# YouTubers making money from commissioning composers



## PeterBaumann (Feb 17, 2021)

Stumbled across this video about passive income and the relationship between composers and streamers. Pretty interesting - I wonder if we'll see more streamer-composer direct commissioning in the future.


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## Markrs (Feb 17, 2021)

I have to admit I don't fully understand how this works. His music is streamed via youtubers/twitchers so 1 listener = 40 streams do to the lenght of the live stream/video. But surely you don't get paid per watcher as they are not streaming it via spotify but via youtube or twitch. 

This isn't something I am considering, I am happy as a hobbiest just curious how this works.


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## gzapper (Feb 17, 2021)

So the guy is guy is getting rich by commissioning people to write generic music for him, he retains publishing and it looks like he must claim composer rights as part of his contract or else he'd be talking about the composers he commissioned making money. Yikes. Then as full rights holder he oks it for youtube and twitch so it doesn't get takedown notices and it gets plays with people looking for background music for their videos that they don't want to pay for or get rights for.


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## marclawsonmusic (Feb 17, 2021)

Interesting!


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## Markrs (Feb 17, 2021)

gzapper said:


> So the guy is guy is getting rich by commissioning people to write generic music for him, he retains publishing and it looks like he must claim composer rights as part of his contract or else he'd be talking about the composers he commissioned making money. Yikes. Then as full rights holder he oks it for youtube and twitch so it doesn't get takedown notices and it gets plays with people looking for background music for their videos that they don't want to pay for or get rights for.


I still don't understand who is paying, is it from youtube/twitch revenue that he gets a share? can't be via spotify as there is only the youtuber streaming that music via youtube/twitch. Still confused...


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Feb 17, 2021)

What a punchable face.


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## InLight-Tone (Feb 17, 2021)

Business is NOT as usual anymore. Youth is thinking OUTSIDE the box, and banking accordingly...


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## Rtomproductions (Feb 17, 2021)

gzapper said:


> So the guy is guy is getting rich by commissioning people to write generic music for him, he retains publishing and it looks like he must claim composer rights as part of his contract or else he'd be talking about the composers he commissioned making money. Yikes. Then as full rights holder he oks it for youtube and twitch so it doesn't get takedown notices and it gets plays with people looking for background music for their videos that they don't want to pay for or get rights for.


This guy gets it.

Free market's a bitch. Composers got paid what they wanted; dude figured out a way to make exponentially more $$$ with their product.

It's moments like these I'm glad I mostly do custom work. I feel for my brothers and sisters in the library game.


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## ok_tan (Feb 17, 2021)

clever guy


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## Manaberry (Feb 17, 2021)

He makes 30K a month with Spotify. He gets it.


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## sundrowned (Feb 17, 2021)

He's saying their average listener plays 40 songs per day and his service gets 1.2m plays per day. That's 30,000 streamers per day.

It doesn't seem to quite stack up.


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## Nate Johnson (Feb 17, 2021)

Who needs to peruse and spend money at a library house when you can just turn into one yourself...as an ‘additional’ revenue stream? CRAZY.


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## marclawsonmusic (Feb 17, 2021)

Smart guy, but sad that a lot of ignorant composers sold out their rights on the cheap to help him get there. He can't write music, but he is an artist on Spotify... pulling in $150K/mo.


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## gzapper (Feb 17, 2021)

marclawsonmusic said:


> Smart guy, but sad that a lot of ignorant composers sold out their rights on the cheap to help him get there. He can't write music, but he is an artist on Spotify... pulling in $150K/mo.


Yup, all his tracks are about 2 minutes long to game the system and get maximum plays as well.


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## mallux (Feb 17, 2021)

sundrowned said:


> He's saying their average listener plays 40 songs per day and his service gets 1.2m plays per day. That's 30,000 streamers per day.
> 
> It doesn't seem to quite stack up.


Doesn’t sound completely crazy... Twitch alone has over 1.6M unique streamers per day (see https://twitchtracker.com/ (twitchtracker)), and who knows how many YouTube live streams on top of that... it could well add up to 30k.


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## tc9000 (Feb 17, 2021)

wherever there's a "stream" (sorry) of bright-eyed enthusastic dreamers looking to make it big, there are always predatory hustlers preying on the herd. 

he is quite open about what he's doing, so fair play to him. people ya need to worry about generally dont share their approach.


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## Markrs (Feb 17, 2021)

gzapper said:


> Yup, all his tracks are about 2 minutes long to game the system and get maximum plays as well.


Noticed that as well


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## Nils Neumann (Feb 18, 2021)

so he buys songs from fiver, buys out the composers and releases the music under his name and cashes in? Is that really the system or did I miss something:o


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## el-bo (Feb 18, 2021)

Getting rich off the back of others? How novel!


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## christianobermaier (Feb 18, 2021)

> Is that really the system or did I miss something:o


That's the system. No hidden catches. Everyone is free to do this.


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## Heizenhaus (Feb 18, 2021)

Is it bad that I find this whole system disgusting?


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## asherpope (Feb 18, 2021)

Im always intrigued when these guys making 150k a month seem to operate out of spare bedrooms in their houses


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## Nils Neumann (Feb 18, 2021)

christianobermaier said:


> That's the system. No hidden catches. Everyone is free to do this.


I don‘t think this would be legal in the EU. No expert though


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## christianobermaier (Feb 18, 2021)

Heizenhaus said:


> Is it bad that I find this whole system disgusting?


Why is that ? I hazard a guess that envy is at least part of it. Let's look at it objectively:

- The guy found a niche with huge demand and pretty much no supply (How many of VI-Control's inhabitants would just have scoffed at the odd Twitch streamer asking them for cheap, bland elevator music they can put under their more or less interesting gameplay ?)
- I don't know him, but he might have spent the better part of the last ten years building his own streamer career which then put him in a position to a) recognize the demand stated above and b) use his profile as leverage to actually reach a sufficient amount of streamers with his offer.
- Composers selling their stuff for cheap on Fiver do so by their own free will. They could have just as well reached out to a million streamers, have them play their music on repeat and reap all the royalties. But they chose not to. Why, do you think, is that ?


