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Friday, April 20, 2012

Making Your Own Music-Videos

Making Your Own Music-Videos

The first draft of almost every controlled composition clause requires you to license your songs for free in videos when making your own music. Here are two parts to video creating:

1. Promotional usage.
I don't think it's unreasonable to give the company a free promotional video license. When it's using the video to promote your records, it's not making any money.

2. Commercial usage.
When it comes to commercial usages, you should argue for some compensation. At present, the only meaningful commercial usage is home video distribution. For this, independent publishers usually get in the range of 8 cents to 15 cents per song. Also, there is almost always a 10,000 to 15,000 unit guarantee, meaning, for example if you got 12 cents per unit and a 10,000 unit guarantee, you would get a $1,200 advance. (12 cents times 10,000 units). In addition, they often get something called a fixing fee, which is non-recoupable payment for fixing songs in the video. These normally range from $250 to $500 per song.
    
     It's very difficult to get compensation for home video if you're not the artist, for the simple reason that companies don't like to do it. Remember, your video royalty as an artist includes publishing money, so in one sense you'd be taking it from yourself. However, publishing royalties are paid prior to recoupment, while video royalties aren't. So if you can get something here, it's worth the fight. However, it is tough to get.

     There are a number of websites that stream video on demand. MSN, Yahoo, AOL and others. The record companies take the position that your artist royalty includes any publishing monies like home video sales, so you don't get anything extra. Try to resist, but it's not easy. U.S. Congress added digital downloads to the compulsory mechanical license. This is called DPD(digital phonorecord delivery).
This provisions says that any contract made after June 22, 1995 can't reduce the mechanical rate you get on DPD's. In other words, even if your controlled composition clause requires you to give the company a 3/4 rate for songs on your CDs. you get a full rate on downloads. This is great for you.