COMPOSERs, PUBLISHERs and PROs, Oh my!
kiril1997
30 Apr 2013 14:34
Please check my music!!!
Soundprodukt
1 May 2013 08:35
Stop spamming.
liftedCREATION
1 May 2013 20:54
Dear malkermusic,
Nice tunes. You got some real talent my friend. It would be better if you started your own forum post about your own music. I think you would have a better chance at having actual buyers listening to them. As this post is all about why you should be registering your music with a PRO, which I notice you haven't.
The reason you want to register you songs is quite simple. You will receive royalties if your song is broadcast nationally. Royalty-Free...does not mean "royalty free" It's the type of lease pond5 is selling. (there are a bunch of different types of leases) It has nothing to do with you not receiving royalties on the higher level. Now granted, you have to get your song broadcasted. Which is what I am all about.
I signed up to Aaron Davison's (He gets his music placed on TV all the time) 60 day mentorship program. I have 18 days to go. I decided to keep a blog of my progress which you can read here...http://bit.ly/11GGNRz.
The reason it is so important to sign up with a PRO and REGISTER is MONEY...and lots of it. If you are new to this forum post, do yourself a favor and go to page one 1 and start from there. You have to register each song with a PRO, and then when you fill out that COMPOSER and PUBLISHER and PRO part in your song edit...you will be added to the Cue Sheet. If you are not on these Cue Sheets...your making a big mistake. (By the way, putting your name in these spots means NOTHING if you do not register your songs)
Of course this is completely up to you. No one is going to do this for any of you. NO one did it for me, I stumbled on this myself when going over some terms and conditions on a different stock media marketplace. I turned my non-PRO butt right around and started my whole process over.
It was hard to cough up the 70 bucks to ASCAP to even look at my application. But with loads of luck they accepted me with open arms and I feels real good. BMI is free to join if you are looking to save a few bucks. There are others...for your respective countries as well. This is important. It's the BUSINESS side to music business.
You all have great music, and it's a shame to watch you lease your tracks for dirt cheap and then walk away from the rest of this business. Did you know, IF your music is used, (you'd never know) in a television show or film...THEY KEEP YOUR MONEY! Think I am lying? I'm not...They keep all the dough...you know why?
Broadcast companies pay royalties...no matter what...there is no such thing as "royalty free" for the broadcast companies. They PAY annual fees to the performer rights organization (PROs) They pay no matter what, for every SECOND they broadcast music.
Now, if you read that right. You will be taking today off from making music and do some actual business. Get your butt over to a PRO and sign up. First step after making that song is to register it.
And listen, I have heard it all...You'll gain more exposure and might have more sales as a non-PRO...lies. All lies. Do you know how many tracks you will have to lease to even make a profit as a non-PRO? Have you consider the math? Personally I want to make at least (this would be poverty level) 60K a year...from my music business. So I would have to lease...120k worth of non-PRO music each year. (Remember you are paying pond5 50% of your leasing fees) ... so 120,000 dollars divided by what? 20 bucks a track? Let's see...
Pretty easy...that's 6000 sales a year. GOOD LUCK!
Personally, I am going for just ONE - ONE SALE. To the right person, with the ability to get my one track on TV. That's where the money is and that is where 60k a year...turns into more like 250k a year.
I could go on and on here...but. I have things to do today. As I just got my ONE track back from my audio engineer and I just added it to pond5 yesterday (April 30th, 2013) so..I have a few more moments to wait. Before I can share it with you all.
ON A SIDE NOTE:
One of you e-mailed me asking if you have to register each music bed and special FX of your songs. I asked my mentor and he said, you can just use the same song title for each track. So let's say you broke your song down into parts. You only have to register the ONE main song, and then use the same title over and over for cue sheets.
Does that make sense? No? Ok. I have a song, I break it down into parts...and register the song as "SONG TITLE HERE"...when you add your tracks all over you add it like this "SONG TITLE HERE (horns)" or "SONG TITLE HERE (60 sec advert). When you register your song they ask you for alternate titles...You can have as many as you want...making more sense? Good.