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## chrisr (Feb 18, 2021)

this was an interesting read on the same subject. https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/12/21562372/twitch-soundtrack-riaa-music-youtube


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## christianobermaier (Feb 18, 2021)

asherpope said:


> Im always intrigued when these guys making 150k a month seem to operate out of spare bedrooms in their houses


That's how you remain relevant to your audience.


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## Arbee (Feb 18, 2021)

So, the question on my mind is "who is he actually pitching this video at?". Aspiring composers and bands keen to say "where do I sign up to get a piece of this?", or who? Don't get me wrong, folk like this tend to have superhuman energy and operate at warp speed, which I admire in many ways including their entrepreneurial disruptive approach. But, using the "too good to be true" cliche, I do reach for a few grains from my salt shaker when I watch these "wow" videos....

Edit: curiosity got the better of me. So he's Harris Heller, son of US ex-senator and businessman Dean Heller. Sounds like some good mentoring potential there!


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## mr (Feb 18, 2021)

Many questions can be answered by simply watching his video.

Super interesting to me:
- multiplier of daily listeners to actual streams in "Gaming background music" (apparently very high)
- he is not some kid putting up a bit of music and has overnight success, check out his YouTube/twitch output and subscriber numbers, so there definitely is a promotion platform
- composers are credited in Spotify as songwriters, so they prob receive PRO royalties. From what he says he gets the Spotify royalties (.37 cents/play) and publisher PRO royalties
- hardworking guy (again check out his output), inspiring entrepreneur
- he's a musician
- don't think he's the first doing this I think, I am no expert to the genre but I have heard of chillhop/chilled cow


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## asherpope (Feb 18, 2021)

christianobermaier said:


> That's how you remain relevant to your audience.


Ah it's an elaborate con to be relatable to his audience eh? Maybe it's a set dressed to look like an average room but has actually been constructed in a hangar within the grounds of his Xanadu esque mansion


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## GtrString (Feb 18, 2021)

He simply kept the rights to the music, and understand how to register the works correctly. That's what every musician should do.

Lesson; stop signing away your copyrights to libraries and publishers for nothing. Publish yourself, register properly with the rights organizations, promote and set up your income accounts.

That anyone would sell their rights to these people beats me. The money is in owning your masters.


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## PeterBaumann (Feb 18, 2021)

Markrs said:


> I still don't understand who is paying, is it from youtube/twitch revenue that he gets a share? can't be via spotify as there is only the youtuber streaming that music via youtube/twitch. Still confused...


I'm not 100% sure but I think he's potentially getting double earnings by a) YouTuber playing the playlist on Spotify (so $ from Spotify) and then b) they broadcast that audio over Twitch on their stream (which gives him ad money)? Not 100% sure on that though.

Rather than using something like Epidemic, he's cut out the middleman. Not sure how it's any worse than composers writing for stock sites and stock sites cashing in on usage - assuming that is what's happening here and composers are keeping some of their rights.


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## christianobermaier (Feb 18, 2021)

asherpope said:


> Ah it's an elaborate con to be relatable to his audience eh?


"relatable" was the word I was looking for, thank you .


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## MarkusS (Feb 18, 2021)

I think his business model is very characteristic of today's time. It seems to me it's close to the mentality of stock investments and traders, being more clever than the next guy, making quick money without being concerned about the lives of real people behind the products. 

So from what I understand, he commissions music on Fiverr as a work for hire (no copyright attached) and then streams it from Spotify or licenses it without any additional payout to the artists.

To reach the sum of 150k$ per month he needs massive amounts of music (since Spotify is notorious for paying very little to composers). Since he says he has invested something like 100k$ one can assume that he paid very little per music track and that these were probably (as it's often the case of Fiverr) produced in third-world countries.

I believe it's not very different from buying products cheaply made in Chinese factories and then selling them for high prices in first-world countries.

What amazes me is how many people congratulate him for his success like that's the way to go.

I'd be much more impressed with his business model if he redistributed the income to the composers.

Anyway, it's not a new business model since I believe Epidemic kind of works like this already.

I can confirm that this way of working would not be legal in Europe since the remuneration of artists has to be proportional to the gain from a work.


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## Yellow Studio (Feb 18, 2021)

MarkusS said:


> Anyway, it's not a new business model since I believe Epidemic kind of works like this already.
> 
> I can confirm that this way of working would not be legal in Europe since the remuneration of artists has to be proportional to the gain from a work.


Are you saying that it's not legal for European artists to offer their services on Fiver or to buy services from Fiver?
Epedemic is legal and is from Sweden.


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## JEPA (Feb 18, 2021)

Could someone explain the chain please? Is it like follow?

1) Streamer uses music from this guy via Spotify in his Twitch/YouTube stream
2) YouTube claims
3) this guy/“act as publisher“ allows music being used in stream removing YouTube’s claim, because...
4) streamers are using music through Spotify generating revenues to this guy as 100% publisher and maybe 50% composer rights 
5) cashing money, deal is done

Is it like this?


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## MarkusS (Feb 18, 2021)

Yellow Studio said:


> Are you saying that it's not legal for European artists to offer their services on Fiver or to buy services from Fiver?
> Epedemic is legal and is from Sweden.


Maybe it's different in Sweden - I mostly know about France and Germany - but the payment has to be fair and proportional to the gain.

So, of course, you can say, I will write music for 5$ and give someone all the rights to it (except the copyright which you cant cease in Europe).

That is fine - as long as no one goes to trial about it.

However, IF the person you made the music for makes 100k $ using it you CAN go to trial and win (even if you agreed to something else before). I know of several copyright lawsuits in Europe where it happened.

Now, this cannot happen in the US (or countries with similar copyright laws) because if the music was "made-for-hire" there is no copyright attached to it.


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## Manaberry (Feb 18, 2021)

JEPA said:


> Could someone explain the chain please? Is it like follow?
> 
> 1) Streamer use music from this guy via Spotify in his Twitch/YouTube stream
> 2) YouTube claims
> ...



Yep. You almost got it.

Buy the music at a low cost on Fiverr or something similar like "work for hire".
Get all the royalties and rights as people are just looking for a few bucks.
Add the tracks to a highly followed playlist he owns on Spotify.
Get a huge boat and some cocaine.


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## Nils Neumann (Feb 18, 2021)

If you check out one of his Spotify playlists, you can see that he is credited as the artist for every song.

To me, that's just sick. Legal in the US? Maybe. Morally questionable? Definitely!


