# Buyout rights and PRO



## MichalCielecki (Apr 20, 2018)

Hello everyone,

Just a quick question regarding rights. Let's assume I composed a video game soundtrack and it's an usual buyout rights contract with the game developer. Now, let's assume the PRS contacts me and claims they have some money collected from the usage of the soundtrack's music. The questions is - if that's a buyout between me and the game developer, then do I have the right to claim the royalties or should PRS contact the developer?

Cheers,
Michal


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## MatFluor (Apr 20, 2018)

Not an expert - so be cautious of my answer.

What are the royalties for? publishing, writers etcetc?

If it was a full buyout - the game developer owns everything - so the registrations at the PRO should be on the developer, not you, since you sold the copyright and everything else.

As said - this concern very delicate rights - so do not act on my post - call your lawyer and ask him about it.


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## Daryl (Apr 20, 2018)

MichalCielecki said:


> Hello everyone,
> 
> Just a quick question regarding rights. Let's assume I composed a video game soundtrack and it's an usual buyout rights contract with the game developer. Now, let's assume the PRS contacts me and claims they have some money collected from the usage of the soundtrack's music. The questions is - if that's a buyout between me and the game developer, then do I have the right to claim the royalties or should PRS contact the developer?
> 
> ...


If you are a PRS member, and they administer the rights for the territory you are talking about, it is illegal for you to do a buyout. The most that you can give away is the Publishing. Therefore you should register the music anyway, and the Writers' share is 100% yours.


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## chrisr (Apr 20, 2018)

MichalCielecki said:


> let's assume the PRS contacts me and claims they have some money collected from the usage of the soundtrack's music



I'll assume I'm at 35,000 ft on my flying pig then. Even the idea of the PRS actively trying to contact a member to assist them is alien to me. Basically the way it works is - you chase them - you take a number - get in line and await a response from a teenage work experience kid who asks if your song has been played on radio 1. You will explain that it's a track from a computer game but the music was used in a broadcast TV ad campaign, and that it's never been on the radio and would never be. They'll ask you what the "song" was called, who sang it and if it was in the charts... You might chat about XFM for a minute or two.


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## Daryl (Apr 20, 2018)

chrisr said:


> I'll assume I'm at 35,000 ft on my flying pig then. Even the idea of the PRS actively trying to contact a member to assist them is alien to me.



That's because you don't earn enough...! The big earners have their own PRS manager with a direct line.


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## RiffWraith (Apr 20, 2018)

Daryl said:


> If you are a PRS member, and they administer the rights for the territory you are talking about, it is illegal for you to do a buyout. The most that you can give away is the Publishing. Therefore you should register the music anyway, and the Writers' share is 100% yours.



Daryl - are you sure that buyout in this case means that Michal's contract says that he gets a sync fee and NOTHING else? B/c usually, a buyout means that:

1) The production co. has exclusive rights to this music (composer can not do anything else with the music, at least not w/o permission)
2) The composer is paid x-$ in sync fee
3) The production co. keeps 100% publishing
4) The composer keeps 100% writers

There are however, always variants. Michal, what does your contract say?


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## Jeremy Spencer (Apr 20, 2018)

Daryl said:


> If you are a PRS member, and they administer the rights for the territory you are talking about, it is illegal for you to do a buyout. The most that you can give away is the Publishing. Therefore you should register the music anyway, and the Writers' share is 100% yours.



Hmmmm, not sure I agree with that. The last film I did, the music was a buyout. They now own the publishing and full ownership (which is typical, no?).


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## Daryl (Apr 20, 2018)

Wolfie2112 said:


> Hmmmm, not sure I agree with that. The last film I did, the music was a buyout. They now own the publishing and full ownership (which is typical, no?).


It doesn't matter whether you agree or not. It's a fact. If you are PRS member, you should have read the T & C before you joined. If not, it doesn't apply to you.


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## Daryl (Apr 20, 2018)

RiffWraith said:


> Daryl - are you sure that buyout in this case means that Michal's contract says that he gets a sync fee and NOTHING else? B/c usually, a buyout means that:
> 
> 1) The production co. has exclusive rights to this music (composer can not do anything else with the music, at least not w/o permission)
> 2) The composer is paid x-$ in sync fee
> ...



Not sure what you're asking, Jeff?


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## chrisr (Apr 20, 2018)

Daryl said:


> That's because you don't earn enough...! The big earners have their own PRS manager with a direct line.



