# Libraries vs platforms such as Pond5 and Audiojungle



## alexandrost (Jun 30, 2020)

I couldn't find anything here on this direct comparison (forgive me if there is) - but, I was wondering what are the pros and cons when it comes to writing / selling music via those generic stock music platforms such as Pond5 and AudioJungle as opposed to writing music for some of the higher profile Music Libraries ? 

For example, a friend of mine told me he read somewhere (he can't remember the source) that writing music for Pond5 could limit one's chances of getting accepted by higher profile music libraries. Do you think this is true as well?

I would love to hear about your experiences on this matter!


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## Daryl (Jun 30, 2020)

My advice would be, if you write for the low level libraries like Pond5, use a pseudonym. Then you have no worries whether or not another library would use it against you.


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## alexandrost (Jun 30, 2020)

Daryl said:


> My advice would be, if you write for the low level libraries like Pond5, use a pseudonym. Then you have no worries whether or not another library would use it against you.


thanks! I guess that could provide enough freedom.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jun 30, 2020)

alexandrost said:


> For example, a friend of mine told me he read somewhere (he can't remember the source) that writing music for Pond5 could limit one's chances of getting accepted by higher profile music libraries. Do you think this is true as well?



I may be completely wrong, but that sounds like balogne. I've never experienced (or heard of) this, and I have music on both exclusive/non-exclusive platforms. Just remember that music you use on a site like Pond5 cannot be used for an exclusive library company.

Edit: I wouldn’t saturate your music onto several non exclusive sites though.


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## reborn579 (Jul 1, 2020)

i write under a pseudonym for stock music platforms. it's a great way to pay the bills, but i feel that if you want to make 'a name for yourself' let's say, it's just not a good look. there's no shame in making stock music, of course, but i feel the perception people have of you will change.
just my two cents. 
i have also heard of this thing happening when high profile libraries won't take a composer in because his music is on these stock platforms.


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## T-LeffoH (Jul 4, 2020)

reborn579 said:


> i have also heard of this thing happening when high profile libraries won't take a composer in because his music is on these stock platforms.



From what I could gather working with a few different, exclusive libraries and chatting with the people there, the underlying motivations to potentially limit working with composers who are not also writing stock music seems to be a combination of broader, industry interests more so than how the composer themselves is perceived. I haven't seen anything in practice yet in provisions of any composer-publisher agreements I've come across, but it is a discussion point that has been circulating for at least a few years now.

Metaphorically, the main sticking point seems to be - for comparison to other industries - imagine if a chamber of commerce operated in such a way that they actively engaged in and promoted business with individuals or companies...while those individuals or companies were simultaneously undermining the broader goals of the industries involved by offering the same or similar quality of work for less than market value, while also diminishing the legal value and protections of the underlying rights of the individual/company by engaging in those agreements.

That scenario is antithetical to the point of promoting the business of the industry. So I think a lot of the discussion has come about from looking to draw boundaries to help protect broader industry interests.

Just from my own experience, I empathize with one of the libraries I work with wanting to do it as on numerous occasions they've had composers sign work with them in a compilation while later they found out the composer had 'forgot' they had also hosted the music on stock sites. #LegalHeadache

Either way, it's an interesting topic. I'm not sure what the answer is but for me personally, I'm just not much of a fan of stock music libraries.


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## alexandrost (Jul 5, 2020)

T-LeffoH said:


> From what I could gather working with a few different, exclusive libraries and chatting with the people there, the underlying motivations to potentially limit working with composers who are not also writing stock music seems to be a combination of broader, industry interests more so than how the composer themselves is perceived. I haven't seen anything in practice yet in provisions of any composer-publisher agreements I've come across, but it is a discussion point that has been circulating for at least a few years now.
> 
> Metaphorically, the main sticking point seems to be - for comparison to other industries - imagine if a chamber of commerce operated in such a way that they actively engaged in and promoted business with individuals or companies...while those individuals or companies were simultaneously undermining the broader goals of the industries involved by offering the same or similar quality of work for less than market value, while also diminishing the legal value and protections of the underlying rights of the individual/company by engaging in those agreements.
> 
> ...





