked out by someone for sure....If I may, and I don't want to hijack the thread at all, but I thought this post from a buddy of mine off a different forum would at least help in understanding the exclusive/non-exclusive part of things.... It helped me at least:When you create a work, you automatically have certain rights --- which are in effect (at least in the U.S) the moment you set the work down in a permanent form. These are your copyrights. The two major parts of your copyrights are 1) The right to make copies of your work 2) the right to perform the work in public. No one else has those rights, unless you grant them. (So if you walk into a pub and your friend is playing one of your songs, unless you've given him permission, he is violating your copyright!) When you want to make some kind of a living at this, you must "exploit" the copyrights (a fancy way of saying you're selling your permission to others who want to use your works). Unless you want to be your own publishing company, a writer will sign over 1/2 of his publishing (mechanical, and a few others) rights to a publisher. In exchange for 1/2 of the income produced by your work, he markets it in anyway he can. Since you can't monitor all the public performances of your works (radio airplay, concert performances, television appearances, bars and restaurants, etc etc), you join a PRO and authorize them to represent you in the area of performance rights. They monitor all the places music can be used, they collect the money for those uses and based on some very complex formula (that different from PRO to PRO -- they each have their own system), they distribute the money among the members (after taking out a share to run the PRO of course). You are not selling your rights or giving your rights away in any way. You are authorizing an agent (the PRO) to act on your behalf in the area of public performance royalties. You still retain all of your public performance rights. The agreement you sign with the PRO may have stipulations on how long you have to stay a member or when the contract can be canceled (once every year, with 90 days notice, etc), but you are not giving away any rights. If you were to leave the PRO (within the terms of whatever their agreement is), your performance rights go with you . . . . . . unlike with a publisher, who gets to keep (and sell to another) the publishers share of your copyright (unless you have a reversion clause, which means if the song doesn't generate any $$ in a specific time period -- usually 2 to 3 years -- all rights revert back to you. I NEVER sign a single song publishing agreement without a reversion clause). I know this doesn't answer you question exactly, but until I understand that weird phrase (in green above) I cannot really comment further on what they mean by royalties, because that part throws it for me.....I hope this helps. Maceman

[jude3]

So I take it that the party who buys my music from a "royalty free" library is free from paying me or the library any royalties above and beyound that of the initial purchase for the music BUT, they still must pay ASCAP or BMI royalties depending on what the use of the music is. But if they pay ASCAP or BMI then I get paid a "royalty" that way.In other words the "royalty free" part only applies to having to pay the library more than once for the music they purchased from that library. Royalties to ASCAP or BMI don't apply.Is this correct?

[slideboardouts]

Sept 25, 2008, 8:55am, jude3 wrote:So I take it that the party who buys my music from a "royalty free" library is free from paying me or the library any royalties above and beyound that of the initial purchase for the music BUT, they still must pay ASCAP or BMI royalties depending on what the use of the music is. But if they pay ASCAP or BMI then I get paid a "royalty" that way.In other words the "royalty free" part only applies to having to pay the library more than once for the music they purchased from that library. Royalties to ASCAP or BMI don't apply.Is this correct?Yep, that is correct.-Steve

[matto]

Sept 25, 2008, 8:55am, jude3 wrote:So I take it that the party who buys my music from a "royalty free" library is free from paying me or the library any royalties above and beyound that of the initial purchase for the music BUT, they still must pay ASCAP or BMI royalties depending on what the use of the music is. But if they pay ASCAP or BMI then I get paid a "royalty" that way.In other words the "royalty free" part only applies to having to pay the library more than once for the music they purchased from that library. Royalties to ASCAP or BMI don't apply.Is this correct?Sort of...the (production) company who bought the library doesn't pay ASCAP/BMI, the broadcaster who broadcasts the program does.Example: If Letterman's production company World Wide Pants buys a buyout library (the more correct and less confusing term for "royalty free library"), by doing so they acquire a perpetual license to use the music on all their productions...Late Show, Late Late Show, whatever. They never have to pay an additional fee, no matter how much they use the music. So for *them*, World Wide Pants, the library is truly "royalty free". HOWEVER, they *are* required to submit cue sheets for every episode that's going to be broadcast anywhere, to ASCAP and BMI.CBS who broadcasts those shows pays an annual blanket license fee ASCAP and BMI, and ASCAP and BMI will use all the cue sheets from all the different shows broadcast on CBS to figure out which composers and publishers should get paid how much from that blanket license fee (and those from other networks etc).So...to the *production company* the library is "royalty free": pay once, use forever and as many times as you like.For the composer and publisher, it's NOT royalty free, they will receive broadcast royalties in exactly the same way as they would from a needle-drop library, assuming the production the music is used for is being broadcast.Hope this makes sense...matto

[geo]

Thanks Matto.....I've been following this string for a couple of days and I finally get it!Peace, Geo