Clearly I do not! When I open my distribution statement pdf a little animation of tumbleweed runs across the bottom of my screen... that's normal, right?


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## chillbot (Apr 20, 2018)

Daryl said:


> Not sure what you're asking, Jeff?


It's semantics, no? The composer just assumes a "buyout" means giving up their royalties when in fact it's often "work-for-hire" where you give up ownership but still retain 100% writer's royalties. Just because you sold the rights to the cue doesn't mean you give up royalties... I see a lot of confusion with this.


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## RiffWraith (Apr 20, 2018)

chillbot said:


> It's semantics, no? The composer just assumes a "buyout" means giving up their royalties when in fact it's often "work-for-hire" where you give up ownership but still retain 100% writer's royalties. Just because you sold the rights to the cue doesn't mean you give up royalties... I see a lot of confusion with this.



Yes, that ^

It can be a "buyout", whereas the composer still collects the writers share, no?

Unless the contract says that the production owns the pub AND the writers, which:

1) As you say Daryl is, AFAIU, illegal in the UK and/or in violation of PRS' TOS
2) A contract I would never sign - nor should any composer .... save for those who enjoy getting bent over the table and fucked.

Cheers.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Apr 20, 2018)

Sure, but if it never airs, or gets shelved, etc, you end up with nothing extra...and cannot use the music again anywhere else.


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## Daryl (Apr 20, 2018)

Wolfie2112 said:


> Sure, but if it never airs, or gets shelved, etc, you end up with nothing extra...and cannot use the music again anywhere else.


Correct, but you got paid to write it.


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## Daryl (Apr 20, 2018)

chrisr said:


> Clearly I do not! When I open my distribution statement pdf a little animation of tumbleweed runs across the bottom of my screen... that's normal, right?


For mere mortals, yes. Having said that, the days of the huge payouts are gone, for most people, I think. The market is so crowded and the actual income hasn't increased enough to match.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Apr 20, 2018)

Daryl said:


> Correct, but you got paid to write it.



Yes, which is cool. I just pity the fools that do it for "exposure" (been there, done that, got the t-shirt).


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## Daryl (Apr 20, 2018)

Wolfie2112 said:


> Yes, which is cool. I just pity the fools that do it for "exposure" (been there, done that, got the t-shirt).


Agreed. Anyone, aspiring to be a professional, who works for nothing must have an end date in mind, and a good reason for doing so. They must also realise that once they've worked for someone without payment, that person will never pay them in the future either.


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## JohnG (Apr 20, 2018)

RiffWraith said:


> Yes, that ^
> 
> It can be a "buyout", whereas the composer still collects the writers share, no?
> 
> ...



Yes But.

The "but" is that if you sign a "work for hire" with no other terms (not typical) you surrender ALL rights, including your right to the composer's share. While outrageous and maybe illegal, nevertheless it's not at all uncommon, sadly.

What Jeff is getting at, however, is the fairly typical practice of a composer contract doing some of the following:

1. Starts with the all-enveloping "work for hire" language. Often this is then added to with so-called belt-and-suspenders clauses (US terms -- not weird here...) that say more or less the same thing over and over: "We, the production company, own your output."

THEN...

...there will be something like, "notwithstanding the foregoing" or "notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein"

2. The production company concedes back to you the writer's share from the PRO,

3. The production company concedes to you some share of revenues from a number of ancillary sources: audio recordings / downloads, sheet music (ha), and sometimes other stuff.

So you have to be sure that the latter stuff does, in fact, get conceded back to you or you will have an uphill battle on it. Even if the law as passed by a legislature is clear on this, case law (judicial decisions -- where the rubber hits the road interpreting those laws) is not necessarily going to bail you out if you make a bad deal.

Good luck out there. You can always try substituting a "sync license" instead of this buyout stuff. Generally, a sync license allows the production company to use (synchronise) your music with the picture (and typically any trailer) for a fee. They also get to use your name and likeness, and they may want to be able to use the music without paying in any sequel. BUT, with a sync license you don't transfer copyright, you can sell the soundtrack if you want and you can reuse the material. 

And, since you own the copyright and the recordings, theoretically you also get the Publisher's share of royalties from the PRO, though that can be negotiated as well (they may want it and it's tough not to argue that they should get it if they pay you a fee and / or pay for recording costs). You can even reach a deal where they get listed as the publisher solely when the particular picture gets aired and you get the publishing after that, for anything else. 

