Music Supervisor Music folder/ UK Music Copyright

[Jstonemorgan]

I recently had a supervisor email me to say they had placed the track i sent them into their music folder for a game they are working on, does anyone know what this means?
i assume it means its been added to the game folder to be later considered along with other music they have.

Also does anyone know much about music copyright in the UK? i know its different from the way it works in America but i don't quite understand how you go about copyrighting a piece of music here


Thanks !

[pboss]

What was your upload process? Was there an opt-in agreement to anything? It sounds like your track has moved from the upload general folder to a folder of tracks that made the first cut. From there, the editor or game-maker has to pick it.

You own the intellectual property (the song) and you own the master. It's up to you to make sure that you don't give them permission to sync it to the game unless you have what you want in a deal. They need your license agreement signature, so figure this stuff out before it's synced. Games usually only have front end money, and not so much back end (not sure about mechanicals or in other countries). What you don't want is to give them the track for "exposure" but no up front money, because there may be no back end.

Copyright filing, can't help you there.

[Jstonemorgan]

Thanks for the help!

So are you saying I should message the supervisor about the licensing fee now rather then wait for a official confirmation informing me whether or not my track is being used in the game?

Thanks again!

[pboss]

In submitting the track in the first place, you should already have an idea of the terms. Why would you want to wait for them to put it in the game to then find out the deal terms are not ok with you? Then you have to pull the track out and they'll not like you for that. If you don't care about the terms, then great, no prob. What do you want? What is your goal? What were you thinking when you uploaded it? Did you agree to anything already by uploading it? How did you find out about this game maker? What is the fine print on their site or upload process? (so many questions). As far as copyright goes, did you do a google search for "how to copyright a song" in your country?

[Jstonemorgan]

I randomly messaged the game company a few weeks ago asking if there was any chance I could submit some music for upcoming games. Couple of weeks later I got an email for the music supervisor of the game company telling me to send some samples of my music. I then linked the supervisor to my soundcloud and the next day I received an email saying that a track had been added to the music folder for a new game being made.

I then was asked if I own all copyright to the tracks I linked the supervisor to, i replied saying that I do own all copyright.

I wanted to get them copyrighted to be on the safe side but it's seems a very different process here in the UK, the Internet tells me that you don't need to officially copyright music in the UK you just have to be able to prove you own it. I read something saying a good way is to make up a cd of tracks and label it then send the cd to your self by special delivery post.

Hopefully I've made the situation a bit more clear now haha

[sansharbour]

As far as copyright goes mailing it to yourself is one way to do it ....but not the best way. That is the poor mans copyright


I think that to be iron clad in a court of law they would have to be registered in the US Copyright office in Washington DC
If you have numerous songs that you really believe in then the best way is to register them as a group for around $35.00 US
http://copyright.gov/eco/

Here is the link for the UK https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk

[pboss]

Yes, that's true that the whole "sending it to yourself" is kind of - well, I've heard various things on it, but it definitely does not qualify for being any kind of legal copyright. It might help to prove that on a certain date you had that music in your hands, (and even the datestamp is not really all that legit, etc).

One proof that you own the track (if you ever had to prove it to a judge) would be the screenshots of your SC page, with the actual correspondence that you had with the supe. There are some good copyright threads on this forum on this topic, so check those out. Basically, at least in the States, if you did want to sue, you still have to copyright it via the paperwork before taking legal action, even though the intellectual property belongs to you as soon as you put it into a tangible form. But your first order of business is to find out now, what the terms are, and what you are asking for the music to be in the game, because they may well be assuming you're giving it to them, etc.

I advise using Google to do a "site specific" search of this forum, as their engine is superior to the search engine in the forum, and you'll find more complete results.

p