Question regarding Collaboration/ Work for Hire

[subinthompson]

Dear All,

I am currently working on a project collaborating with other musicians. None of them are Taxi members.
My question is, what legal documents should I have if and when the music gets signed
1. When co-writing music (meaning the other musician having equal input on the creative process)
2. When someone is working for hire ( I ask the musician to play the score that I give him)
They are very close friends of mine and they know that I won't rip them off. But, I just want to be fair and get things straight and legal.

Pardon me if this has already been a topic of discussion, but I couldn't find any thread when I searched in the taxi forum.
Would love to hear your thoughts and advice.

Subin

[jaywilliams]

Dear All,

I am currently working on a project collaborating with other musicians. None of them are Taxi members.
My question is, what legal documents should I have if and when the music gets signed
1. When co-writing music (meaning the other musician having equal input on the creative process)
2. When someone is working for hire ( I ask the musician to play the score that I give him)
They are very close friends of mine and they know that I won't rip them off. But, I just want to be fair and get things straight and legal.

Pardon me if this has already been a topic of discussion, but I couldn't find any thread when I searched in the taxi forum.
Would love to hear your thoughts and advice.

Subin

Hello Subin -

I'm not an attorney, consult with one.

Having said that, I think it's good practice to complete a "Split Sheet" for situation #1 and a "Work For Hire" agreement for situation #2.

The best time to complete those agreements is *before* your music gets signed.

Either before the start of the project, or once the track is completed, those are usually the easiest ways to get this taken care of.

You may also want to register the track with your PRO and/or register with the copyright office.

Hope this is helpful!

Jay

[hummingbird]

1. When co-writing music (meaning the other musician having equal input on the creative process)
- you need to have a written agreement stating what the shares are and supplying all applicable information, be aware that all parties must be willing and able to sign a licencing agreement when and if one is offered, and everyone should be a member of a PRO.


2. When someone is working for hire ( I ask the musician to play the score that I give him)
- you need to have a written agreement where they say they have been compensated for their work and that they declare they have no ownership in the composition or the master recording. (You may need to present a copy of this work for hire when signing the track.)

There are samples of such agreements on the net, but, as stated above, it might be good to have your agreements double checked by an entertainment lawyer and then you can use them as a boilerplate for future agreements.

You may also want to register the track with your PRO and/or register with the copyright office.
As mentioned before on this board, if you are submitting to music libraries and music publishers, don't register your tracks with your PRO, wait for the signing entity to do it, as they will want to register their shares as well as yours; unless you are talking about making indie CDs or submitting to music supervisors... ie it depends on what you have planned for the track.

I just want to be fair and get things straight and legal.
Absolutely, get it in writing, then everyone is protected.

HTH

[AlanHall]

Work for hire is in effect anytime someone is willing to give up ALL rights for adequate compensation.

For example, I write code for a machine OEM. Clearly I get paid to do it, and the company I work for owns all the code I write. It gets a bit more complicated when the customer makes special requests for the machine to do things not in the standard package: I'm not aware that any contractual agreements are done up, but it makes sense to me that they would be if the company I work for desires to keep ownership of the 'special written' code. Otherwise the customer could claim they paid to hire the work, and prevent us from using the same engineering for a different customer...

I guess in some endeavors it's called "commissioning a work"?

[hummingbird]

I have a question related to this, and hope this is not hi-jacking the thread:

Let's say I wanted to buy a loop or an acapella from someone. Then clearly it is their work/composition, but could I still buy it (have paperwork set up) in a way such that a library would only have to deal with me?
My problem in understanding this here is, it would not be work for hire because I did not commission the work, instead I bought it after someone else created it (and their copyright on it came into being). This situation therefore seems different to me from work for hire where I would tell someone to perform my composition.
Then, how would the situation change again if I hired someone to compose and sing a melody for me? Questions...

Tom

Before you purchase such an item you should be reading the licencing agreement that goes with those sounds. For example, if I purchase a set of sounds from Precision Sounds, there's an agreement that says I can use those items in my own compositions freely, but I may not sell them on their own.

[cosmicdolphin]

Let's say I wanted to buy a loop or an acapella from someone.

You are not buying the loop or acapella. You are licensing it and the terms of the End User License Agreement will dictate what you can / cannot do.

Usually they are fine to be used in " derivative works " as long as they are not heard in isolation. However many libraries are now frowning on that sort of thing as a melodic sample or loop can trigger audio detection software if someone else has used the same loop.

It's a whole can of worms and best avoided or at least heavily modified into something new.

[AlanHall]

I was thinking that "I wanted to buy a loop or an acapella from someone" meant that Tom was making a one-off deal with the creator of that sample. I totally missed that it was a sample library licensing kind of deal.

[hummingbird]

"heavily modified" is the operative phrase... don't use sounds 'out of the box'

[subinthompson]

Dear Jay, Vikki, Tom, Alan, Mark,

Thank you so much for all your input!
This seems much clearer to me now.

Having said that, I think it's good practice to complete a "Split Sheet" for situation #1 and a "Work For Hire" agreement for situation #2.
The best time to complete those agreements is *before* your music gets signed.

Either before the start of the project, or once the track is completed, those are usually the easiest ways to get this taken care of.
You may also want to register the track with your PRO and/or register with the copyright office.
Hope this is helpful!

Jay

Dear Jay,
Thanks so much. Split sheet was something that never crossed my mind. I had watched a recent interview with the Eagles, band and they tell the story about Hotel California. Strangely, all of it makes sense now.

Dear Vikki,

- you need to have a written agreement stating what the shares are and supplying all applicable information, be aware that all parties must be willing and able to sign a licencing agreement when and if one is offered, and everyone should be a member of a PRO.

This, I believe, is the Split Sheet. Right?

- you need to have a written agreement where they say they have been compensated for their work and that they declare they have no ownership in the composition or the master recording. (You may need to present a copy of this work for hire when signing the track.)

And this, Work for Hire, and it could even be "0$" if it is a favor. (I saw it one of the threads in the forum). Correct me if I am wrong.

There are samples of such agreements on the net, but, as stated above, it might be good to have your agreements double checked by an entertainment lawyer and then you can use them as a boilerplate for future agreements.

Great! Thanks.

You may also want to register the track with your PRO and/or register with the copyright office.
As mentioned before on this board, if you are submitting to music libraries and music publishers, don't register your tracks with your PRO, wait for the signing entity to do it, as they will want to register their shares as well as yours; unless you are talking about making indie CDs or submitting to music supervisors... ie it depends on what you have planned for the track.

Makes sense. Thanks.

So basically, the take away is this!

"Absolutely, get it in writing, then everyone is protected."


Dear Tom,

Glad that this issue was also discussed.

"heavily modified" is the operative phrase... don't use sounds 'out of the box'

I've also heard Matt Vander Boegh mentioning about this issue in one of the Taxi TV shows. He suggested layering those sounds, as well as adding reverb or other effects.


Thanks everyone! once again.
I learn so much from this community.

Subin