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## Yellow Studio (Feb 18, 2021)

MarkusS said:


> Maybe it's different in Sweden - I mostly know about France and Germany - but the payment has to be fair and proportional to the gain.
> 
> So, of course, you can say, I will write music for 5$ and give someone all the rights to it (except the copyright which you cant cease in Europe).
> 
> ...


Thanks!
That's interesting. A composer in Europe (France Germany) can't work/compose for hire? Am I right?
I thought that had to do with if you're with a PRO or not.
In Sweden a composer can sell their rights to Epedemic if they're not with a PRO


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## el-bo (Feb 18, 2021)

christianobermaier said:


> I hazard a guess that envy is at least part of it.


Envy? Really? Can only speak for myself, but I'm not envious of the kind of person who'd do something like this, and it not be for the benefit of *EVERYONE* involved. 

Were it me who conceived the plan, I'd be approaching musicians to provide the music on the basis that they'd receive a payout proportional to the amount of tracks submitted. And without having to get into any workings-out, and to be very crude: If 149 composers each submitted one track each, and 150k was earned, then each composer would be entitled to 1k of that money. Naive in it's simplicity, f'sure, but you get the kind of approach I am going for.

In an age where tech allows the democratisation of music and the literal ability to "Seize the means of production!"...and output, why anybody should be celebrated for shitting on artists like this is beyond my comprehension. Is a passive income of 1k, for doing pretty much f*ck all (It's called passive for a reason) not enough?


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## JEPA (Feb 18, 2021)

Manaberry said:


> Yep. You almost got it.
> 
> Buy the music at a low cost on Fiverr or something similar like "work for hire".
> Get all the royalties and rights as people are just looking for a few bucks.
> ...



What is the part I didn’t got apart from buy “music for hire”? Thank you in advance, sincerely interested in knowing how to fight the beast...


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## MarkusS (Feb 18, 2021)

Yellow Studio said:


> Thanks!
> That's interesting. A composer in Europe (France Germany) can't work/compose for hire? Am I right?
> I thought that had to do with if you're with a PRO or not.
> In Sweden a composer can sell their rights to Epedemic if they're not with a PRO


Well, it's a bit more complicated.. in Sweden, you can't do work for hire either. It's against European copyright law. Epidemic is also obligated (as everywhere else in Europe) to credit the composer's name as author and they don't respect it either.

Now it's important to understand, that even if it's necessary to pay the composer "fairly" in Sweden, it's not like the police or the state will go after them if they don't do so. It's the composer's obligation to file a lawsuit, hire a lawyer, prove his case. So as long as no one goes against it, these agreements are not attracting any attention and continue to exist.


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## fourier (Feb 18, 2021)

Sorry if this is a newbie question, but there's no safeguard for the creative work/artist craftmanship for composers? If you sell your music, it can be released under the name of any type of smartass for monetary gain? There's no requirement to highlight the creative content? 

I can see how artists can sell music for onetime-fees but that it can be part of their portfolio, but this feels like taking ownership of the creative content, not just the distribution rights.


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## Daryl (Feb 18, 2021)

Yellow Studio said:


> Thanks!
> That's interesting. A composer in Europe (France Germany) can't work/compose for hire? Am I right?
> I thought that had to do with if you're with a PRO or not.
> In Sweden a composer can sell their rights to Epedemic if they're not with a PRO


Yes it's the same in the UK, but the only people who aren't PRS members are amateurs, and any of the amateurs who are any good, would be PRS members, so it's a small pool.


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## Consona (Feb 18, 2021)

This gives me some serious Karl Marx flashbacks.


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## MauroPantin (Feb 18, 2021)

I had something kind of similar happen to me about 2 years ago, just not legitimately. I used to have my demo reel on my website. One day, watching a stream, I found my music playing in the background. Did a little research. Turns out a guy had done this very thing by ripping my demo reel cues, and "licensed" the tunes to several people on YouTube. Since I am a nobody I doubt I was the only victim of this.

Needless to say it was a complete mess for me. Some of those cues had exclusive licenses attached to them, which meant that I was in breach of contract with my legitimate customers who were in posession of those exclusive licenses. Not only that, but after contacting my clients the only plausible resolution I could find for them was to put those tracks under ContentID. Which in turn created new issues for them, some were slapped with a copyright notices and all kinds of BS.

So now I have no reel on my website, because I have never been able to secure the content in such a way so as to make it a bit harder to steal. I've been working on that for the 8 months, since corona hit. Took advantage of the downtime to learn a bit and I'm basically programming an audio player from scratch for the site, which is an absolute PITA and cost prohibitive in terms of ROI if commissioned to somebody else.

Still, it's a bit different. This guy is just gaming the system, he's not doing anything illegal per se. But it doesn't sit right with me. At the same time, on the other end of the deal you have a bunch of composers that don't know the value of what they create, so I'm sure he's going to be able to do this for a long time with superb financial results for him.


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## gzapper (Feb 18, 2021)

Nils Neumann said:


> If you check out one of his Spotify playlists, you can see that he is credited as the artist for every song.
> 
> To me, that's just sick. Legal in the US? Maybe. Morally questionable? Definitely!


Well, he can claim to be the performing artist even if he isn't but his contracts say its ok. But I don't think you can do that as composer. Someone else mentioned that he is crediting composers, but its unclear, and that would be the trouble area if he wasn't.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 18, 2021)

How are you guys not getting this?

Let's start with the guy himself: Harris is a Tech YouTuber/Streaming, meaning he usually does videos and streams about new tech and testing out new gear; microphones and gaming gear mostly. He's been streaming for a while but just recently took off and his YouTube has been booming.

He has some form of background relating to music, not sure what but I do belive he was trying to become a producer. He sings and writes his own stuff as well if I'm not mistaking.

The whole idea for his channel is to answer peoples questions about gear and streaming and has lately expanded to talk more about his future prospects ever since he got some money coming in. He and his wife had been living pretty sparsely while he tried to get his streaming and youtube career going. His plan now is to reinvest all the money into making more money by building a whole new company that focuses on music. Apparently it's going to be a record label and a place to record and produce.

Now to the dilemma at hand.