There can be holdback periods as well, and other terms with sync licenses, but they are still less onerous typically than work for hire.

It's sometimes possible to use a sync license if the money is terrible enough, but not usually (ever?) for a TV network or big studio, no matter how terrible the money is.

Kind regards,

John

PS -- Buy a book, if you want to really learn this stuff: This Business of Music or check out ASCAP or BMI -- they have info on it too.


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## tsk (Apr 20, 2018)

To mangle Churchill's famous quote:

Never give up your writer's share, never never never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty, never give up your writer's share.

Once we give up sync and writer's share, production music for composers is finished.

P.S. I also recommend telling them you'll grant them a sync license, but you retain ownership. Make the license exclusive if you want, but for a decent $ amount.


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## JohnG (Apr 20, 2018)

tsk said:


> Make the license exclusive if you wan



I would avoid this unless there's a time limit (exclusive for, say, three years). Otherwise you are a bit stuck.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Apr 20, 2018)

JohnG said:


> Good luck out there. You can always try substituting a "sync license" instead of this buyout stuff. Generally, a sync license allows the production company to use (synchronise) your music with the picture (and typically any trailer) for a fee.



I have not been successful with this request, I always end up in "work-for-hire" category.


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## chrisr (Apr 20, 2018)

Daryl said:


> For mere mortals, yes. Having said that, the days of the huge payouts are gone, for most people, I think. The market is so crowded and the actual income hasn't increased enough to match.



I've been told by fellow writers that my current gig is something of a decent catch and I should expect to see pretty good back end. I'm three years, 60+ eps, 3 movies and some TVC's along the road with it now. Still early days perhaps. The (long-running 500+ eps) tv show and movies play on tv and cinemas worldwide, and the show is translated into more languages than I ever knew existed. Meanwhile, PRS log the cue sheets incorrectly and ask me what my "songs" are called ... I've looked at the cue sheets for old seasons of the show (from before I wrote for it) and they're kinda all over the place too, so I'm not filled with too much hope right now.

My experience with PRS is best summed up by the phrase "lets wait and see what comes through" which is usually uttered with a sense that I've just purchased a ticket for hook a duck... and by the following anecdote:

---------------------------

I went to an event that they ran a couple of years back. I had just completed my first series of the show then and wanted to make sure I was dotting all the i's and crossing the t's. Afterwards, as people were leaving I got chatting to "Claire"* who worked in the department that ingests cue-sheets. I should mention that I personally draw up the cue-sheets for the show, pass them to the production company, who pass them to the publisher, who pass them to the broadcasters, who pass them to PRS...

My question to her - "Is there a process of "best practice" for cue-sheets (file format etc...) that I can follow to make sure there are as few hiccups as possible down the line?" was met with a sheepish "ummn - not really, they're all a bit higgledy piggledy really... " - which I found to be a slightly worrying but disarmingly honest answer. Then she said - "but look - here's my direct email address, if you're really struggling with something drop me a line and I'll see if I can help."

"Brilliant!", I thought ... "these people are so helpful, we're bound to be able to sort out any potential issues fairly easily". Some minutes later I was talking to some other PRS reps, and happened to mention that 'Claire' had given me her direct contact details and how kind and helpful that was.... Cue shocked looks all round (i started to worry...) - "Oh that's weird" they said, "we really don't ever give out direct email details like that to members because we get swamped by requests...". A short awkward pause later, one of them said.. "Oh... Clare!! - That's right, she's got a new job, it's her last week next week!" - cue much laughter and knowing smiles all round. Oh how we laughed...

In the same conversation, another member mentioned that he had recently been incorrectly assigned the royalties of another members work (with a very similar title) - to which the initial response was "Ooh lucky you! - well we won't tell anyone if you don't! Nudge nudge" - once he realised they weren't joking, the member had to awkwardly but politely insist that it was looked at.

--------------------------------------
*not Claire *might have been .... *dunno.