Please feel free to contact me here with any questions. I will pass them along to my mentor if I don't know the answer myself.
Sincerely,
Nathan Luis Steinke
Owner/Composer/Publisher
http://www.liftedCREATION.com
P.S. Soundprodukt, Thanks for monitoring my post. I really appreciate it!
Nice tunes. You got some real talent my friend. It would be better if you started your own forum post about your own music. I think you would have a better chance at having actual buyers listening to them. As this post is all about why you should be registering your music with a PRO, which I notice you haven't.
The reason you want to register you songs is quite simple. You will receive royalties if your song is broadcast nationally. Royalty-Free...does not mean "royalty free" It's the type of lease pond5 is selling. (there are a bunch of different types of leases) It has nothing to do with you not receiving royalties on the higher level. Now granted, you have to get your song broadcasted. Which is what I am all about.
I signed up to Aaron Davison's (He gets his music placed on TV all the time) 60 day mentorship program. I have 18 days to go. I decided to keep a blog of my progress which you can read here...http://bit.ly/11GGNRz.
The reason it is so important to sign up with a PRO and REGISTER is MONEY...and lots of it. If you are new to this forum post, do yourself a favor and go to page one 1 and start from there. You have to register each song with a PRO, and then when you fill out that COMPOSER and PUBLISHER and PRO part in your song edit...you will be added to the Cue Sheet. If you are not on these Cue Sheets...your making a big mistake. (By the way, putting your name in these spots means NOTHING if you do not register your songs)
Of course this is completely up to you. No one is going to do this for any of you. NO one did it for me, I stumbled on this myself when going over some terms and conditions on a different stock media marketplace. I turned my non-PRO butt right around and started my whole process over.
It was hard to cough up the 70 bucks to ASCAP to even look at my application. But with loads of luck they accepted me with open arms and I feels real good. BMI is free to join if you are looking to save a few bucks. There are others...for your respective countries as well. This is important. It's the BUSINESS side to music business.
You all have great music, and it's a shame to watch you lease your tracks for dirt cheap and then walk away from the rest of this business. Did you know, IF your music is used, (you'd never know) in a television show or film...THEY KEEP YOUR MONEY! Think I am lying? I'm not...They keep all the dough...you know why?
Broadcast companies pay royalties...no matter what...there is no such thing as "royalty free" for the broadcast companies. They PAY annual fees to the performer rights organization (PROs) They pay no matter what, for every SECOND they broadcast music.
Now, if you read that right. You will be taking today off from making music and do some actual business. Get your butt over to a PRO and sign up. First step after making that song is to register it.
And listen, I have heard it all...You'll gain more exposure and might have more sales as a non-PRO...lies. All lies. Do you know how many tracks you will have to lease to even make a profit as a non-PRO? Have you consider the math? Personally I want to make at least (this would be poverty level) 60K a year...from my music business. So I would have to lease...120k worth of non-PRO music each year. (Remember you are paying pond5 50% of your leasing fees) ... so 120,000 dollars divided by what? 20 bucks a track? Let's see...
Pretty easy...that's 6000 sales a year. GOOD LUCK!
Personally, I am going for just ONE - ONE SALE. To the right person, with the ability to get my one track on TV. That's where the money is and that is where 60k a year...turns into more like 250k a year.
I could go on and on here...but. I have things to do today. As I just got my ONE track back from my audio engineer and I just added it to pond5 yesterday (April 30th, 2013) so..I have a few more moments to wait. Before I can share it with you all.
ON A SIDE NOTE:
One of you e-mailed me asking if you have to register each music bed and special FX of your songs. I asked my mentor and he said, you can just use the same song title for each track. So let's say you broke your song down into parts. You only have to register the ONE main song, and then use the same title over and over for cue sheets.
Does that make sense? No? Ok. I have a song, I break it down into parts...and register the song as "SONG TITLE HERE"...when you add your tracks all over you add it like this "SONG TITLE HERE (horns)" or "SONG TITLE HERE (60 sec advert). When you register your song they ask you for alternate titles...You can have as many as you want...making more sense? Good.