Harris commissioned a multitude of producers to produce music in all kind of genres for him (he paid out of pocket that's why he's spent around $100k so far on this), real generic stuff that plays nicely without really grabbing anyone's attention. Most likely he made sure that he would retain all the rights to the music - shouldn't be too hard as most people on Fiverr are willing to just give their music away for pennies - and then he can stream it, re-sell it, and do whatever he wants with the music.

I don't really see the problem in that. If they feel good about giving away a 2min track for $50 - $200 then that's on them. Sure, I still hate that people keep diluting and lowering the intrinsic value of the music market as a whole, but hey, there's not much to do about it in a free market.

He didn't talk too much about if the producers get anything moreover what he actually paid for the commission (or I missed it), but I don't believe they do. Being as open as he is with his plans makes me think that if he did pay them big royalties or split it between them, then he would have included that.

Is this legal? I don't know. Had I been the producer I would not agree to something like this, I always try and retain as much of the rights as possible, especially for cheaper projects.

Here's how he makes money: Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music. He doesn't claim anyone's video because that would defeat the whole point. His music I copyright free and can be used without the fear of being copyrighted by an algo. And since streamers stream for 4-8h a day they usually play music quietly in the background during the whole stream that's why he gets ca 40 song plays per listener, instead of the usual 1 - 2 a day from normal listeners. Then the music streaming platforms pay him for the streams.

A really simple idea in a market with huge demand right now, a smart execution, and he had the underlying platform to market it (not sure if he did or not) to get it off the ground, and it will only get bigger.


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## davidson (Feb 18, 2021)

The guys a complete d!ickwad, whether he's playing within the law or not.


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## Daryl (Feb 18, 2021)

It doesn't matter why, or how much he put into it. He's ripping off composers.


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## el-bo (Feb 18, 2021)

MauroPantin said:


> I had something kind of similar happen to me about 2 years ago, just not legitimately. I used to have my demo reel on my website. One day, watching a stream, I found my music playing in the background. Did a little research. Turns out a guy had done this very thing by ripping my demo reel cues, and "licensed" the tunes to several people on YouTube. Since I am a nobody I doubt I was the only victim of this.
> 
> Needless to say it was a complete mess for me. Some of those cues had exclusive licenses attached to them, which meant that I was in breach of contract with my legitimate customers who were in posession of those exclusive licenses. Not only that, but after contacting my clients the only plausible resolution I could find for them was to put those tracks under ContentID. Which in turn created new issues for them, some were slapped with a copyright notices and all kinds of BS.
> 
> ...


Have you thought about audio-watermarking the music reel?


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## MauroPantin (Feb 18, 2021)

el-bo said:


> Have you thought about audio-watermarking the music reel?


Don't know why the laughing reaction. It was a pretty brutal and miserable experience and I spent months dealing with the fallout of that. 

But anyway, yes, I considered that. Did not do it because there are workarounds to it, like using RX to remove watermarks (ask any composer on AudioJungle or similar places, this has happened as well). It also ruins the mood of the listening experience. Another option was not posting cues in full length, but the idea displeases me for the same reason, it's not a great listening experience for a prospective client. 

I recognize I may be overly zealous and very particular about how I want it, but I've spent a good chunk of time thinking about this and since I am not willing to compromise on those things I believe the path I've taken to be my best option. Also, I've been doing quite OK for almost 2 years with no reel posted, so I'm in no rush.


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## el-bo (Feb 18, 2021)

MauroPantin said:


> Don't know why the laughing reaction. It was a pretty brutal and miserable experience and I spent months dealing with the fallout of that.
> 
> But anyway, yes, I considered that. Did not do it because there are workarounds to it, like using RX to remove watermarks (ask any composer on AudioJungle or similar places, this has happened as well). It also ruins the mood of the listening experience. Another option was not posting cues in full length, but the idea displeases me for the same reason, it's not a great listening experience for a prospective client.
> 
> I recognize I may be overly zealous and very particular about how I want it, but I've spent a good chunk of time thinking about this and since I am not willing to compromise on those things I believe the path I've taken to be my best option. Also, I've been doing quite OK for almost 2 years with no reel posted, so I'm in no rush.


Sorry! Went back and corrected it. I meant to chose the 'Wow' option, but for whatever reason the popup doesn't stay on-screen when using a Wacom pen. So, to clarify, I was expressing and exclaiming shock at the shit-ness of your experience. Friends?

I hadn't thought about the ability to remove watermarks, and having RX I'm surprised it could be done completely without artefacts. Maybe...Also, I wonder if there could be a way of using short clips and then sending the full reel to anyone who legitimately shows an interest. 

Anyway, just thinking aloud. You have to do what makes you feel confident. but it should stand as a warning to the rest of us.


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## Nils Neumann (Feb 18, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> How are you guys not getting this?


That’s not the point. We get it (now). But it doesn’t make this right. Displaying yourself as the artist and sacking in the royalties while paying the creators pennies.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 18, 2021)

Nils Neumann said:


> That’s not the point. We get it (now). But it doesn’t make this right. Displaying yourself as the artist and sacking in the royalties while paying the creators pennies.


I was just replying to the comments about how this all worked, a lot of people (at least earlier in the thread) seemed to not understand and go around in circles discussing it. 

Never said anything about the morality of it.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 18, 2021)

Daryl said:


> It doesn't matter why, or how much he put into it. He's ripping off composers.


How?

The producer says, "I'm willing to produce a 2-minute track and give you total and exclusive rights to the track for $50", the buyer then says, "That sounds fine". They both are in agreement.

The transaction is concluded: the producer gets the money that he asked for and the buyer gets the track he paid for.

They both agree and both should be satisfied. Not knowing your value is not the buyer's problem, and what the buyer does with those tracks is not the producer's problem.

The only way I see this getting better is better understanding/education about contracts and the business as a whole, especially now with streaming getting bigger - or desaturating the market somehow. Neither is probably going to happen.

If you listen to the tracks they are not very high quality and probably took the producers 1-2h to make which for them might be a good hourly pay. Most of them probably even used one of those templates you can buy that are already setup for a specific genre to pump these tracks out. That's just speculating thought.


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## Stevie (Feb 18, 2021)

It really strikes me that, on a composer forum, these kind of practices are played down.
The guy is clever, no doubt, but he is doing that on the back of the composers.
Composers that are either new in the business or have no idea what the guy will do with their music.
Either way, this is pretty bad, period.