Thus far, my opinion of them is really not stunningly great - although I appreciate very much what distribution money they have sent me - and I'm heartened to hear that some folks are assigned their own PRS manager. I'd be interested to hear the views of more senior PRS members like yourself Daryl (and anyone else who cares to chip in) as there are so many things about them that, to me, just seem so, so poor... Even more trivial things like, I can't for the life of me** understand why they're mostly based out of a massive, absolutely stunning state-of-the-art office in the heart of St Pancras rather than a nice cheap office out in Watford (granted, I know they also have that unremarkable office south of the river...) I don't really know why they produce that glossy members magazine - they're literally a monopoly - nobody needs to be sold on their service, we can't go anywhere else. I even object to that distribution ticker-counter on their member homepage that's designed to make you feel like you've won a lottery prize rather than just had your due royalties distributed! Imagine if banks did that sort of gimmick with their customers. I could go on at some length... but I'm sure everyone catches my drift. In my experience *so far* the PRS has been rather more mouth than trousers, as we say up north.

Honestly, I would love nothing more right now than for a bunch of PRS members to correct me in the posts below by pointing out how awesome PRS are/have been in their own experiences. It would make me very happy to hear it. I'm stuck with them after all for better or worse... I should probably just 'wait and see what comes through' and in the meantime read all about Emeli Sande in the magazine.

** I do actually understand why they're in amazing offices - but I think it's an appropriate metaphor for an organisation that seems to me to be big on style yet, so far for me at least, low on substance...


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## tsk (Apr 20, 2018)

chrisr said:


> I've been told by fellow writers that my current gig is something of a decent catch and I should expect to see pretty good back end. I'm three years, 60+ eps, 3 movies and some TVC's along the road with it now. Still early days perhaps. The (long-running 500+ eps) tv show and movies play on tv and cinemas worldwide, and the show is translated into more languages than I ever knew existed. Meanwhile, PRS log the cue sheets incorrectly and ask me what my "songs" are called ... I've looked at the cue sheets for old seasons of the show (from before I wrote for it) and they're kinda all over the place too, so I'm not filled with too much hope right now.
> 
> My experience with PRS is best summed up by the phrase "lets wait and see what comes through" which is usually uttered with a sense that I've just purchased a ticket for hook a duck... and by the following anecdote......



I can't help but laugh reading this, thinking of my own experience with PRS.

So how much do you have to make a year to have a direct line to a manager? Are we talking 100k, 500k? Glad to see they're looking out for all the little guys..

I've had some experiences with them that made me wonder if anyone there knows much about overseas royalties, cue sheets and so on.

After some years, and I know this sounds very defeatist, I decided to just leave it be and accept that there will be losses all over the place, and that it's part of the business. I try not to think about it too much. If there's a cue sheet on their system and I don't get paid for it, then I chase it up. Those should be simple, though the last one was anything but.


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## JohnG (Apr 21, 2018)

Wolfie2112 said:


> I have not been successful with this request, I always end up in "work-for-hire" category.



That's not necessarily bad; maybe your gigs are a lot better than some of mine have been!

To succeed with a proposal to work under a sync license instead of the typical work for hire, you have to be working on an independent movie (typically) with low pay.


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## MichalCielecki (Apr 23, 2018)

Hey everyone,



chrisr said:


> I'll assume I'm at 35,000 ft on my flying pig then.



You know, I was about to make some dick comment in response, because I am actually writing on behalf of my friend who is in the mentioned situation, but seeing your other post about your experience with PRS actually makes it more clear about where your reply comes from. However, why won't you consider changing your PRO if you are not comfortable with the PRS? 

Anyway, thank you everyone for your time! I think some consultation is needed with a lawyer here in Poland to see how all this information applies to Polish law in regards to the buyouts and PRO.

Cheers,
Michal


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## chrisr (Apr 23, 2018)

MichalCielecki said:


> Hey everyone,
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ahh - apologies! My flippancy wasn't meant to be a put-down against you, which I hope you can see. I was being flippant because of my exasperation with PRS. I can totally see how you might read it like that though.

Unfortunately there is no other uk PRO for me to switch to. They have an absolute monopoly (well I think there may have been a specifically Welsh PRO startup a few years back but no serious contender...) 

It might well be that the field of performance rights administration is completely fraught with insurmountable obstacles (I'm sure it is) and that PRS perform amazingly well in very many areas of operation regarding championing the concept of artists rights worldwide etc...and generally perform better or comparably well in comparison to other PROs worldwide, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that they might well do. I applaud their research (Blockchain technology in rights management, anyone?) and campaigning work - all seemingly great. But, really, the front line staff that I have encountered so far have been apparently poorly motivated and ill equipped, and my experiences with their web-portal etc... have been equally underwhelming. I long for the day when I get assigned a PRS manager like Daryl has - maybe things will get a lot better then. Perhaps that might happen in the coming years with a bit of luck. Will be sure to report back if so.


