TAXI.com

I just had an email from the digital aggregator that I use for iTunes inviting me to join their new Sync License service. It seems more and more music companies are now jumping onboard the sync music train which is good in that it gives greater exposure and opportunites for licensing but I guess at some point though so many licensing companies will drive down the price of licensing or give the artist a lesser cut. Pump Audio has already reduced its split from an equal 50/50 to 35/65 in their favour.MD

in addition, I think the proliferation of non-exclusive retitling entities are going to go by the wayside. I think we'll see more exclusive deals in the future. As always, the cream will rise to the top, and the music libraries/publishers with good relationships and great credits will be, as they are now, tough to get into, but worth getting signed by.

Hi all,I just wrote a blog about this the other day: http://blog.taxi.com/?p=419Gotta say, even I'm amazed by how many of these companies pop up every week. I've been tracking a group of new ones for about a year, and it's my observation that most start-ups tend to go out of business in a year or so because it's very difficult for them to sustain themselves on the meager sync fees they get (if any), and it takes so long to see any back end that they need to get a day job to put food on the table. And when they take the day job to keep food on the table, they can't devote the requisite time to be successful in music licensing. I'm mostly talking about the one-man (or woman) operations with little overhead. I've seen DOZENS of these started by recently unemployed A&R people. Sadly, writers and artists are so flattered and validated by having someone offer them a contract, that they sign without doing any due diligence. When the company goes out of business, the writers have to go through the process of officially terminating the deal.I think a lot of these companies jump on the licensing bandwagon thinking they'll pop up a website, build a database of music, and the music supervisors will come in droves because their sites look trendy and cool. In the end, it takes YEARS of relationship building to REALLY become a successful music licensing company.Those are the companies we focus our efforts on at TAXI. We routinely turn away listings from smaller, newer companies unless we personally know the person starting it, and there are some VERY compelling reasons to believe the company will thrive. BTW, I LOVE it when we get emails from music licensing companies and production music libraries telling us they sign 90% of what we forward them, TEN TIMES the amount they sign from other sources! THAT's what I'm talking about!!!!I'll admit that it's a thorn in my side to see people post here that they got a deal with a song that TAXI didn't forward. In many of those cases, the deal came from a company that we wouldn't do business with because we don't think their standards are high enough. We won't chase every fad or opportunity. There's one VERY large entity that we didn't do business with that has proven my point recently by signing ridiculous amounts of material, then dramatically lowering the % that goes to the writer/composer/creator. I know that many of the deals that happened with songs we didn't forward were with that company.ANY person who has EVER worked at TAXI would tell you that I've always preached "Quality is most important thing" in everything we do, every aspect of the company, and most of all, in the music we forward.I've run the numbers and know that I could become very wealthy by lowering our membership fee, replacing our (million dollars a year worth of) A&R EXPERTS with minimum wage "music editors," or FREE "peer reviews" (and splitting the submission fees with the listing parties!), then doing away with our critiques and the Road Rally. But I'd rather own a sustainable company I can be proud of.Sorry to go on about all this.... just had my coffee Last comment. We're overdue in rolling out TAXI 2.0. Part of the reason is the tech team isn't moving as fast as I'd like. NOBODY moves as fast as I'd like But when we DO roll out 2.0, it will be as wonderfully revolutionary as TAXI 1.0 was at the time. It's going to be very cool for you guys, have aspects that nobody else has, and frankly, unless they've got the (nearly) two decades of relationships we have, they won't be able to imitate it, like they try to do today.The future is bright See you at the Rally, http://www.taxi.com/rally/index-frames.htmlMichael

Michael (ML), I can't wait to see TAXI 2.0! Michael (MD), I agree with what Vikki and ML posted. There are so many companies contacting me about their new "digital" and/or licensing services, though frankly I don't have time to go through all the paperwork and get involved, especially since many of them never come through in the end with solid deals, and all that set up work landed me nowhere. Still, there are a few places I may try here and there (especially if I've had a relationship with them for my music in other areas). I guess it's a matter of how many seeds you want to throw into the wind. And how much time you have to throw seeds. See you all at the Rally!Raags

thanks for the post ML. Waiting eagerly for TAXI 2.0!

Yes, it can sometimes be a bit overwhelming having so many start ups approaching you for music. There is all the fine print to read and interpret, unless of course you can afford a good music lawyer at hundreds of dollars an hour! Then there is all the uploading, categorising and tagging and more often than not like was said nothing comes from it in the end so I now give these companies a bit of a wide berth unless they have already proved themselves or have someone with a previous relevant track record at the helm.I did however choose to accept the new deal with ********* as so far I have had more licensing revenue from them than my two Taxi library deals which after 2-3 years have not brought in anything as yet - but I still wait in hope and keep writing! Granted it seems to take forever to get tracks through the collosal system at ********* but patience is the name of this game as we all know! This is no disrespect to Taxi either as it is frustrating with ********* how slow and cumbersome it seems to get material accepted by them. That's why I love dispatch as in a matter weeks you have your feedback - yes or no - and you can move on from there armed with more information. I love the immediacy of it because we are living in the age of instant gratification and music libraries don't often lend themselves easily to that.MD(Edited to remove company name)

I'm glad ML mentioned some of these points here. I've been trying to explain to some artists on another website that you should not judge or choose libraries by how so-called "artist friendly" they are... or at least not mainly by that. Track record, experience, personal contacts, how long in business, etc are way more important. Anybody can slap up a website for people to up load songs. Unless that's coupled with solid contacts, it doesn't mean a whole lot. Music supervisors have more than enough material thrown at them and do not need to visit everybody and his dog's library website.I read a lot where people are very focused on royalty split numbers, share in up-front sync fees, exclusive vs non-exclusive, how easy it is to submit on-line, how nice they were with their "personal" contact and how easy it was to get their music "signed". A red flag to me often is if a library accepts just about everything that is submitted. I feel a lot better if I submit 5 tracks and they like 1-2 than if everything is "great".And I'd rather work with a solid library that gets placements but pays a smaller (or sometimes even zero) share of sync fee than one who's deal says we split that 50/50 but there isn't much chance there will be a placement anyway. The goal is placements and the back end is often where the money is.Be careful of the "feel good" factors. We all love the ego lift when someone accepts our music. I'm no different than anyone else. But the "feel good" factors won't necessarily mean you'll get music placed. In fact, it can be the opposite. Too many non-exclusive libraries all pitching the same track to the same music supervisor hurts us all. I just got an email from a library I work with saying they will start shifting to exclusive next year due to this problem.Of course, there will be times when taxi rejects tracks that do get signed by solid libraries. It happens-- it's not a perfect world. The thing to remember is IF your tracks get taxi forwards, they are higher quality tracks. Taking advantage of taxi as a way to learn to make better tracks can only help. Casey