Please feel free to contact me here with any questions. I will pass them along to my mentor if I don't know the answer myself.
Sincerely,
Nathan Luis Steinke
Owner/Composer/Publisher
http://www.liftedCREATION.com
P.S. Soundprodukt, Thanks for monitoring my post. I really appreciate it!
MuscoSound
1 May 2013 21:49
I read your blog lifted, and I am glad you are going down the road your going. I wish you much success! Thanks again for posting all this because it is complete fact and has changed the way I think about music licensing. By only relying on synch licenses I was throwing out a huge amount of potential income. Thanks again for letting me know all this, I really appreciate it! Thanks again and I wish you luck.
liftedCREATION
2 May 2013 00:01
Dear MuscoSound,
You are so welcome my friend. I noticed that you are helping others out too and talking about licenses and how to go about this "music business" the correct way. I am excited to see where this is all heading and I hope my last blog post is something along the lines of "Landed my first placement on TV!"
I started this whole post because I was tired of people mentioning that pond5 and others are ripping us off...I had no idea it would lead me down this path. I am so happy to know that I helped at least one person!
How is BMI? I really enjoy ASCAP. I follow them on twitter and they tease me a bunch and we have a great time. Just learned about "New Music Tuesday's" Who knew? (Apparently I am the only one who didn't)
If you want you can follow me on twitter at @NathanLSteinke to keep in touch, (that goes for all of you). I generally make a fool of myself and tweet to pond5 about nothing. It's fun.
Really, all of our goals should be getting placement on TV or Film. Using pond5 as a springboard to find those music supervisors is a grand idea and it's exactly what I am doing now. But you NEED to register those songs!
Long live pond5!!!
Well I am off to find something productive to do. Thanks again MuscoSound and congrats on all those sales!
Sincerely,
Nathan Luis Steinke
Owner/Composer/Publisher
http://www.liftedCREATION.com
You are so welcome my friend. I noticed that you are helping others out too and talking about licenses and how to go about this "music business" the correct way. I am excited to see where this is all heading and I hope my last blog post is something along the lines of "Landed my first placement on TV!"
I started this whole post because I was tired of people mentioning that pond5 and others are ripping us off...I had no idea it would lead me down this path. I am so happy to know that I helped at least one person!
How is BMI? I really enjoy ASCAP. I follow them on twitter and they tease me a bunch and we have a great time. Just learned about "New Music Tuesday's" Who knew? (Apparently I am the only one who didn't)
If you want you can follow me on twitter at @NathanLSteinke to keep in touch, (that goes for all of you). I generally make a fool of myself and tweet to pond5 about nothing. It's fun.
Really, all of our goals should be getting placement on TV or Film. Using pond5 as a springboard to find those music supervisors is a grand idea and it's exactly what I am doing now. But you NEED to register those songs!
Long live pond5!!!
Well I am off to find something productive to do. Thanks again MuscoSound and congrats on all those sales!
Sincerely,
Nathan Luis Steinke
Owner/Composer/Publisher
http://www.liftedCREATION.com
MuscoSound
2 May 2013 15:08
Thanks, I am really glad I am able to help some of the other musicians out there, and buyers as well. It is kind of a new industry in a way and everyone is trying to figure it all out. I listened to your mastered track, and it sounds great. I am sure you'll get it placed eventually on television.
BMI is great. It was a really fast sign up process, and it's really easy to register the tracks. It feels great knowing that if I get a big placement it will pay off. I think any musician should really stop and think about that. If you heard your music used in a national broadcast, and it gets played over and over and over. Would you really be ok with licensing it for $20-40, or would you feel kind of like you missed out. Now I am secure and happy with my pricing because I know it's a great value for the person that purchases it from Pond5, and I am able to collect performance royalties from the broadcast companies (not the person who licensed the music) on the back end. I really have you to thank for opening my eyes to that.
Pond5 is a great place to get noticed by TV and Film pros. The video authors here are doing a lot of great work, and are attracting a lot of television, film, and video professionals. Us musicians are only a very small piece of the puzzle here, but I think that's great opportunity for all of us. I can't wait to see how your new remastered tracks do for you, and I really hope your hard work pays off.