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## Daryl (Apr 23, 2018)

chrisr said:


> I long for the day when I get assigned a PRS manager like Daryl has - maybe things will get a lot better then. Perhaps that might happen in the coming years with a bit of luck. Will be sure to report back if so.


Ah, no. I don't have a personal manager. Just a friend of mine did a few years ago. However, when his PRS fell below £250K, they dumped him...! I have no idea what the threshold is these days. I just know what it's not.


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## chrisr (Apr 23, 2018)

ah, my bad...


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## SillyMidOn (Apr 24, 2018)

chrisr said:


> ah, my bad...


What I am slightly confused about (apologies if I missed something in the thread) is that you say that "the PRS logs the cue sheets incorrectly". What do you mean by that? The PRS itself doesn't create cue sheets, someone involved in the production of the show does, and that could be the composer (though if there is other source music involved it is then a real pain to sort out the correct information for pieces that aren't yours).

It sounds to me like you need to sort out with your production company that the cue sheets are in order first, the PRS can't be held responsible for errors with them. You can get involved in sorting out the sheets yourself (though it is boring as hell), and you can submit your own cue sheet to the PRS, though they don't like that as it obviously causes conflicts in their database.

The PRS are correct in that there is no one correct format for cue sheets, if you go to different PRO societies around the world they all have their own non-binding templates. The important thing is that all the important info is on there, off the top of my head: name/episode of show, air date, channel, contact info/production company, cue title, length, time in/out, usage type (background instrumental, featured instrumental, etc), composer info, publisher info

Looking to foreign royalties you can look at:

https://www.kobaltmusic.com/services/neighbouring-rights

...though you need to get the cue sheets in order first.

I keep meaning to look into this myself.

Hope that helps.


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## chrisr (Apr 24, 2018)

SillyMidOn said:


> What I am slightly confused about (apologies if I missed something in the thread) is that you say that "the PRS logs the cue sheets incorrectly". What do you mean by that? The PRS itself doesn't create cue sheets, someone involved in the production of the show does, and that could be the composer (though if there is other source music involved it is then a real pain to sort out the correct information for pieces that aren't yours).



Yes, I personally create the cue sheets for the show. I send them to the production company to check. They send them to the publisher and they go out to the broadcaster, who are the ones responsible for logging them with PRS.

PRS "create" the cue sheets in so far as they are responsible for _ingesting_ the information to their database (arguably the most crucial bit of all this) which as far as I can ascertain, is where the problems are occurring.

PRS want to tie each cue to a registered track on their database, with an associated work number/tunecode. Because there are many hundreds of cues across the episodes, all sounding completely different, the cues are all assigned to a generic/dummy "track" for the show, which is a default 3 minute track on their database called "The show: cues" (or similar) and then the name of every cue becomes that dummy track for the purposes of their copy of the cue sheet. The track lists me as having the writers share of the performance royalties, the publisher (on behalf of the production company) as the other 50% and the production company to have the mechanicals.

The first problem is that they often randomly assign cues to OTHER tracks, for other projects that I've written, meaning that whilst I will see some money, the production company will not. I'm sure that will be a problem at some point. I think this happens because whoever is entering the data is simply selecting a track from the first page of my registered tracks with PRS, instead of taking the time to browse to the correct dummy track for these episodes - so the "Work Number/tunecode" as PRS call it, is incorrect.

The next problem is that some cues are not assigned other information like "Interested Parties/Mebership numbers"- the cue shows up on the cue sheet with a name and the correct duration info, but the rest of the row is left completely blank - no interested parties/work numbers etc...

The next problem is that broadcasters are not consistent with their allocation of "Episode Number" - which seems to be "as broadcast". The production company allocate each episode a unique number as the episode number, currently from 1 - 550 or so, but when cue sheets are logged at PRS, the episode number is based upon the series and the broadcast order, so an episode that might have been number 320, and happened to be the 14th episode broadcast in series 11, becomes 1114. Not seemingly too big a problem, except that cue sheets at PRS are clearly logged by both the major uk broadcaster, and then also by some other cable/streaming services as well - meaning that duplicates are rife - and the episode numbers often don't match. Fortunately the episode names usually do so there is a route to debug things, but it's a pain. Goodness knows how it affects matching up cue-sheets with reporting from 50-100 oversees territories!!

Other than that, there are many simple typos that again make things hard to chase/trace.

