Question Re: exclusive vs. non-exclusive

[kskoogs]

Hey everyone, I was looking over the instrumental listings today and I have a question: What is the difference between "an exclusive purchase of the material, this Publisher will not take any portion of your writer's share."And,"non-exclusive, 50/50 split deal - you keep your original copyrights."I'm new to Taxi and any help would be much appreciated.Thanks,Skoogs

[Casey H]

Feb 15, 2009, 6:37am, kskoogs wrote:Hey everyone, I was looking over the instrumental listings today and I have a question: What is the difference between "an exclusive purchase of the material, this Publisher will not take any portion of your writer's share."And,"non-exclusive, 50/50 split deal - you keep your original copyrights."I'm new to Taxi and any help would be much appreciated.Thanks,Skoogs Hi Skoogs,The non-exclusive 50/50 deal is probably the most common nowadays so I'll start with that... 50/50 Non-ExclusiveIn this case, you retain all ownership of your copyright and publishing rights- the library makes money only on their specific placements of your material. You are free to do anything you want with your track elsewhere.Money from film/TV placements generally has 2 sources: Up-front license fees (called "master" & "sync" fees) and performance royalties collected by PRO's such as BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, etc. In the non-exclusive deal, the library generally takes 50% of any master/sync fee and 100% of the publisher's share of performance royalties, which is 50% of the total performance royalties, the other 50% being the writer's share. As the writer, you get the full writer's share.The way the library does the PRO split is they re-title your song and register that re-title with a PRO with you as the writer and them as the publisher. When there is a broadcast, the title on the cue sheet that goes to the PRO is the new title, so the performance royalties are divided up correctly. You can still register your original title with the PRO for any other uses.Now the other...The BuyoutIn this scenario, you take a one time fee to turn over the publishing of the track to the company and you are not free to market it elsewhere. No master/sync fee share is paid to you for each use. However, you are still the songwriter, and hence get the full writer's share of performance royalties for any broadcasts.Both scenarios can be very good ones depending on your situation, the track, etc. For example, if you write a lot of tracks you might be a little more inclined to not worry about giving up any "babies" in a buyout. Many tracks might never in their lifetime earn the amount being offered in the buyout... It all has to be weighed... And for the most part, the major money is the back end performance royalties which you get either way. HTHPlease feel free to ask more questions,CaseyPS What a pleasure it was for me this morning to come back to what makes this forum so great... Songwriters and musicians helping each other...

[kskoogs]

Casey, Thanks a million!!! That all makes sense and is very helpful.Skoog