Thanks again!
Michael Musco
Musco Sound
BMI is great. It was a really fast sign up process, and it's really easy to register the tracks. It feels great knowing that if I get a big placement it will pay off. I think any musician should really stop and think about that. If you heard your music used in a national broadcast, and it gets played over and over and over. Would you really be ok with licensing it for $20-40, or would you feel kind of like you missed out. Now I am secure and happy with my pricing because I know it's a great value for the person that purchases it from Pond5, and I am able to collect performance royalties from the broadcast companies (not the person who licensed the music) on the back end. I really have you to thank for opening my eyes to that.
Pond5 is a great place to get noticed by TV and Film pros. The video authors here are doing a lot of great work, and are attracting a lot of television, film, and video professionals. Us musicians are only a very small piece of the puzzle here, but I think that's great opportunity for all of us. I can't wait to see how your new remastered tracks do for you, and I really hope your hard work pays off.
Thanks again!
Michael Musco
Musco Sound
liftedCREATION
4 May 2013 11:00
Dear MuscoSound,
It does feel good to lend a hand...I like knowing that many many people have read this and are either going THANK YOU...or they already know and are going...YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS? As for me - I stumbled right into this "music business" without any formal training and thankfully 6 years later I am here!
I am glad BMI is working out for you! I thought it would be hard as hell to get my tracks registered with the ASCAP but it is SO easy! I think it's easier that uploading them to the media marketplace myself...no description to write...no keywords. Unless BMI is different.
I am seeing pond5 on alomst every TV show I watch now...I am seriously impressed!
Turns out I forgot Aaron Davison is also a music publisher. Meaning he knows a bunch of music supervisors and I just asked him to pitch my newest track! Well he asked everyone he knows...but I am hoping I have a little pull here...as I already beat out 100's for the mentorship.
We will see! My newest "professionally mastered" music track can be found here...http://bit.ly/1089oDO (MuscoSound, thank you for the compliment! I think this is going to work...everything up to this point has gone smooth and without much of a problem.
The point of this forum post is to show you all that A. Registering your music is STEP ONE...seriously, because when you goto step B. Placing your music on TV or Film you will receive royalties EACH TIME it's broadcasted...Now I don't know about you but to me...that changes everything.
I will let you know what Aaron thinks of my track and update my post here! Thank you for the good luck wishes and all the good vibes - I wake up each morning (well in the afternoon) and think of all of you sending me and my wife lots of love!
Within a few more days I will update you all to my progress...If I can do this...so can all of you!
Sincerely,
Nathan Luis Steinke
Owner/Composer/Publisher
http://www.liftedCREATION.com
It does feel good to lend a hand...I like knowing that many many people have read this and are either going THANK YOU...or they already know and are going...YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS? As for me - I stumbled right into this "music business" without any formal training and thankfully 6 years later I am here!
I am glad BMI is working out for you! I thought it would be hard as hell to get my tracks registered with the ASCAP but it is SO easy! I think it's easier that uploading them to the media marketplace myself...no description to write...no keywords. Unless BMI is different.
I am seeing pond5 on alomst every TV show I watch now...I am seriously impressed!
Turns out I forgot Aaron Davison is also a music publisher. Meaning he knows a bunch of music supervisors and I just asked him to pitch my newest track! Well he asked everyone he knows...but I am hoping I have a little pull here...as I already beat out 100's for the mentorship.
We will see! My newest "professionally mastered" music track can be found here...http://bit.ly/1089oDO (MuscoSound, thank you for the compliment! I think this is going to work...everything up to this point has gone smooth and without much of a problem.
The point of this forum post is to show you all that A. Registering your music is STEP ONE...seriously, because when you goto step B. Placing your music on TV or Film you will receive royalties EACH TIME it's broadcasted...Now I don't know about you but to me...that changes everything.
I will let you know what Aaron thinks of my track and update my post here! Thank you for the good luck wishes and all the good vibes - I wake up each morning (well in the afternoon) and think of all of you sending me and my wife lots of love!