There have clearly been problems for some time now because when I look at older cue sheets (for episodes that I didn't work on) - they start out immaculately well prepared (many years ago) - with lots of info, even listing key actors etc... Then in more recent years (again, not my eps...) the obviously had a period of just lumping all the cues together in one big entry - so an episode will just contain one cue that is the total music duration and not much other info. 



SillyMidOn said:


> It sounds to me like you need to sort out with your production company that the cue sheets are in order first, the PRS can't be held responsible for errors with them. You can get involved in sorting out the sheets yourself (though it is boring as hell), and you can submit your own cue sheet to the PRS, though they don't like that as it obviously causes conflicts in their database.



As you may gather from the above, I have very much been involved in that. I would disagree with you that the PRS can't be held responsible though. My feeling is very much that the errors were/are occurring at that last point in the chain, and also occurring because of a lack of leadership from PRS on the issue. I've had some interesting conversations with PRS staff where I've been told things like "it's not possible for you to have created the cue sheet, only the production company can do that" with no comprehension that I might have been asked to do it on behalf of the production company.... and many other similar interactions which have lead me to believe that the general quality of information processing over there is low.



SillyMidOn said:


> The PRS are correct in that there is no one correct format for cue sheets, if you go to different PRO societies around the world they all have their own non-binding templates. The important thing is that all the important info is on there, off the top of my head: name/episode of show, air date, channel, contact info/production company, cue title, length, time in/out, usage type (background instrumental, featured instrumental, etc), composer info, publisher info



Quite. But wouldn't it be sensible to develop some more specific standards (for PRS members at least) for cue sheets, to try to minimise errors?

There is often a misunderstanding about this request. What I'm asking for is not a verbatim list of what should be on a cue sheet, but a process of _best practice. _

What I would like PRS to do in answer to that question is create something universal, like a googledocs template, that anyone with a browser can use, or a regularly updated blank .xls template that can be downloaded from their website and filled in. Something that aims to lock-in the format of the document, that all parties have to get on board with and therefore reduces the sorts of human-errors that are clearly creeping into the system as a result of their current ingest process.

As things currently stand it's requested by the production company that I generate the cue sheets as a table in a word .doc (!!) - and I have enough experience of document transfer to know that that's absolutely asking for trouble further down the line. I would love it if PRS demanded that all data submissions be in at least .xls format, but they don't even do that. - To quote the rep I talked to "it's all a bit higgledy piggledy really..."

There's no excuse for PRS not to be leading from the front on this. It would be easy for them to make some very specific recommendations and standards for cue-sheet formating (for example using a particular Googledoc template or an .xls). That they don't/won't is poor form. All they have available is a PDF of a sample cuesheet - which is one step up from posting a photo of one!

If we were still working with paper, their approach would be entirely satisfactory.




SillyMidOn said:


> Looking to foreign royalties you can look at:
> 
> https://www.kobaltmusic.com/services/neighbouring-rights
> 
> ...



Thanks - I will take a look!

best,
Chris


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## SillyMidOn (Apr 24, 2018)

chrisr said:


> Yes, I personally create the cue sheets for the show. I send them to the production company to check. They send them to the publisher and they go out to the broadcaster, who are the ones responsible for logging them with PRS.
> 
> PRS "create" the cue sheets in so far as they are responsible for _ingesting_ the information to their database (arguably the most crucial bit of all this) which as far as I can ascertain, is where the problems are occurring.
> 
> ...


Wow, ok that sounds like an unholy mess. I do apologise, I assumed incorrectly that the problem was occurring at the creation point of the cue sheet, but it does sound like someone at the PRS is being very lazy when entering the data into their database from your cue sheet. Might it be easier to not use the dummy tracks, but instead send in a ridiculously accurate cue sheet with each separate cue entered and registered? It might force their hand, though then again as they haven't bothered even entering the dummy track correctly they might look at the long cue sheet and go "nah, let's just use on track of his for everything" - as seemingly they have been doing.

Yes I agree, uniform .xls cue sheets round the world would be better, I never found one I liked, so I created my own by adapting some existing ones.

I have, during my odd dealings with the PRS also come across the lethargy you mentioned, and I think there could be a systemic issue, in that the PRS hold a virtual monopoly, make tons of money, and that can breed complacency. Like yourself I've been to AGMs (two, many years ago) and couldn't help but feel that it's a bit of an old boys club. Anecdotally, on one of those occasions a boisterous member questioned Robert Ashcroft's pay package, to which the other members of the broad said we needed to pay that to attract his sort of talent, and Ashcroft said that he took a significant pay cut compared to his previous job at Sony (well, why did he leave, then?). I noticed that he was picked up by a chauffeur after the event. Hm.

