# How much to charge for commercial music (unlimited usage)?



## samy (Apr 2, 2017)

Hi guys,

I have a quick question and would love to hear your opinion about it.
I normally work pretty closely with different artists and companies and the pricing is something we always discuss in person and normally find a good solution for that. 

Now a friend of mine gave my contact to an advertisment agency and they want me to compose some music. The tricky part is that they want to use the music on an unlimited amount of projects (mostly advertisments they produce for others). 
It is hard to say how big the overall budget for all these productions is, but they had some big clients already.

So how much would you charge for a song / a minute? I could use the work and would like to do it, but on the other hand I don`t want to be the cheap guy 

Thanks!
Samy


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## Smikes77 (Apr 2, 2017)

For an advert?

I would say £3000-£5000 for an outright buy, or,

Up to £1000 and you keep the rights so you get royalties. 

That what I've been told anyway.


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## samy (Apr 2, 2017)

Yes, it would be for advertisments / product information videos this company is making.
But it would be for an unlimited use of the music so they could use it in for example 20 product videos if they want to. If this would be the case £1000 for a clip that is used in 20 videos would be only £50 per video for my music which would be a joke.


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## wst3 (Apr 2, 2017)

Thus far I've been able to avoid "unlimited use" or a buyout (probably missed out on a few opportunities in the process...) so my first reaction would be rewrite the contract to guarantee (a) you keep the publishing, and (b) there is some limit, even if it is there for effect. I like time limits, and most folks will agree that they probably won't be using the same music (unless it is to be nostalgic) five years from now - the public attention span doesn't stretch that far<G>! Depending on how much time you put into it (always a factor, though difficult to work around), and their expectations I'd set some kind of limit and shoot for the high end of the spectrum where ever you live. Around here a five year license with no other limits would be worth quite a bit. I'd start at $10k (I'm not well known) and allow for a little downward pressure. Also, make sure you include a clause that lets you use the piece in your demo reel.


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## chillbot (Apr 2, 2017)

samy said:


> Now a friend of mine gave my contact to an advertisment agency and they want me to compose some music.


How much music? What kind of music? Instrumental? Songs/vocals? What length are the tracks? Are you scoring to picture or just writing tracks?



samy said:


> If this would be the case £1000 for a clip that is used in 20 videos would be only £50 per video for my music which would be a joke.


Some interesting advice in this thread. You're thinking about this wrong... what you're describing is standard work-for-hire and is quite common (at least around these parts in the US). They're not licensing a track from you, they are commissioning you to write a track for them, which they will then own. There is nothing shady or unfair about this, it's just one way of doing business. And I don't think your price will or should be quite as high as you think. In all probability they will not use the same track in 20 productions (unless it's a theme, that's different and a different rate) as that would be insanely boring. But we *want* them to use it as much as possible... because every time it's used it has the potential to air in a royalty-generating stream which is great for you. In this scenario, you still retain any potential writer's royalties, the only thing you lose is the publishing.


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## Heinigoldstein (Apr 2, 2017)

I´m afraid that this is the kind of request one could only loose in some way.

If you tell them a realistic price like at least € 10.000.- up, you´ll most likely loose the job.
If you agree to much less, what they probably will offer, you might get away with € 50.- or € 100.- per usage.

But actually it´s very dubious in my eyes anyhow. An unlimited request for one product is a tricky thing already, but unlimited for everything and all times is ........do you really want to sell your soul ?
Unfortunately, there will always someone, that will do this kind of job and this pushes the worth of music more and more towards zero.


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## chillbot (Apr 2, 2017)

Heinigoldstein said:


> do you really want to sell your soul ?


I am not sure about these responses. There is really nothing wrong with production companies commissioning music... it is quite common and acceptable... AND you can make quite a good living at it. You are confusing it with library music maybe where you are not paid upfront and license the track to them.


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## Smikes77 (Apr 2, 2017)

chillbot said:


> I am not sure about these responses. There is really nothing wrong with production companies commissioning music... it is quite common and acceptable... AND you can make quite a good living at it. You are confusing it with library music maybe where you are not paid upfront and license the track to them.



^ What he said.