T-LeffoH said:


> From what I could gather working with a few different, exclusive libraries and chatting with the people there, the underlying motivations to potentially limit working with composers who are not also writing stock music seems to be a combination of broader, industry interests more so than how the composer themselves is perceived. I haven't seen anything in practice yet in provisions of any composer-publisher agreements I've come across, but it is a discussion point that has been circulating for at least a few years now.
> 
> Metaphorically, the main sticking point seems to be - for comparison to other industries - imagine if a chamber of commerce operated in such a way that they actively engaged in and promoted business with individuals or companies...while those individuals or companies were simultaneously undermining the broader goals of the industries involved by offering the same or similar quality of work for less than market value, while also diminishing the legal value and protections of the underlying rights of the individual/company by engaging in those agreements.
> 
> ...



I see your point. In any case, after doing some research on what's going on with mass-production stock platforms such as pond5 they seem less of an attractive option. They are just the first option you encounter as someone who wants to start selling their music. I guess I should do more research on more specialized exclusive libraries.


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## T-LeffoH (Jul 5, 2020)

alexandrost said:


> I see your point. In any case, after doing some research on what's going on with mass-production stock platforms such as pond5 they seem less of an attractive option. They are just the first option you encounter as someone who wants to start selling their music. I guess I should do more research on more specialized exclusive libraries.



It's definitely one of the first things I noticed and dabbled in stock music a bit but the main issue I have with it is the saturation. I eventually took my music off those platforms and worked to get it with exclusive libraries instead.

Even non-exclusive options like AudioSparx are so overly saturated that the likelihood of getting placements through them is becoming more akin to a content creator on YouTube that is simply recording themselves performing an arrangement of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah or any other widely popular song. It's almost illogical to compete with millions of versions of the same thing.

I could go on for a while with so many other issues but I won't.

If anything I can say specifically, definitely consider attending composer-publisher conferences and/or other industry events where you can interact with people working at the libraries.


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## reborn579 (Jul 6, 2020)

T-LeffoH said:


> From what I could gather working with a few different, exclusive libraries and chatting with the people there, the underlying motivations to potentially limit working with composers who are not also writing stock music seems to be a combination of broader, industry interests more so than how the composer themselves is perceived. I haven't seen anything in practice yet in provisions of any composer-publisher agreements I've come across, but it is a discussion point that has been circulating for at least a few years now.
> 
> Metaphorically, the main sticking point seems to be - for comparison to other industries - imagine if a chamber of commerce operated in such a way that they actively engaged in and promoted business with individuals or companies...while those individuals or companies were simultaneously undermining the broader goals of the industries involved by offering the same or similar quality of work for less than market value, while also diminishing the legal value and protections of the underlying rights of the individual/company by engaging in those agreements.
> 
> ...



i agree with your points here. it does make sense. i guess the appeal of those stock library is making a quick buck, which is quite important when you're just starting out.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jul 6, 2020)

reborn579 said:


> i agree with your points here. it does make sense. i guess the appeal of those stock library is making a quick buck, which is quite important when you're just starting out.



For me, it’s also about having control of my music. With an exclusive agreement, there’s no guarantee you’ll get any placements. Either way, it’s a gamble.


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## reborn579 (Jul 6, 2020)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> For me, it’s also about having control of my music. With an exclusive agreement, there’s no guarantee you’ll get any placements. Either way, it’s a gamble.



that is true, yes


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## JoelS (Jul 6, 2020)

T-LeffoH said:


> So I think a lot of the discussion has come about from looking to draw boundaries to help protect broader industry interests.


Who establishes the broader industry interests? And are those interests the same as the interests of those who want into the market? Who sets fair market value? The industry? Which part of it? Or is it the market participants/consumers who establish that?

I can speak only from my own personal experience. When I started out trying to make money licensing my music about thirteen years ago, I entered the market as a distinct outsider (through videogame mods). The 'music industry' on the whole was very opaque, little information was available, and I didn't have schooling or contacts to guide me. Commissions were my first source of income, but I wanted my career to grow. I looked around and found out about Taxi, which seemed like a bad fit for me as I didn't want to pay to submit my music for cattle calls. I also found royalty free stock libraries. I didn't have to pay to put my music up for sale, and I felt my music fit alongside what was available in those RF libraries. I was able to start earning money immediately, which seemed pretty good to me.