You've probably also seen the email yesterday about the errors they uncovered in recent distributions. It often baffles me when I get several additional statements after the main one, and it doesn't give one a sense of confidence in the system as a whole.

I did hear a shocking story about cue sheets on a big UK radio show, but I am not at liberty to share this here in public, sadly, but it's one heck of a story.

Are you a member of Basca or the ISM, that they can maybe help/give advice?


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## chrisr (Apr 24, 2018)

I'm not a member of Basca, and I really should be. I was in the MU for a while and they gave me some good contractual advice when I needed it.

Yeah I read the email. It didn't read terribly well, but I really appreciated that there was acknowledgement/ownership of the problems, which is reassuring.

I've also seen people really lay-into PRS reps! I've cringed and actually felt very sorry for the reps because sometimes the most vocal members are the least capable of structuring a useful discussion. I think I'd absolutely hate to work for them and have to represent a bunch of pushy musicians, so I do sympathise with them a great deal.

Probably best that I don't know the radio story - I fear it would only feed my sense that I've sat in the nest of vipers that is the music industry!

best,
Chris

PS - @MichalCielecki - I'm sorry to have derailed your thread so much...


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## SillyMidOn (Apr 24, 2018)

chrisr said:


> I'm not a member of Basca, and I really should be.


Consider the ISM as well, as you get unlimited advice (maybe as ISM has more members?), whereas from what I remember with Basca, you can only get a certain restricted amount of time with a lawyer over the phone.


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## chrisr (Apr 24, 2018)

SillyMidOn said:


> Consider the ISM as well, as you get unlimited advice (maybe as ISM has more members?), whereas from what I remember with Basca, you can only get a certain restricted amount of time with a lawyer over the phone.


Oh I didn't know that, thanks!


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## bleupalmtree (Sunday at 2:01 PM)

JohnG said:


> Yes But.
> 
> The "but" is that if you sign a "work for hire" with no other terms (not typical) you surrender ALL rights, including your right to the composer's share. While outrageous and maybe illegal, nevertheless it's not at all uncommon, sadly.
> 
> ...


This is really good info here. Thank You


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## Be_Sharp (Sunday at 2:51 PM)

chrisr said:


> Yes, I personally create the cue sheets for the show. I send them to the production company to check. They send them to the publisher and they go out to the broadcaster, who are the ones responsible for logging them with PRS.
> 
> PRS "create" the cue sheets in so far as they are responsible for _ingesting_ the information to their database (arguably the most crucial bit of all this) which as far as I can ascertain, is where the problems are occurring.
> 
> ...


Sorry if I've missed something on the thread as I've only had time to skim read it but I would suggest you should just get an established publishing rights collection company to handle your royalty admin. It'll cost you a cut of your of your back end but will allow you to focus more on composition more than admin, which is priceless IMO. 

All the best


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## gsilbers (Monday at 9:28 AM)

JohnG said:


> The "but" is that if you sign a "work for hire" with no other terms (not typical) you surrender ALL rights, including your right to the composer's share. While outrageous and maybe illegal, nevertheless it's not at all uncommon, sadly.
> 
> What Jeff is getting at, however, is the fairly typical practice of a composer contract doing some of the following:
> 
> 1. Starts with the all-enveloping "work for hire" language. Often this is then added to with so-called belt-and-suspenders clauses (US terms -- not weird here...) that say more or less the same thing over and over: "We, the production company, own your output."


I think this important due to the increase use of royalty free music available and producers just expecting the same terms and lingo.
companies like epidemic sound getting away w not using PROs and making it seem it’s a simple Subscription and you get to use tons of music free w/o any hassle. Oh the hassle of copyrights and the irony of who bitches about dealing with copyrights.
So the work for hire for production companies might be interpreted like it’s their music they paid someone else to write but they keep all rights.


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## gsilbers (Monday at 9:34 AM)

Btw - I’ll make a new thread but I think sample developers should all be doing more about informing composers about this stuff.
There’s like 4 or 5 “big” companies that every composers who does any work for tv and film uses and of these band together to promote composers getting better royalties it would mean more money for them down the line.


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