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## mc_deli (Apr 2, 2017)

The elephant in the room is the marketing companies of all sizes are un-learning how to buy and document their use of music. I work with all kinds of agencies in my day job - lots of socmed, service design, identity, digital, research agencies, not ATL - and only one has anyone with any competence. Only one has a producer with experience. It means whenever any of the digital agencies buy music, or any of them buy music for the odd corporate video or YouTube ad, they just don't know where to start with buying, buying the right usage, documenting etc. Of course they also expect it to be almost free anyway but what I am seeing - in the day job - is the system is failing because online usage is just not documented and no one is training the agency people and no one is policing them.


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## Nmargiotta (Apr 2, 2017)

Smikes77 said:


> ^ What he said.



Almost all of my income is "work for hire" commisions. Like was mentioned earlier, it is simply an alternate way of working within the business. For the agencies I work with they prefer this process because they have complete control over the music, I work very closely with the editors and directors. It pays great up-front although you typically loose the backend. I know this doesn't help answer your question Samy but it really depends on the project and the usage, the majority of my commissions are in the $1k-3k range for a 1 minute or less track and I can typically knock it out in a day or so. Most of this is used for web ads/preroll on YouTube or on a custom branded site. Let's say the PGA tour had a tournament sponsored by FedEx and they did a behind the scenes on some of the golfers to be distributed on the tournament website-- the agency would be commission to put the video together for FedEx- the distribution would be online- turnaround a few days depending on workflow either picturelocked to a temp track or they are cutting to the music, and I'd charge maybe 1,500$ and they'd own the rights. It's quick decent paying work! Depending on the scale and budget of the projects obviously you can make quite a bit more per project.


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## Heinigoldstein (Apr 2, 2017)

mc_deli said:


> The elephant in the room is the marketing companies of all sizes are un-learning how to buy and document their use of music. I work with all kinds of agencies in my day job - lots of socmed, service design, identity, digital, research agencies, not ATL - and only one has anyone with any competence. Only one has a producer with experience. It means whenever any of the digital agencies buy music, or any of them buy music for the odd corporate video or YouTube ad, they just don't know where to start with buying, buying the right usage, documenting etc. Of course they also expect it to be almost free anyway but what I am seeing - in the day job - is the system is failing because online usage is just not documented and no one is training the agency people and no one is policing them.


Yep, you hit the mark !


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## Heinigoldstein (Apr 2, 2017)

Nmargiotta said:


> Almost all of my income is "work for hire" commisions. Like was mentioned earlier, it is simply an alternate way of working within the business. For the agencies I work with they prefer this process because they have complete control over the music, I work very closely with the editors and directors. It pays great up-front although you typically loose the backend. I know this doesn't help answer your question Samy but it really depends on the project and the usage, the majority of my commissions are in the $1k-3k range for a 1 minute or less track and I can typically knock it out in a day or so. Most of this is used for web ads/preroll on YouTube or on a custom branded site. Let's say the PGA tour had a tournament sponsored by FedEx and they did a behind the scenes on some of the golfers to be distributed on the tournament website-- the agency would be commission to put the video together for FedEx- the distribution would be online- turnaround a few days depending on workflow either picturelocked to a temp track or they are cutting to the music, and I'd charge maybe 1,500$ and they'd own the rights. It's quick decent paying work! Depending on the scale and budget of the projects obviously you can make quite a bit more per project.


There's nothing wrong doing it as long as it is for a certain product. But selling it for ever and everything seems more than wrong to me. And very often these companies don't except pro members anyhow, so you will not have any royalies either. I had to experience this pretty often.
Did you ever ask a professionell voice talent, if he would sell his rights forever and everything ?
You might be able to buy a nice little sportscar for the amount of money, if he would agree at all. I don't see any reason, music should be worth less.


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## mc_deli (Apr 3, 2017)

Heinigoldstein said:


> Yep, you hit the mark !


Where I am there are only a couple of hundred agencies in the frame so it would actually be straightforward to communicate with them all and educate them - in theory. Though whether the local PRO is the right actor for this, able to do it, motivated I don't know. My experience has been that the local PRO and composer union don't give a monkeys about supporting the wider budding media composer community. They are only interested in the top 5%. Not at all interested in RF or work for hire.

I dread to think what it must be like in e.g. the UK or Germany where there are tens of thousands of agencies, particularly the young digital and social agencies.


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