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## AudioLoco (Feb 18, 2021)

I congratulate the guy for being smart.
I also congratulate the guy for being a total dick. 

This is vomit worthy.


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## Fry777 (Feb 18, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> The whole idea for his channel is to answer peoples questions about gear and streaming and has lately expanded to talk more about his future prospects ever since he got some money coming in. He and his wife had been living pretty sparsely while he tried to get his streaming and youtube career going. His plan now is to reinvest all the money into making more money by building a whole new company that focuses on music. Apparently it's going to be a record label and a place to record and produce.


Thanks for your post, it sums up the situation nicely.

One thing though, this guy is not a self-made man that rose from nothing with just a clever/immoral idea to make a profit, he is the son of a multi-millionaire US senator who gave him money and helped his career quite substantially.
Not saying he doesn't put efforts to produce his numerous videos or manage his audience, but it's not a given he has ever lived "sparsely" in fact








Sen. Dean Heller’s Campaign Paid His Social Media Influencer Son More Than $50,000


The Republican senator's campaign gave the cash to his son to run its Instagram page and make Facebook and YouTube videos.




www.huffpost.com


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 18, 2021)

Fry777 said:


> Thanks for your post, it sums up the situation nicely.
> 
> One thing though, this guy is not a self-made man that rose from nothing with just a clever/immoral idea to make a profit, he is the son of a multi-millionaire US senator who gave him money and helped his career quite substancially.
> Not saying he doesn't put efforts to produce his numerous videos or manage his audience, but it's not a given he has ever lived "sparsely" in fact
> ...


I read that further up but didn't see the article, I had no idea.

Not sure what his background financially looks like, just relaying the information I've picked up along the way. In the video, he talked about his student debt and in another video he talked about buying the Blue Kiwi while in collage hoping it would be an investment, making it sound as if it was a lot of money for him. It's a $2,199 mic so seemed like a substantial amount of money.


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## rgames (Feb 18, 2021)

There's nothing immoral about it. This is the way 99.9% of the world works.

If you go to work for Apple or GE or Facebook or pretty much any company in the world they pay you up front and they put their name on everything you do and make vastly more money on your work than you do.

That's the deal. Deals between consenting adults are not immoral.

rgames


----------



## Mike Marino (Feb 18, 2021)

Fry777 said:


> Thanks for your post, it sums up the situation nicely.
> 
> One thing though, this guy is not a self-made man that rose from nothing with just a clever/immoral idea to make a profit, he is the son of a multi-millionaire US senator who gave him money and helped his career quite substantially.
> Not saying he doesn't put efforts to produce his numerous videos or manage his audience, but it's not a given he has ever lived "sparsely" in fact
> ...


I thought he made mention of his initial earnings being 50k - 60k in the video, no? 
This may possibly be what he was talking about though he didn't specify either way.


----------



## MauroPantin (Feb 18, 2021)

el-bo said:


> Sorry! Went back and corrected it. I meant to chose the 'Wow' option, but for whatever reason the popup doesn't stay on-screen when using a Wacom pen. So, to clarify, I was expressing and exclaiming shock at the shit-ness of your experience. Friends?


No worries, I should've assumed a misclick!




el-bo said:


> I hadn't thought about the ability to remove watermarks, and having RX I'm surprised it could be done completely without artefacts. Maybe...Also, I wonder if there could be a way of using short clips and then sending the full reel to anyone who legitimately shows an interest.



Removing those without artifacts is tricky, but it can be done to some extent. A shocking realization was trying it out myself on a few tracks, showing it to acquaintances and discovering that they couldn't notice stuff that seemed super obvious to me. If you don't regularly work with audio and are not looking for 'em they're hard to notice, I guess.

With the Pond and AudioJungle watermarks it is even worse. They provide the original isolated watermark for anyone to download, you can get it nearly perfect so it was not a surprise when I heard people managed to do it. RX dialogue isolation and music rebalance make it a breeze, particularly for instrumental tracks which are my bread and butter. To avoid that you would need a very "frequency wide" (ie invasive) watermark and I'm just not on board with that idea.

Using short clips and then a custom reel for clients is another option and a lot of people do that, but it creates a bit of friction. Basically, I want to make it as easy as possible for people to reach out having made a decision that they like what I do and that they want to work with me. I am always annoyed when websites don't show me the entire information I need to make a purchase decision, it turns me away, so I want to make sure that my clients don't have to go through that. Again, I know I am looking for a bit of a utopia here but hey, I got some time to browse 26 tabs with questions from StackOverflow during the weekends. At worst, I never finish 'cuz it's too hard to do it but I sure as hell will learn a ton of programming, can't hurt.


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## Daryl (Feb 18, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> How?
> 
> The producer says, "I'm willing to produce a 2-minute track and give you total and exclusive rights to the track for $50", the buyer then says, "That sounds fine". They both are in agreement.
> 
> The transaction is concluded: the producer gets the money that he asked for and the buyer gets the track he paid for.


Saying you wrote something, when you didn't, is ripping people off.


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## Daryl (Feb 18, 2021)

rgames said:


> There's nothing immoral about it. This is the way 99.9% of the world works.
> 
> If you go to work for Apple or GE or Facebook or pretty much any company in the world they pay you up front and they put their name on everything you do and make vastly more money on your work than you do.
> 
> ...


They don't write music. Different copyright rules


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 18, 2021)

Daryl said:


> Saying you wrote something, when you didn't, is ripping people off.


You've ever heard of ghostwriters? It's a whole business.

I've never tried this myself but can you add artists to Spotify without giving them any of the earnings from streams and can you add them even if they don't have an artist account setup for Spotify. I don't think he's trying to fool anybody, he even states it clearly in his video that he commissioned the music, that doesn't exactly feel like he's trying to hide it. And since he owns the music he can do whatever he wants with it.

Edit: There's is, just not under the directly "Artist" column in Spotify, I think that column only works for links to an artist page.


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## rgames (Feb 18, 2021)

Daryl said:


> They don't write music. Different copyright rules


Nope. It's all Intellectual Property. Aka ideas.

Whether it's a piece of music or a piece of a car or a piece of code doesn't matter.

You get paid up front to think it up and you turn it over to the company in exchange for some kind of payment. Then the company owns it and does with it as they please.

