Peggy Burnham said...
"So along this same line of questioning, who pays you for the physical sales, like CD's. the publisher or the artist??? Or?? lol Assuming you have any "pay" coming. lol"
Peggy
Peggy, THIS IS EXACTLY what it gets so GREY AREA.Technically, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure YOU get paid. Your publisher is supposed to do that, but if you are self published it is up to you. Then you have artists who have so much going on they often are not going to pay out or even record something that is going to cost them more money in the first place.
Justin is correct in getting some licencing fees up front when people are going to record your songs. But artists, who for the most part are self funded, are rarely going to take on another expense. If they were to record a CD with other songs, pay the nearly $100 for lisencing fees, and they are doing 10-12 songs, they are not going to record those songs at all and instead record something they write themselves. The licencing fees were among the first we saw going nearly 20 years ago. Everything has shifted to "SPEC" (meaning "SPECULATION", or in more common speech, "SPEC NOT TO GET PAID") and there were no fees collected at all.
You have to hope that you have a RELATIONSHIP with the artist, publisher, producer, label, so that they will be straight up with you and pay you what you are owed. But it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to be on top of all of that.
Licencing is predicated on physical copies pressed. Supposedly per 1000 copies. Anything less is considered PROMOTIONAL and you are not paid for promotional copies. People no longer print up 1000 copies. Most people's CDs will sell less than 200 copies. You might get some people that are well meaning and do want to pay out, and that is what Justin has gotten, as well as things I have gotten. But most people, while well intentioned, have limited bank accounts. That is why there is so many KICKSTARTER or GO FUND ME campaigns.
If you were to look at the costs of doing a CD:
Per song studio costs at $500-$1500 per song. ten songs, that is up to Ten to twelve thousand dollars recording cost, and usually MUCH, MUCH, MORE. So lets just budget that at FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS.
Packaging, photos, reproductions: $2500-$5000.
A promotional video: $5000
Advertising $5000
You are easily looking at $25,000-$30,000 to BEGIN WITH to even get off the ground. You think they are going to toss in ANOTHER $1000-$2500 in licencing fees? You are living in a different Universe.
For independent projects on smaller labels, double that. $50,000.
For major artists releases, quintiple that, at around $2.5 MILLION dollars.
Considering that SINGLES that cross into the TOP 25 songs on any charts, are the only ones that pay any significant money at all, you are probably not looking at anything that will pay out. So most CD's single legal downloads, or that wonderful word STREAMS, pay almost nothing, which is why everyone are getting these checks for .22 tenths of a thousandth of a cent. You can see why almost NO ONE MAKES A DIME.
So who is going to PAY YOU?
Boy that is a good question. Better head on over to BMI and ASCAP, camp out in their parking lot and wait till they see you to get an answer.
I am TELLING YOU NOW, AND TELLING EVERYONE THIS. If you are in this business to make money, you are probably in the WRONG BUSINESS. There is not any. and there are a LOT OF COSTS involved. There are ways to do it that don't make you end up bankrupt, but usually people find out about those AFTER they have nearly GONE BANKRUPT. And are still paying for their mistakes.
You might ought to take some of Justin's advice and enjoy the fact that someone is interested in recording your song, writing with you, performing it out, beyond what you can do. Because that is probably going to be about all you are going to get.
Now, on the OTHER SIDE of the pyramid, the publishers, producers, labels, etc. MAKE THE MONEY BECAUSE THEY PUT UP THE INVESTMENT MONEY IN THE FIRST PLACE. If you are to get a MAJOR CUT, which are the ONLY ONE'S THAT GENERATE INCOME, there are going to be other entities involved.
If you want to get your song to a MAJOR ARTIST, you are going to HAVE TO HAVE A MAJOR PUBLISHER INVOLVED because they are the only one's with ACCESS to that artist.
If you want to have a MAJOR ARTIST record the song, you better either be writing it WITH the major artist, or be involved in the teams around that artist.
This is a deadly serious BUSINESS. And when you step into that arena, you have a LOT MORE TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT THAN COPYRIGHTS, REGISTRATION, PRO'S and that sort of stuff. You have to be aware that there are ENORMOUS COSTS involved with all of this.
You need to understand all of that before you get into it.
MAB
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