Does anyone host their own music library?

[marcblack30]

I started working on a new Wordpress website for myself, and I found a shopping cart plug-in that allows me to sell products. So far I’m loving this whole Wordpress thang!So I was thinking “what if” I was able to license songs straight from my website? My only concern so far is the whole license agreement and how to provide it to the client. Does anyone know where I could find a contract to use? I think it would need to be one that covered many different license options. Or maybe I could have a general disclaimer and after they purchase, I could send them the correct License agreement for them to sign, my head is starting to hurt! Thoughts?Check out my new site, I have a couple of songs posted under “Music Library- Dramatic| Crime Scene”, I have a temp license agreement I borrowed from SoundClick for now, the site is not live to the public and is a work in progress.I’d love to hear your thoughts.www.marcblackwellmusic.com/siteThanks,Marc

[mazz]

Hey Marc,Good idea. Nice looking website!I've seen contracts for licensing in most good music business books. You would probably want a license for the piece and also a master license, although maybe those could be rolled in to one. I would suggest you get a lawyer to "bless" any contracts you use from a book, just to make sure it fits your needs.Also, a couple of other ideas:I would think you might want to consider a "tiered" license fee depending on the intended usage. Your fee is reasonable for someone doing a local or in house production but if someone wants to license it for a regional or national spot, the fee should be somewhat higher and might need to include an exclusivity clause. If a high end client wants your music for their "logo", they are going to want to make sure no one else has access to that for the license period (for instance, one year).Your descriptions are good and you might want to consider adding the actual tempo in BPM along with the descriptors you already have (Medium, Up Tempo, etc). Also the key might be useful to some editors/supervisors. I only add this stuff because it's a requirement for one of the libraries I write for and it goes in to their database.You might also want to peruse the sites of the larger libraries and see how they provide info on licensing, contracts, fees, etc. It's always good to see if there's a standard practice so at least you know what the "competition" is up to.Good luck!! Looking forward to seeing the finished site!Mazz

[byllsong]

Hey, MazzQuote:Hitchcock objected to the introduction of music during a sequence in Lifeboat (1943), he questioned the logic of having a string section appear in the middle of the ocean. “These people are lost in a lifeboat in the middle of nowhere”, he complained. “Where, then, did the orchestra come from?” To which composer Hugo Friedhofer is said to have responded “The same place the camera came from."I just noticed this...

[Casey H]

Jul 17, 2009, 9:44am, marcblack30 wrote:I started working on a new Wordpress website for myself, and I found a shopping cart plug-in that allows me to sell products. So far I’m loving this whole Wordpress thang!So I was thinking “what if” I was able to license songs straight from my website? My only concern so far is the whole license agreement and how to provide it to the client. Does anyone know where I could find a contract to use? I think it would need to be one that covered many different license options. Or maybe I could have a general disclaimer and after they purchase, I could send them the correct License agreement for them to sign, my head is starting to hurt! Thoughts?Check out my new site, I have a couple of songs posted under “Music Library- Dramatic| Crime Scene”, I have a temp license agreement I borrowed from SoundClick for now, the site is not live to the public and is a work in progress.I’d love to hear your thoughts.www.marcblackwellmusic.com/siteThanks,MarcHi MarcUnfortunately there are many already doing this or similar. The big problem is you'd be competing with hundreds of production houses and music libraries all doing the same thing. If you are talking about only your own tracks, you wouldn't be providing enough selection for end users to find it worthwhile.Remember, even if you build a killer one-stop-shop website (some already have these), what would make film/TV supervisors go to your site as opposed to doing whatever they are doing now? The site would be have to be coupled with a lot of marketing and building personal relationships- in the end, the relationships are a major component.If I misunderstood what you were thinking about doing, please let me know.A few years ago I worked my own little music placement company, similar to today's non-exclusive libraries in concept. It was very early-on in the the non-exclusive re-title era-- I modeled it a bit after one of the first to do that (starts with "P"). I placed a few tracks and had some really exciting near misses. (I was amazed at the level of people I actually got to talk or email with) ... BUT it became harder and harder because (1) I couldn't devote full time to it (2) I couldn't be in LA building the right relationships (3) Everybody and his brother was launching a non-exclusive library-- too many competing for a few leads.I think a big problem for all of us right now is the explosion of start-up music libraries. Film/TV music folks are getting bombarded from all over with the quality of what they are getting isn't always great.I probably went on a tangent here- just wanted to mention that you can put up a website, but getting the right folks there is the big challenge. But if all you wanted here was a contract template, there are inexpensive packages of music contracts sold on-line-- just Google.And apologies if this sounded very negative. It was my version of "reality." Casey

[marcblack30]

Mazz, good input, thanks for taking time to check it out!Casey, I hear what you're saying. I guess my initial thought was instead of linking people off my site to where I have some songs hosted (that is a one stop shop) and having to share the licensing fee that i could just sell it to them from my site and keep 100% of the the licensing fee.in the end, it would take a lot of marketing to even get people to come to my site in the first place! it's probably worth it to let the other folks deal with everything. already i've been screwing with this for 3 days now and haven't made a bit of music! maybe my best bet would be to simply display some songs and let them know that they are availible for licensing and to just contact me if they're interested and go from there.maybe just try and sell some mp3's.. a guitar... a candle...maybe a lamp! i hate to have a cool shopping cart with nothing to sell!

[Casey H]

Jul 17, 2009, 10:51am, marcblack30 wrote:Mazz, good input, thanks for taking time to check it out!Casey, I hear what you're saying. I guess my initial thought was instead of linking people off my site to where I have some songs hosted (that is a one stop shop) and having to share the licensing fee that i could just sell it to them from my site and keep 100% of the the licensing fee.in the end, it would take a lot of marketing to even get people to come to my site in the first place! it's probably worth it to let the other folks deal with everything. already i've been screwing with this for 3 days now and haven't made a bit of music! maybe my best bet would be to simply display some songs and let them know that they are availible for licensing and to just contact me if they're interested and go from there.maybe just try and sell some mp3's.. a guitar... a candle...maybe a lamp! i hate to have a cool shopping cart with nothing to sell!Having a good showcase is always a good idea. And nothing stops you from selling downloads and licenses-- it's just getting a lot of interest from the right people in film/TV would be very challenging. Casey

[mojobone]

Functionality is good, but why two clicks to play a sample when you could have one? If you must have something available for purchase, why not T-shirts and fanclub memberships? Perhaps you could design some MarcBlack shoes....

[marcblack30]

Jul 18, 2009, 9:56am, mojobone wrote:Functionality is good, but why two clicks to play a sample when you could have one? If you must have something available for purchase, why not T-shirts and fanclub memberships? Perhaps you could design some MarcBlack shoes.... I know, 1 click blows 2 out of the water but... i haven't been able to find how to enable the 1 click option.

[tower888]

Hmmm... This is an interesting idea...