The composer world of retaining IP ownership in most cases is the exception, not the rule.

rgames


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## jonathanparham (Feb 18, 2021)

I watched the video after seeing the responses here. It seems he's being entrepreneurial although be it in a way I'm not crazy about. Ironically, I was just taking notes on indeprenuer.io's Spotify training and they were talking about curated playlists. There are ones labels privately own (modern payola to an extent), the algorithmic ones, and the user-created ones. Sounds like this guy has created a personal one, has so many users, and it's rising in the algorithmic engine of Spotify. Oh, to correct an earlier post, I have seen users reveal their online music earnings from Spotify say about $.0037 per stream depending on the country and paid or free subscriber. Definitely not $.37.
I don't think he's doing anything illegal. But as others have said; do your best to own what you create. You could do what he's doing legitimately but it's a lot of money and time to advertise and campaign for a playlist. Also, it's Spotify so you're talking about 1.5 million streams to earn $1850/month. I don't know about twitch, but I keep wanting to study the twitch creator camp stuff.


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## mr (Feb 18, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> He didn't talk too much about if the producers get anything moreover what he actually paid for the commission (or I missed it), but I don't believe they do. Being as open as he is with his plans makes me think that if he did pay them big royalties or split it between them, then he would have included that.



On Spotify, the songwriters are credited, you can actually find them on fiverr when you google their names (or producer tags).
Harris Heller is credited as the songwriter on some tracks as well, prob on the ones he wrote.
So if those fiverr producers are PRO members, they should receive songwriting royalties from their PRO.


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## Consona (Feb 18, 2021)

rgames said:


> There's nothing immoral about it. This is the way 99.9% of the world works.
> 
> If you go to work for Apple or GE or Facebook or pretty much any company in the world they pay you up front and they put their name on everything you do and make vastly more money on your work than you do.
> 
> ...


Just because businesses work like that doesn't mean it's not immoral.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 18, 2021)

mr said:


> On Spotify, the songwriters are credited, you can actually find them on fiverr when you google their names (or producer tags).
> Harris Heller is credited as the songwriter on some tracks as well, prob on the ones he wrote.
> So if those fiverr producers are PRO members, they should receive songwriting royalties from their PRO.


Is there any way to see if they are PRO members and receive royalties?


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## marclawsonmusic (Feb 18, 2021)

mr said:


> So if those fiverr producers are PRO members, they should receive songwriting royalties from their PRO.


That's encouraging. So that means he is making most of his money off the publishing.


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## Rory (Feb 18, 2021)

Watched the video but haven't read the comments. He's a packager, basically doing what K-Tel did a long time ago.

As far as I can tell, the point of the video is to raise his own profile and generate more buyers for his service. I wouldn't accept any of his factual claims at face value. It's all part of a sales pitch. On Twitter, he has 130,000 followers, and his @PlayStreamBeats Twitter account, opened last July, has 57,000. The video is just part of building the business. This thread, now four pages long, suggests that the video is working


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 18, 2021)

marclawsonmusic said:


> That's encouraging. So that means he is making most of his money off the publishing.


Honestly, I doubt it.

For one of the albums (a lo-fi type beat album of 30 tracks) the producer had three tiers, one where he "leases" the track, one where he creates a "custom non-exclusive" track, and one where he will create "Industry quality exclusive beat. Keep 100% of royalties.Completely tailored to all your requirements"

I guess the last one is the one Harris choose, it would be the one I would choose if I planned to do something like this. Even if Harris made more the producer still made ca $2,600 for those 30 2min beats.


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## marclawsonmusic (Feb 18, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> For one of the albums (a lo-fi type beat album of 30 tracks) the producer had three tiers, one where he "leases" the track, one where he creates a "custom non-exclusive" track, and one where he will create "Industry quality exclusive beat. Keep 100% of royalties.Completely tailored to all your requirements"


Did you see this on fiverr? Just curious where these specifics came from (unless I missed something).


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 18, 2021)

Rory said:


> Watched the video but haven't read the comments. He's a packager, basically doing what K-Tel did a long time ago.
> 
> As far as I can tell, the point of the video is to raise his own profile and generate more buyers for his service. I wouldn't accept any of his factual claims at face value. It's all part of a sales pitch. On Twitter, he has 130,000 followers, and his @PlayStreamBeats Twitter account, opened last July, has 57,000. The video is just part of building the business. This thread suggests that it's working


What is he selling? Are you talking about selling his brand because most everything else is free from what I've gathered?

He's been pretty big in the streaming and youtube community even before this.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 18, 2021)

marclawsonmusic said:


> Did you see this on fiverr? Just curious where these specifics came from (unless I missed something).


Yes, that's a direct quote from one of the producers Fiverr.


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## marclawsonmusic (Feb 18, 2021)

So we're back to composers selling out their rights and he retains both writer and publisher share. Ugh.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 18, 2021)

marclawsonmusic said:


> So we're back to composers selling out their rights and he retains both writer and publisher share. Ugh.


Not sure what you guys except?

Most do this from their bedrooms and are happy to make a few extra bucks while devaluing the whole market into the ground. Someone with a little bit of business sense will take advantage of that.

Most of the producers seem to have exclusive deals for commercial use, but it doesn't specify what that entails exactly. I would guess complete ownership of the ip.

I've been rejected more times than I can count because I had the audacity to want to get paid for my work, especially with smaller clients. And I'm usually pretty reasonable. But I won't sell my music for peanuts while keeping almost non of the rights, my time is worth more than that. Although, that mindset doesn't seem to be the norm. The reason they can reject me is because there will always be someone cheaper, and for a lot of people, that's all that matters.


----------



## Rory (Feb 18, 2021)

Rory said:


> Watched the video but haven't read the comments. He's a packager, basically doing what K-Tel did a long time ago.
> 
> As far as I can tell, the point of the video is to raise his own profile and generate more buyers for his service. I wouldn't accept any of his factual claims at face value. It's all part of a sales pitch. On Twitter, he has 130,000 followers, and his @PlayStreamBeats Twitter account, opened last July, has 57,000. The video is just part of building the business. This thread, now four pages long, suggests that the video is working





Jonathan Moray said:


> What is he selling? Are you talking about selling his brand because most everything else is free from what I've gathered?
> 
> He's been pretty big in the streaming and youtube community even before this.


