Exclusive vs. Non-Exclusive

[greggo]

I'm not nearly as schooled as the others, but feel like taking a stab. I think it's because most of the deals are 50/50 split. So, if your song is already published, you already own the publishing and the writing portions. This just happened to me where a library changed the title of a song I signed, and I was wondering the same thing. The library takes their 50% which is the publishing portion and leaves you with the other 50% which is writing. So, I think the title change is so that it's not confused with the already published work.

[eeoo]

Thanks guys. I guess I'm not understanding why they offer non-exclusive deals in the first place. Is the point to lower the bar so they don't have to pay as much for it? What are the drawbacks to the libraries that only offer exclusive deals? Thanks! eo.

[guscave]

Thanks guys. I guess I'm not understanding why they offer non-exclusive deals in the first place. Is the point to lower the bar so they don't have to pay as much for it? What are the drawbacks to the libraries that only offer exclusive deals? Thanks! eo.

For the most part you'll find that non-exclusive libraries have a lot more material to offer (maybe too much). For some of these libraries, it's a numbers game. Get as much material as possible no matter the quality. While some non-exclusive libraries still require high quality production and music a large portion of them will take anything you upload to their site.

[mazz]

@greggo: "I'm not nearly as schooled as the others, but feel like taking a stab. I think it's because most of the deals are 50/50 split. So, if your song is already published, you already own the publishing and the writing portions. This just happened to me where a library changed the title of a song I signed, and I was wondering the same thing. The library takes their 50% which is the publishing portion and leaves you with the other 50% which is writing. So, I think the title change is so that it's not confused with the already published work."

That's exactly right, greggo. But the issue is: what if the same exact song under a different title shows up on the music supervisor's desk? All of a sudden they say "well, the writer is the same on this song, but who really owns the publishing. Oh well, I need a song now and I don't have time to deal with sorting that out, next song please." Is that how you want your name to get out there with music supervisors?

The issue with cue sheets not being filled out properly well predates the re-titling era. It's totally on the honor system and it's the PRO and the composer's responsibility to track the placements to make sure the cue sheets were filled out. That's a full time job for someone with a large catalog and it's just impossible to do. This is why the watermarking or fingerprinting is so powerful, because the cue sheet is in essence generated the minute the show is broadcast, although having the data encoded into the song means it will be much easier for cue sheets to be generated in a more automated fashion by the production company. Anything that makes it easier to get the placements reported accurately to the PROs is a good thing. I recently saw a demonstration of a piece of software called SoundMiner and it's used to generate what's called MetaData that gets embedded in the song file and travels around with the song. It contains information about the publisher, tempo, key, writer, just about anything you can think of. What it doesn't contain is the unique audio fingerprint of the song. Once that can be implemented in a hopefully standardized way, a song that has been fingerprinted won't be able to be retitled, assuming that the same master recording is used, I would think. It may be possible to detect if there are two song titles referring to the same piece of audio. Not every piece of music will be fingerprinted or watermarked, but you can bet that the big players, the ones with the great placements, are looking carefully at this technology.

Re-titling might be good for folks with smaller catalogs because it allows them to spread their songs out to a wider range of potential clients, but if two libraries that compete in the same market have the same song with different titles, it could be a problem. For composers that are writing all the time and cranking out music, why not just write another piece instead of trying to get one placed in several places? Given that instrumental cues pay somewhat less than songs, an instrumental composers needs quite a few pieces in their catalog to generate significant backend royalties, given that the music is of sufficiently high quality to get placements in the first place. Successful composers generally have upwards of several hundred pieces actively in circulation.

It's possible that non-exclusive won't go away entirely, but it may not have a big presence in the top tiers of placements because those clients may refuse to work with re-titling libraries for legal reasons.

[yammer107]

This is great, I was just about to post a brief question concerning non-exclusive.

I'm happy to have just signed a song to an independant film.... and I questioned if I should continue to push/shop the song elsware... How hard dose one push the 'non-exclusive' envelope? Dont want to burn bridges before the morters cured.....

My only thoughts were this film could go nowhere and disapear into obscurity for all I know, and this is one of my better songs - perhaps I'll hook a bigger fish downstream (?) ....I hate to just 'retire' it....

~ Chris

[greggo]

Thanks for the lesson, Mazz. Really appreciate it. And I’ve read on here a couple times that it’s a better idea to treat the non-exclusive libraries the same as exclusive libraries (which makes sense), and the last thing that I’d want would be to make things difficult on the supervisors because I know that they have way better things to do. But I’m wondering if full length songs with lyrics and such should be treated the same as two minute instrumental cues? The full songs are a little harder to replicate. It’d be a shame for them to sit in a non-exclusive library for all of eternity. How should you go about deciding if you should sign on the dotted line or not? I didn't find out about it being retitled until the contract arrived.

Gregg

[Tree]

Chris, personally I would keep shopping your song to libraries and maybe even other films. Depending on how independent this film is chances are you don't have to worry about it crossing paths, especially with libraries pitching to tv. I think the problems arise when you have the same song in different libraries both marketing to the same supervisors. If the film shows up at Sundance and you have the same song in other films at Sundance it might get a little awkward, but it's all still legal if it's non-exclusive. If the film makes it to tv just make sure the publisher info is labeled properly if you end up signing the song with a library as well. Hope this makes sense.

Gregg, good question. I struggle with this too. Most contracts have an end date. e.g. 3 years and you can request the song be taken out of their catalog. Otherwise it automatically renews. That's something good to keep in mind. If you think you have a song that is absolutely going to rake in millions (ok, maybe not millions but perhaps thousands) you can hold out for an excellent library. Take a look at the library's credits and previous placements. Make sure they've had placements recently too. But also remember that a song in any library is better than just sitting on your computer. In the end it's your decision. Congrats on getting the contract!

HTH

[yammer107]

Thanks Tree (and Mazz for starting the thread)

You seem to be seeing it as I do, at least at this stage.... I need to fight for all the traction I can get right now. My approach will evolve as my success increases....

Chris

[jfraizer]

Let's not forget watermarking and fingerprinting technology that is right around the corner. Whatever technology gets generally adopted, it will be possible to detect any piece of music by it's unique signature, which will obviate re-titling, because that piece of music is really just one entity, not a bunch of titles referring to the same music. Re-titling will eventually go out the window, I predict.

Mazz

Fantastic Thread!

The thing that pops into my mind is Copyright.

Since you can't copyright a song title, only the composition how is it that more than one company can legally grant a license for the same song under different titles?

[matto]

This is great, I was just about to post a brief question concerning non-exclusive.

I'm happy to have just signed a song to an independant film.... and I questioned if I should continue to push/shop the song elsware... How hard dose one push the 'non-exclusive' envelope? Dont want to burn bridges before the morters cured.....

My only thoughts were this film could go nowhere and disapear into obscurity for all I know, and this is one of my better songs - perhaps I'll hook a bigger fish downstream (?) ....I hate to just 'retire' it....

~ Chris

Let's not confuse apples with oranges. There's nothing wrong with having the same song in different productions, in fact that is highly desirable. That's what every good publisher tries to do, get as many uses for a single song as possible. Where there can be problems is if the song is represented by different publishers or libraries under different titles.