Within a few more days I will update you all to my progress...If I can do this...so can all of you!
Sincerely,
Nathan Luis Steinke
Owner/Composer/Publisher
http://www.liftedCREATION.com
MuscoSound
30 May 2013 17:13
Any progress liftedCreation? How did everything end up?
liftedCREATION
3 Jun 2013 23:04
Dear MuscoSound,
Thank you for asking. I can't believe it's June 3rd already! Where did May go?
How did it turn out? Well. I have in my hands the 1,800+ Music Directory. I have learned that there are a lot more, "Music Licensing Agencies" than I ever knew about. My BIG goal is this. Perfect my sound...and start creating collections of music.
Now that I have this knowledge that I did not have last year I will be able to hit that bulls-eye a bit more often I think. And by bulls-eye I mean leasing tracks.
Arron wants me to have a few more tracks put together before I go out and try to license them and that makes sense to me. My whole idea was this mentorship would get me on the right course for the rest of my life. Now I KNOW where to go instead of guessing. My endeavors will result in a better outcome this year.
Really I am not sure what I even wrote anymore. This has been a interesting journey for me. Now that my class is over I am going to put all the knowledge to use. I have been sorta just learning for the last 60 days and not really doing any "business". I haven't uploaded any tracks for lease, right now I am basically sitting at a clean slate.
I have been having a real positive review on my music in the last week and I can't wait to start working on some projects again. I will be sure to let you know when I lease a track for TV. I haven't actually tried yet. That is my next project, learn first then put it into action.
My next goal is to learn all I can about Mastering. The little bit of know-how I did pick up is fascinating to me and I can't wait to learn more.
I would love to hear from all of you at pond5! - You can message me here or...
Follow me at twitter (what fun!) - https://twitter.com/NathanLSteinke
I will be sure to let you know of any future updates.
I hope you are all enjoying the summer/winter respectively.
Sincerely,
Nathan Luis Steinke
Owner/Composer/Publisher
http://www.liftedCREATION.com
Thank you for asking. I can't believe it's June 3rd already! Where did May go?
How did it turn out? Well. I have in my hands the 1,800+ Music Directory. I have learned that there are a lot more, "Music Licensing Agencies" than I ever knew about. My BIG goal is this. Perfect my sound...and start creating collections of music.
Now that I have this knowledge that I did not have last year I will be able to hit that bulls-eye a bit more often I think. And by bulls-eye I mean leasing tracks.
Arron wants me to have a few more tracks put together before I go out and try to license them and that makes sense to me. My whole idea was this mentorship would get me on the right course for the rest of my life. Now I KNOW where to go instead of guessing. My endeavors will result in a better outcome this year.
Really I am not sure what I even wrote anymore. This has been a interesting journey for me. Now that my class is over I am going to put all the knowledge to use. I have been sorta just learning for the last 60 days and not really doing any "business". I haven't uploaded any tracks for lease, right now I am basically sitting at a clean slate.
I have been having a real positive review on my music in the last week and I can't wait to start working on some projects again. I will be sure to let you know when I lease a track for TV. I haven't actually tried yet. That is my next project, learn first then put it into action.
My next goal is to learn all I can about Mastering. The little bit of know-how I did pick up is fascinating to me and I can't wait to learn more.
I would love to hear from all of you at pond5! - You can message me here or...
Follow me at twitter (what fun!) - https://twitter.com/NathanLSteinke
I will be sure to let you know of any future updates.
I hope you are all enjoying the summer/winter respectively.
Sincerely,
Nathan Luis Steinke
Owner/Composer/Publisher
http://www.liftedCREATION.com
ErickMcNerney
2 Aug 2013 03:50
I have read some of your blogs MuscoSound and I have been fascinated by your insight. I have been writing music since I was 12 but I never really believed it was possible for me to make money from it. Now that I am getting older, my dream is starting to unfold Like you LiftedCreation, I have taught myself. I have a long way to go, but I have more hope than ever, thanks to all of your guys posting what you've learned and having success. I joined BMI very recently. I am just working on now upgrading my recording gear (need a good interface and mics).