He's selling music packages. Spotify, Apple, etc. are just collecting the money.

It isn't a new idea. It's basically what K-Tel did decades ago. Indeed, what he's doing isn't very different from what record labels do. If I understand the comments, the issue is that he may be purchasing all the rights to the music, but that doesn't change what the basic business model is.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 18, 2021)

Rory said:


> He's selling music packages. Spotify, Apple, etc. are just collecting the money.
> 
> It isn't a new idea. It's basically what K-Tel did decades ago. Indeed, what he's doing isn't very different from what record labels do. If I understand the comments, the issue is that he may be purchasing all the rights to the music, but that doesn't change what the basic business model is.


Selling as in? Because they are "free" for the end-user. Sure, the user buys the Spotify subscription that he then gets a small % of, so I guess that could be seen as selling them.


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## Rory (Feb 18, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> Selling as in? Because they are "free" for the end-user. Sure, the user buys the Spotify subscription that he then gets a small % of, so I guess that could be seen as selling them.


That _is_ selling music. It's just being done by subscription.


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## rgames (Feb 18, 2021)

Consona said:


> Just because businesses work like that doesn't mean it's not immoral.


True.

What makes it not immoral is the fact that it's an agreement between consenting adults.


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## el-bo (Feb 18, 2021)

MauroPantin said:


> No worries, I should've assumed a misclick!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Your reasoning makes sense, though I think you might be prepared to go well above what most of us would be capable of in finding the solution. If it can be done, I've no doubt you'll do it. 

All the best


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## patrick76 (Feb 18, 2021)

rgames said:


> True.
> 
> What makes it not immoral is the fact that it's an agreement between consenting adults.


Just because consenting adults agree to do something doesn’t exclude it from being immoral or unethical. I could come up with many ludicrous examples, but I’ll refrain so I don’t ruin the thread.


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## marclawsonmusic (Feb 18, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> Not sure what you guys except?


I am just bemoaning the fact that this has become more commonplace - and is becoming the 'norm'.

I am not criticizing a businessman for making a business deal. I just wish creatives were smarter and didn't give away their copyright for next to nothing. It sets a bad precedent for everyone else... more of the 'race to the bottom' thing.


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## el-bo (Feb 18, 2021)

patrick76 said:


> Just because consenting adults agree to do something doesn’t exclude it from being immoral or unethical. I could come up with many ludicrous examples, but I’ll refrain so I don’t ruin the thread.


Yup! No one would willingly pimp themselves out for a fiver, if they knew they could get paid their worth. Most do it because it's the only option they have. At the age of 46 I accepted a job that paid the equivalent of about $2.50 per hour, and had me working 80 hour weeks (12 hours, Monday-Saturday, with a half-day on Sunday). Did I need the work? Yup! Did I agree/consent to the terms? Yup! Was my need being exploited? Fuck yeah!


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 18, 2021)

marclawsonmusic said:


> I am just bemoaning the fact that this has become more commonplace - and is becoming the 'norm'.
> 
> I am not criticizing a businessman for making a business deal. I just wish creatives were smarter and didn't give away their copyright for next to nothing. It sets a bad precedent for everyone else... more of the 'race to the bottom' thing.


I agree. It's a sad path this industry is travelling down and the decision people make when they sell themselves short affects us all.


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## el-bo (Feb 18, 2021)

marclawsonmusic said:


> I am not criticizing a businessman for making a business deal.


But when the raw materials come via exploitation, perhaps we should (Just making a general point, from what you said; not having a go at you).


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## marclawsonmusic (Feb 18, 2021)

el-bo said:


> But when the raw materials come via exploitation, perhaps we should (Just making a general point, from what you said; not having a go at you).


I understand your point, and agree, but these composers do not feel exploited. In fact, they are probably happy for the crumbs they took for these side jobs.

The whole thing boils down to lack of education / awareness, and frankly just makes me sad... I feel powerless to do anything about it.


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## rgames (Feb 18, 2021)

patrick76 said:


> Just because consenting adults agree to do something doesn’t exclude it from being immoral or unethical. I could come up with many ludicrous examples, but I’ll refrain so I don’t ruin the thread.


That's true as well, especially when it's exploitation. But I don't see any evidence of exploitation.

Therefore, let consenting adults do what they want.

The "immoral" argument made by some in this thread appears to be the same one made by the religious right in the US with regard to gay marriage. "It's immoral and they just don't realize it. So we need to educate them."

No, it's not immoral if everyone agrees to it. Let them do what they choose without fear of someone else's opinion barring them from doing so.

That's what's happening so hooray for personal liberties.

rgames


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## Stevie (Feb 18, 2021)

rgames said:


> Nope. It's all Intellectual Property. Aka ideas.
> 
> Whether it's a piece of music or a piece of a car or a piece of code doesn't matter.
> 
> ...


That's for the US. On the other side of the pond it looks quite different.


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## Consona (Feb 18, 2021)

rgames said:


> No, it's not immoral if everyone agrees to it.


->



patrick76 said:


> Just because consenting adults agree to do something doesn’t exclude it from being immoral or unethical. I could come up with many ludicrous examples, but I’ll refrain so I don’t ruin the thread.





el-bo said:


> Yup! No one would willingly pimp themselves out for a fiver, if they knew they could get paid their worth. Most do it because it's the only option they have. At the age of 46 I accepted a job that paid the equivalent of about $2.50 per hour, and had me working 80 hour weeks (12 hours, Monday-Saturday, with a half-day on Sunday). Did I need the work? Yup! Did I agree/consent to the terms? Yup! Was my need being exploited? Fuck yeah!


Exactly. Just because you agreed on something does not make it moral.

Could you explain this analogy to me?:



rgames said:


> The "immoral" argument made by some in this thread appears to be the same one made by the religious right in the US with regard to gay marriage. "It's immoral and they just don't realize it. So we need to educate them."


Feels like even though it uses the same vocabulary, the core of those two things is very different.


Back to the main topic:
• You know, this is why I have a day job. So I don't sell my music for next to nothing. I really don't like this devaluation of music and composers and I certainly don't want to be instrumental in this whole trend.

