Hello, welcome to Music Business 281. Our topic today is music composers, underscore music composition. We're going to define what that is. We're going to also be discussing the underscore music composer agreements.
Now, let's make this real clear. It's a lot of content in this, okay? So let's get cut right to it and make sure you understand what our topic is, and it's a very specific area in music composition, okay? You should Probably, if possible, look at the, if you're able, look at the composer, music composer agreement that's in your files up on Canvas, okay? That'll make things a lot easier for you, okay?
So, that being said, I have that with me myself, the music composer agreement. This is specifically for a motion picture that I was the executive producer of. What goes up, okay?
Now, I use that because I have the legal rights to use... contracts that I of course have signed and control. I've mentioned this to you before I'll say it again any of the contracts pretty much I have up on files for you to look at these contracts all are contracts the real deal contracts I signed and negotiated with whatever side I was on as executive producer or as an artist as a musician okay I give you both sides of that and I give that to you frequently for the reason that you can actually see it's very important to see every angle of contracts and of your position and why the other side that signed it might have specific needs in their contract side remember one thing I've said this to you before I'll say it again all contracts are basically shall we say they will favor the person the company that the person or company that gives the contract to you okay they'll favor them because their legal team prepared it So it's not always, it's not the perfect world here.
They're not going to make this a 50-50 deal, you guys. They're not going to make it 50-50. It's going to favor the side that prepared the contract. So the advantage of getting a contract given to you is you don't have to go prepare yourself or get a lawyer to prepare it.
The disadvantage to that is, of course, you know automatically when somebody gives you a contract, it's going to favor them to a certain amount. I'm not saying it's going to be, you know. favoring them and ridiculously it could be if you're dealing with something that's sneaky and maybe not real honest about your business you know but overall it favored them you know you know i don't want to give a percentage it depends but it will favor them language will favor be at their behalf protecting them more than will protect you so keep that in mind when you're given any contract at all when someone else now if you're the one providing the contract if you have a good lawyer of course that attorney is going to favor is obviously gonna favor you. If you're a lawyer that says, well, I wanna make this, you know, I wanna take care of them, you know, and the other side there that you're working with, you know, no, no, no. Okay, your lawyer shouldn't be talking like that.
Your lawyer should be saying, I gotta protect you. That's your entertainment lawyer's responsibility, protect you. That's what you're paying them for, okay? So, music composers, music composer agreement.
This is specifically I think specifically the jobs and functions of a composer in this capacity. So, let's just talk about this. Remember, this is one category of being a composer.
I've been a composer pretty much most of my life. I've written drum set books, and I've been published by many different companies, from Music for Percussion Incorporated way, way, way back. When I was still an undergraduate student, okay, and a contract with them. That's as a composer, I wrote a book. And this book that I wrote specifically, the book was 11 Souls for the Drumset, my first major publication with a publishing company.
And what they gave me is 10% of the sale price of the book, the retail price. I think the book back then sold for $6.95, so I would get 69.5 cents for every copy sold. I still retain my writer's share. I wrote the book.
But all publishing rights have 11 soles for the drum set. All writer's share. went to me but all publishing share went to them well it should they are the ones that have distributed the book market the book advertise the book and print the book this is printed music it's went to stores and you know and everywhere right they sold this music okay so that's a lot you can understand why they got that now any royalties that would get from the book actually royalties will be from public performance now that is as a composer of writing sheet music or you know published a published musical composition okay now that being said okay we're talking about that's closer of you know of a solo book right you can you can obviously write compose music publish it and sheet music form book form and if you're published by another publisher then what you're gonna get is plain and simple you're gonna get they usually take the publisher will take all publishing rights and all control of the book what is the point of the book goes out print because the company went out of business well if that's a situation oh boy okay You just printed it up yourself. You just took your publishing back, right? No, not necessarily.
Okay, because you still grant the publishing rights to this company, but they're out of business. Yeah, but what happens if somebody buys all that publishing rights? Intellectual property is pretty much forever, right? Okay. So let's say they have a thousand books published or a hundred pieces of music published and you're one of that hundred, okay?
