TAXI.com

Quite a while ago - I can't even remember when - Taxi forwarded a children's instrumental piece of mine. Out of the blue I just got an email from the company and they want to include the piece in their catalog. They offer a non-exclusive or exclusive deal, and they also need a bunch of alternative versions that I'll have to prepare. Here's part of what they wrote:______ Music (the company) offer all of our writers a non-exclusive contract as standard. As is standard practice for production music there is a 50/50 split in performing royalties but every year, ______ also pay you 20% of individual download fees for each of your tracks (individual download fees will be set at around £50 (current approx. $95) to a client for the full version of a track, slightly less for shorter alternatives). Alternatively, you now have the opportunity of upgrading your contract to an exclusive deal. This still entitles you to the 50/50 split on performing royalties but with this deal, each year, _____ also pay you a massive 80% of individual downloads fees for each of your tracks. As well as this, all our exclusive tracks will be put forward for sub-publishing via a network of major label contacts across the world. (Many of our writers have taken advantage of this great deal but whilst offering very high financial rewards, please be clear tracks then cannot be placed with any other library or organization, or sold or marketed.I'm not sure I understand the individial download fees. Does this mean anyone can use the piece for only $95? That doesn't sound like much, especially if I'd only receive 20 percent. But I don't want to do tie up the piece in an exclusive deal either.Anyway, this was a nice surprise and shows that you never know when something will happen with a forward. Here's the piece in question:http://www.richardemmet.com/Listen_file ... mp3Richard

First off, congrats on anything that looks like a deal!!Try shouting out in the new "Biz" section, or the Deal section, to get some knowledgeable action.My $0.02 opinion is a first deal is always a first deal, so if it gives me the experience of the deal process on a song that I know isn't going to save the world anyway, I'd evaluate it with a "why not?" mentality. Just me, of course...you can hold out if the song has been forwarded lots and lots and lots, and you think a better call is in the cards.I'm certain our knowledgeable posters will shed some light here...I'm not finding anything horrific about their boilerplate (I could be wrong).

Congrats on the deal Richard!The "individual download" fees are probably like a sync fee. They pay $95 and then can use the piece in whatever they want, however many times they want. $95 might not sound like much, but what if they sold 100 licenses over the course of a year or two? Thats $1,900, plus any performance royalties (if you take the non excl.) and $7,600 if you take the excusive. Not too shabby for one track. This of course really depends on the library, their marketing strategies, and connections...but I have heard of some libraries that really move a lot of music.It's a bad idea to sign one piece of music to multiple libraries, so I would go for the exclusive contract. Not to mention that they give you a better deal for doing what you should do anyways (only signing a song with one library). It takes hundreds of tracks to make a living from library music, so I wouldn't worry about having one track "tied up." You could also ask them if they have a reversion clause.Congrats again!-Steve

Nice piece and wonderful orchestration. Licensing fees vary W-I-L-D-L-Y... no way to say what's a "good deal" or not. For me I'm not quite in demand to the point where I'm the one controlling the leverage (i.e. "Oh please Dave... PLEASE let us license your music... we'll pay ANYTHING!!! )Until that happens, $95 would be fine with me because (1) it's a foot in the door for more opportunities, (2) it would be a valid credit (like music in Lego Land or whatever) and (3) it's better than "I could have had a deal but I didn't want it" when talking to perspective new clients. Congratulations on a wonderful piece. I don't think you'll have any problems writing more for other deals as well. Dave

COngrats!!!!!!!!!

Way to go!!

I looked back and checked when I originally submitted this piece. It was almost exactly 1 year ago. I guess this means you shouldn't give up hope. You never know if your music dropped off the map, or if an opportunity is just around the corner.On the exclusive/non-exclusive issue, this particular piece happens to already be non-exclusively signed with another library, so I'm asking how they'd feel about releasing it back to me. Richard

Congratulations! That is awesome!

Wow, very nice orchestrating! Congrats on this one. Well deserved!B

beautiful job....congratz...and good luck....jay