Eventually I learned about sync licensing and how that differed from RF... and that game music was a whole other frontier that nobody in the 'music industry' seemed to have a clue about. 

I found sync licensing libraries much harder to land cues in, and of course earnings from them came on a greatly delayed schedule because of how the PROs collect royalties. Again, at that time, there was not a lot of freely available information on any of this stuff. It was not clear how to contact most sync libraries, especially the 'high end' ones.

The 'music industry' in any broad sense was not serving my interests as someone who wanted to participate in it and learn about it. In fact, it seemed to be set up to prevent me from doing so.

There are more on-ramps into a music career now than there ever have been, and the tools needed to make high quality music are dirt cheap. Information is more freely available. A lot of people want to participate. These changes have had positive and negative consequences.

I largely stopped building my RF catalog about six years ago, because I saw declining sales. There was proliferation of pop-up stock library sites who were cookie-cutter markets all serving up the same music, and after a while it became clear that listing my tracks on all of them was a waste of time. Only a few libraries actually moved music. They survived, the others closed shop, and the pricing structure became less favorable to the composer as a reflection of their segment of the market. 

That said, I think RF stock sites can provide a viable income to someone willing to build a large catalog in the specific genres of music that tend to do well with the kind of content producers that buy from them. That market is in flux, though, with companies like Artlist aggressively building a market presence and subscription model all-you-can-eat options growing. 

I will encourage new composers to do a few things:

1. Build up a large catalog of music, and learn to work fast without degrading your quality of work.

2. Don't focus exclusively on any one market segment, because it could see drastic changes tomorrow. The landscape is constantly shifting.

3. If you find closed doors barring you from entry into the 'music industry,' go in through the window or chip a hole in the wall... or circumvent the 'industry' entirely and build an audience through the many platforms people use today (and keep an eye on which ones they'll use tomorrow).

Always be ready to adapt to a changing marketplace.



reborn579 said:


> i guess the appeal of those stock library is making a quick buck, which is quite important when you're just starting out.


My view is that while it may be gratifying to see those first few sales, both RF and sync licensing are very much 'slow bucks' where the true rewards come as your catalog grows enough to provide sustainable levels of income. You're likely to need a few hundred tracks, minimum, before you start seeing good money... unless you get lucky, which is never something to plan on.


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## T-LeffoH (Jul 6, 2020)

JoelS said:


> Who establishes the broader industry interests? And are those interests the same as the interests of those who want into the market? Who sets fair market value? The industry? Which part of it? Or is it the market participants/consumers who establish that?



I agree with many of your points and have had similar experiences.

I wasn't getting into too much detail in my initial post as it's always a complex web of participants, many of whom aren't directly the composer or publishers. The next few years will see a shift in how fair market is established thru the MMA legislation passed in 2018, hopefully in the net positive. Non-profit organizations like NMPA, who have no real intake from each composer-publisher deals, are at least an example of a key participant in establishing fair market all the way to a judge deciding what royalty rates will be.

The reality with RF is that there are no similar trade organizations acting to create a better, competitive market place for those outlets. They are, in effect, the wild west even more so than exclusive/non-exclusive libraries.

Of all things, what I'm maybe most surprised NMPA hasn't been pushing for in legislation yet is a mandate on reversion clauses in copyright/trademark contracts for exclusive or non-exclusive outlets, which I've had some exclusive libraries offer while others not. The history of publishing and all copyright/trademark administration has established, in practice, that an administrator of the underlying rights of intellectual property is really supposed to actively be pursuing the use of those rights. I struggle to see how the idle application of that administration in many exclusive and non-exclusive publishers meets that historical standard.

I digress but as you say - and I agree - don't focus exclusively on any one market segment.


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## Daryl (Jul 7, 2020)

T-LeffoH said:


> Of all things, what I'm maybe most surprised NMPA hasn't been pushing for in legislation yet is a mandate on reversion clauses in copyright/trademark contracts for exclusive or non-exclusive outlets, which I've had some exclusive libraries offer while others not.


