Edit: As of August 2010 the Music Store exists no longer! Instead, head over to Premiumbeat to get your mits on some tunes.
In going through old music to see what’s available to put up on the Music Store for licensing to picture, I’ve had to go through a fair few old contracts to check what I can and can’t do with the music.
To be honest, even my younger self was pretty consistent in keeping hold of copyright to my tunes. They drummed that much into us at University.
Though copyright or intellectual property law is seriously tricky ground that can be quite confusing still, that basic recognition of authorship was something that I’ve always been quite feisty about protecting.
Admittedly, however… for that first piece of music I was paid for, I would have signed anything. Someone’s paying me to write music? What’s the world coming to? 🙂
But my main problem in those early days, and more recently with bigger clients, was signing away exclusive synchronisation licenses, in perpetuity. So, although I still kept hold of copyright with both hands, the license to sync the music up to picture is gone. For good.
I can still sell the music, for instance, as downloads, but that lovely source of revenue that is licensing to picture, with the future potential of broadcast royalties, is cut off.
Ah well. You live and learn.
So the tip for today is: read the small print and add a little “non-” to the exclusivity clause, if you can! Heheheheh!
(If you’d like to read more about Copyright there are loads of IP resources out there on t’internet, but, if in doubt, the advice of a good music lawyer or publisher can’t be beat)
Please do share any copyright or contractual hiccups or horror stories here – let’s help each other out here people. 😉