They could go and now take that publication, okay, and buy that hundred book library. which has value. You're one of those books, so you suddenly think, oh, they went out of business. I can, I got my rights back publishing now, so I can do whatever I want. Suddenly the book's out again, and they're suing you for, you know, releasing that book.
You were never given the rights back. So if you have something, a piece of music published by a legitimate or maybe not so legitimate, small or large publishing company, okay, what you need to do is obviously, you know, understand that you've given up the rights for that, and it might be buried with that company if they went out of business. What you need to do if they're going to go out of business is maybe make sure you contact them and hopefully reach them prior to that time to get the rights back.
Where they just give you your publishing rights back if they're going out of business. Closing down. Even bankruptcy can mean somebody else will take over those publications because in a bankruptcy court they'll decide the value of what they all have.
And if it's complete liquidation, then what's going to happen is that music is because it's got value and it will transfer to the proper party. So it's a very serious thing. thing you guys you know i mean it's like you know when you sign that as a composer of sheet music of a book of a publication it could be a method book you have the best new way to learn how to play the guitar you want to go to belwyn mills and say hey here's my book standard would be they'll give you 10 of all you know sales of the of the actual list price of the book it's 1995 to 1.95 basically right okay of all sales but also what you're going to get that's very interesting is you're going to get all your writer's share if anything's performed through performing rights organization like if you're a member of ASCAP or BMI right but also you will so you retain all your writer's share but all your publishing share goes to them which means they have complete control remember that publishing transfer means they have control that's why I'm saying if a company goes out of business you have to try your hardest to get those publishing rights back or that piece of music you wrote it's kind of buried with that company okay yes you can take your chances and go and you know Print it up yourself and sell it on your website or however you sell it.
You want to sell it on some online store. But then there's a chance that it'll come back to haunt you because that intellectual property by rights you do no longer own when you transfer those rights. When we get into the Songwriter Acquisition Agreement, the exclusive one, you'll see how this really breaks down with that contract, which we will be reviewing under files in one of our topics.
upcoming in the next few weeks. But right now, when we talk about composition, I was talking about you as a composer. Now, you can write all kinds of music from ensemble music to, you know, obviously to solo literature.
You're a guitarist and you love the guitar. You can write solo guitar pieces and publish them, right? What we're talking about specifically here, when I say music composer agreement here, when I say that to you guys, okay, the music composer agreement I'm discussing is an underscore composition contract. What this means is...
This is a synchronization, a form of a synchronization agreement between you, the composer, who's underscoring for a motion picture or a TV show or some online show, right? When we say TV show, by the way, it doesn't necessarily mean it's network anymore. TV show, television show, could be computer show, if you want to say that on your iPad too, right?
Okay? It's a term that's still used. No different than they say you cut an album, okay? It doesn't even mean an album. Nowadays, it could be all digital.
right you know it's like it's just like in the movie business when when when something shoots in the movie business it's a a film that that shoots that's done production is done they're done shooting it's called it says you know it's in the can and the can comes from 35 millimeter you know film in this canister the can all put away because we're done so that's and then they have the wrap party and so forth accordingly all right okay so anyhow I pretty much gave you a broad view of composition. There's all kinds of composing out there. You can compose for many different things.
You can be an orchestral composer. Beethoven did not compose for television. There was no television.
You know, Beethoven composed, obviously, symphonic scores, solo music. I mean, and by the way, it doesn't hurt for you to do any investigation about composition through Google searching, okay? It never will hurt you if you don't totally understand all the categories of being a composer. Songwriters are more, you know, they're composers too, but you don't say composer with songwriter.
Okay, because usually they have lyrics talking about a cause or an emotion or something, right? Okay, so keep that in mind as well. Now back to this specific contract and specific topic. You understand I had to get a little bit more broad about these topics here, right?
For you to understand. Now this is one category, a very powerful one, is basically underscore composing. Okay. So what I want to do now is get into that in detail in part two of music composers, underscore music composers and music.
composer agreements which like i said is in your files we'll continue this in part two