ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

12 years, 6 months ago - Mike Flood

As a composer, too, I don't really understand why the PRS Royalties aspect seems to be problematic. As far as I understand, it just means that the composer who has ownership of the copyright of the music used in the film will, if the music is reqistered with the PRS under the composer's ownership, be entitled to some royalties if the film is broadcast (depending on where it is 'broadcast'). But that royalty payment would not be an expense that is met by the film maker, as far as I know.

12 years, 6 months ago - Tom Green

Depends on what you mean by 'buyout'- I was happy to license a tune to a friend for use on his short (for a tiny fee) but if his film ever gets wide distribution I will get performance royalties from PRS. A lot of composers are willing to let filmmakers use existing music quite cheap in return for 'publicity' but rarely sell the entire copyright in the tune. I have to say, tho, the whole 'we can't pay you but it'll be good promo for you' line (so often seen on Shooting People' doesn't work too well anymore. It rarely makes any difference at all to our careers that we let some filmmaker use our music for nothing, in return for the dubious promo of 156 subsequent views of the film on YouTube. And nothing else...

Plenty of 'royalty free' sites out there with, um, not such great music at cheap rates and no questions asked, but you may as well do it yourself ... Otherwise, yes, by all means look around Bandcamp and similar sites for someone who owns their own 'mechanical' copyright, but beware of asking them to sell the tunes' copyright, so they wouldn't get PRS payments. You'll have to pay a LOT of cash for that.

12 years, 6 months ago - Charles Wood

The musicians union tend to have this process sown up rather better than most. They really do not like you "going around" their established, and usually rather expensive solutions to this.

If you truly have a willing colleague who wishes to assist you be doing a deal, then they can do that, it is not illegal or wrong, but it is severaly frownd on by the controlling authorities. If they are members of MCPS they can even be thrown out of it for doing that (although there are other bodies they can join I believe) and it is not technically proscribed.

You must have a clear witnessed piece of paper signed by you both, that the music, in all its licencing respects is ENTIRELY owned by the person you are dealing with. That means "recording" "writing" and "publishing" rights. If any one is missing you are possibly in trouble. It is also possible to agree something like this: you have the right to use the recorded piece, up to 2000 copies, but the publishing and writing rights remain with your colleague. It is best to agree this for any purposes, so you can put the piece on a website or on DVD etc without further complications.

Almost everyone in this field will steer you to NOT do this, but provided it is a "reasonable" agreement and properly done in law then it is perfectly acceptable to society (ie it would stand in a court) even if the various spongers would rather make money out of both of you implementing complex draconian agreements with them.

In my case a colleague (quite famous in his field) licenced a track to me for a fixed fee of £200 and not more than 1000 copies. This was for teaching purposes. We are both happy with the agreement. The agreement stated that there would be no other fees or charges.

12 years, 6 months ago - John Maloney

Mike, Tom - thanks for your help. I think I used the wrong word with 'buyout' - I'm not looking to buy the copyright to music, just permissions to use it (by 'buyout' I was meaning permissions to use across all media - streaming, TV, download, festival exhibition etc - (hey, I can dream, right?))

Tom - I agree about the dubiousness of the 'free promo' argument. I am a musician myself, so definitely not in the business of trying to exploit anyone.

I need to go and have another look at the PRS pricing system, I think. It was my understanding that it cost a significant amount to get a license to use each 30 second section of music. I may be mistaken...

Thanks for bearing with me, chaps. Still learning. Any more wisdom would be very gratefully received...

12 years, 6 months ago - John Maloney

Charles, thanks so much for your reply (I didn't see it until after I posted the last message). This is very interesting. I can see that this might be a bit admin-complex.

I guess the stuff I'm looking at using is pretty much all by non-professional hobbyists. Bedroom producers, net musicians. Would guys like this even be represented by PRS? I used to upload quite a lot of music when I was a teenager, and I had pretty much no awareness of stuff like this. I'm pretty sure if someone offered me £100 quid to use 30 seconds of manipulated guitar I uploaded, I'd have been willing.

Argh. Might be easier to just get the guitar out and get creative :)

Graeme - thanks for the Moby link. I actually remember hearing about this but forgot about it. Thanks for the good luck wishes - I need as much as I can get :)

12 years, 6 months ago - SP User

Hey John I have a few ambient type songs, i can offer them for free use on you're video as long as i get credits and i retain copywrite, obviously it would be nice to earn a little money but i know many film makers are on a small budgets, here are a few songs of mine, i do many many genres of music from rock to urban, feel free to ask if you are looking for anymore music, regards pete

my mail
fire.4@hotmail.co.uk


https://vimeo.com/41766065

https://vimeo.com/35813476

https://vimeo.com/29311217

http://youtu.be/zC8t2msaskU

12 years, 6 months ago - Martin Thornton

Far be it for me to contradict Charles, but my experience of this from the composer side is nowhere near as complex (and I also refer to the experience of the directors I work with). I would licence the use of music in the film/trailers/website for a fixed fee (I use a signed agreement for this). I also then aid in the preparation of a cue sheet (which takes all of 10 minutes). From this point on the filmmaker can use my music and I will get any royalties due to me from broadcast. These broadcast royalties are paid by the broadcaster NOT the production. I am also a member of the PRS and none of the directors I work for have needed to have any contact with them (at least not relating to my music anyway).

Find a piece of music you like and ask the composer for a non-exclusive licence to use it synced to your film, across all platforms in perpetuity. Make sure they own all the rights to the piece and make sure they attest to that in a signed agreement.

12 years, 6 months ago - Graeme Davidson

Don't know if its the sort of thing you're looking for but Moby offers a lot of music licensed for film use at:
http://www.mobygratis.com/film-music.html
If your film is non profit its free and commercial works have an easy license option. Worth knowing about in any case.
Good luck!

12 years, 6 months ago - Charles Wood

The PRS royalties are problamatic for small scale productions. They involve a lot of paperwork and messing about. Just selling something to someone for a fixed fee is simple, and just like any other work transaction. This is a car, it has unique paintwork on it and I want £200 please. Why is music any different?

I know of music companies, perfectly well intentioned, who nearly went bust over the tracking problems with PRS...so do not assume it is trivial.

12 years, 6 months ago - John Maloney

Cheers Peter that's very kind of you! I will have a listen after work.

All the best - J