You actually don't need a reversion clause. All you have to do is prove that the Publisher is not "exploiting" your music, and a quick peek at your Royalties would prove this.

Having said that, where the exclusive library pays for the recording, you might get your intellectual property for the composition back, but you would have no rights to the recording. You might even find that with a sample based composition, the transference of rights is permanent as well. However, in that case there is nothing to stop you re-sequencing the composition to make a new recording.


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## T-LeffoH (Jul 7, 2020)

Daryl said:


> You actually don't need a reversion clause. All you have to do is prove that the Publisher is not "exploiting" your music, and a quick peek at your Royalties would prove this.
> 
> Having said that, where the exclusive library pays for the recording, you might get your intellectual property for the composition back, but you would have no rights to the recording. You might even find that with a sample based composition, the transference of rights is permanent as well. However, in that case there is nothing to stop you re-sequencing the composition to make a new recording.



Under current US law, to reacquire rights to a work for non-exploitation there needs to be a reversion clause in the agreement. Reversion of the rights to the original author if the administrator does not exploit the underlying intellectual property is not automatic under any precedent outside stipulation in an agreement.

Otherwise the original author or their estate can take steps to get the rights back 35 years later.

Are you speaking to some other scenario short of a stipulated provision in a contract? There's no legal precedent for what you're describing that I'm aware of.


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## Daryl (Jul 7, 2020)

T-LeffoH said:


> Under current US law, to reacquire rights to a work for non-exploitation there needs to be a reversion clause in the agreement. Reversion of the rights to the original author if the administrator does not exploit the underlying intellectual property is not automatic under any precedent outside stipulation in an agreement.
> 
> Otherwise the original author or their estate can take steps to get the rights back 35 years later.
> 
> Are you speaking to some other scenario short of a stipulated provision in a contract? There's no legal precedent for what you're describing that I'm aware of.


Breach of contract is sufficient to get a reversion, but it is likely to be messy. It certainly isn't automatic, but can be done, and I know people in the US who have managed it.


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## T-LeffoH (Jul 7, 2020)

Daryl said:


> Breach of contract is sufficient to get a reversion, but it is likely to be messy. It certainly isn't automatic, but can be done, and I know people in the US who have managed it.



Breach of contract can be *very* messy.

Like any agreement between two parties, composers can always simply ask a publisher, absent a provision, to just revert the rights to them if they aren't exploiting the works but the publisher is under little obligation.

I do think legislation in the US is still probably the best solution but I'll gladly await the day when that becomes reality thru legislation or established legal precedent.


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## bosone (Jul 7, 2020)

... but if you are on audiojungle and pond5, do you still sell licenses there??


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## T-LeffoH (Jul 7, 2020)

bosone said:


> ... but if you are on audiojungle and pond5, do you still sell licenses there??



I'm not sure who you're asking but in my case, no, I removed my content from all royalty-free services.


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## bosone (Jul 7, 2020)

T-LeffoH said:


> I'm not sure who you're asking but in my case, no, I removed my content from all royalty-free services.



mine was a general question... maily to people who still have their music there. I saw a drastic drop in sales in both. audiojungle is still somewhat "alive", but P5 is completely dead.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jul 7, 2020)

bosone said:


> mine was a general question... maily to people who still have their music there. I saw a drastic drop in sales in both. audiojungle is still somewhat "alive", but P5 is completely dead.



Actually, I recently pulled everything from Pond5, my catalogue went stale. It's too bad Getty went down the drain, I actually did pretty well there.


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## JoelS (Jul 7, 2020)

bosone said:


> ... but if you are on audiojungle and pond5, do you still sell licenses there??


I was never on AJ, but my Pond5 catalog still generates sporadic sales. My catalog there is comprised of the same tracks that are on a bunch of non-exclusive RF sites, so I see no benefit in removing it. I don't mind surprise money every now and then. No other RF site generates sales for me now... but I also haven't posted new music to any in years. Search results on some sites favored newer tracks, so consistently adding to my catalog did drive sales, to a point. Anyone looking to make money in RF probably needs to stay active in adding to their catalog.


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