Which leads me to another thing. Trying to be as best as possible, so when there's a talk about the money, I can ask for some reasonable amount, because what I do is not something generic every guy with a DAW and a funcional mouse can do. (Hope those guys are not better than that, because if they are and are selling their music cheap, then there you have the problem...)
And if that means I'll never make any money off of my music, so be it.

Maybe I'm naive or idealistic or stupid, but that's just how I see it.

• I hope composers will learn from this situation. That's the positive aspect of it. Seeing this and trying to adapt.
But on the other hand, that guy is just buying generic run-of-the-mill music, and does a very particular thing with it, dunno if this can work on some general scale and be applicable for some wider group of composers.


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## Stevie (Feb 18, 2021)

I gotta say: the fact alone that we are having this discussion here shows how fuxx0red this place has become.



rgames said:


> True.
> 
> What makes it not immoral is the fact that it's an agreement between consenting adults.


You have literally NO details about the contract whatsoever.
And the fact alone that contracts exist doesn't mean you can't get screwed. Hence, there are lawyers.
This is such a silly argument, really...


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## Arbee (Feb 18, 2021)

Isn't this really about "music as art" vs "music as commodity", just like photography, painting, pottery, cooking, architecture etc etc? 
The biggest issue as I see it is knowing (and being able to afford) which side of that fence you want to be on, and knowing the cost/benefit of that choice.


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## AlexRuger (Feb 18, 2021)

So, wait.

$150,000 per month in streaming royalties.
Focusing on just Spotify, which pays $0.00437 per stream: 150,000 / 0.00437 = 34,324,942 streams per month. _Thirty-four million. _His top five tracks all have over a million streams, but that's all-time, not per-month, so...eh? Not sure if I totally buy the $150k number, but moving on...
34,324,942 streams per month / 40 streams per streamer per day = 858,123 streamers using this music.
Assuming that it's _highly improbable _that he has literally _over half _of the world's streamers using this music -- his Spotify "monthly listeners" is as of this moment only 207,200, which in order to reach 34 million streams per month would require each and every one of them to listen 165 times _each, per month, forever _-- let's just go ahead and be generous and nudge that number down to a square estimate of 500,000 streamers (I'm essentially assuming that the other streaming services combined all add up to about his Spotify numbers).
I count 653 tracks on his Spotify. He says he invested $50,000 into these tracks, meaning he paid roughly $76 per song, with no copyright. Jesus. I mean, I'm listening to one now and he definitely gets what he pays for, but...I guess that's good enough for the intended application.
Someone please double-check my math because these numbers are ridiculous.

If these numbers are true, it's essentially a fancy, totally-legal version of Vulfpeck's "Sleepify" album. The $76-for-a-buyout thing is fucking shitty, but beyond that...*slow clap.*

Brilliant move, though I weep for the future of music royalties. He's bypassing the fact that Twitch doesn't pay royalties by simply encouraging the streamers to listen on a royalty-generating service (Spotify, etc), and then if those streams make it to YouTube and as long as the streamer gives him credit/show his permission in not striking down the video, he'll get a small slice from YouTube adsense. Utterly brilliant move to bypass the broken system and make it work for him.

But yeah this is the surest sign I've seen that the end is nigh.

PS the whole "everyone has the same 24 hours" made me throw up in my mouth. If you have a dishwasher and I don't, you have 15 more minutes per day than me. Apply that to literally every other thing that sucks up time/that you can pay someone else to do, and it becomes pretty clear pretty fast that no, son-of-a-Senator, we _don't _all have the same 24 hours. That phrase drives me fucking crazy -- it just chastises poor people for being lazy when they're anything but.

PPS this guy better start investing his third dollar in an AI service _fast _because bottom of the barrel lo-fi is the first thing that's gonna get swallowed up by it.

PPPS everyone stop arguing with rgames. He lives in a just-world Libertarian fantasy.


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## gzapper (Feb 18, 2021)

AlexRuger said:


> So, wait.
> 
> $150,000 per month in streaming royalties.
> Focusing on just Spotify, which pays $0.00437 per stream: 150,000 / 0.00437 = 34,324,942 streams per month. _Thirty-four million. _His top five tracks all have over a million streams, but that's all-time, not per-month, so...eh? Not sure if I totally buy the $150k number, but moving on...
> ...


Great analysis.
By the way, have you checked out AI royalty free music.
Its already there and they'll generate the tracks to your want.
The music makes this stuff look good, but its out there already.


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## kenose (Feb 18, 2021)

AlexRuger said:


> If these numbers are true, it's essentially a fancy, totally-legal version of Vulfpeck's "Sleepify" album. The $76-for-a-buyout thing is fucking shitty, but beyond that...*slow clap.*



That Vulfpeck album is the first thing I thought of when I saw this! It’s such an elegant exploit combining Twitch/Spotify— the specific way streamers utilize these playlists (just listening straight through 100-200 tracks) essentially successfully monetizes background noise.

It’s definitely ethically dubious taking the writers share from the producers. I bet if he let them keep writers share, he would probably still be making a good profit from this system.

EDIT: Also I wonder if your 40 streams per streamer per day underestimates the potential. If someone streams for 5 hours and plays through one of his giant playlists non-stop that would be ~150 listens if each track is two minutes. So I could see people generating absurd daily listens if they keep it on through 5+ hour streams. His numbers do seem insane though...


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## jonathanparham (Feb 18, 2021)

Well, it's not JUST Spotify. I'll have to rewatch but he's also talking youtube and twitch viewership.


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## rgames (Feb 19, 2021)

Consona said:


> Feels like even though it uses the same vocabulary, the core of those two things is very different.


Nope. Same argument.


----------



## denstrow (Feb 19, 2021)

As a composer who hasn't entered the world of library music yet, but is building a catalog for doing so, would making something like this - albeit with your own music - make more sense than going the library way? Since a library might just pay you 50-100$ per track for a buyout as a newcomer...whereas this way you can generate whatever income from Spotify/Youtube and also place the tracks in non-exclusive libs and earn money in other ways as well. Or is there a better alternative?


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## Daryl (Feb 19, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> You've ever heard of ghostwriters? It's a whole business.


Yes, it's both immoral and illegal.


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## Daryl (Feb 19, 2021)

rgames said:


> Nope. It's all Intellectual Property. Aka ideas.


Nope, different Copyright rules. This is a fact. You may not agree with it, but, nonetheless, it is a fact.


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## Nils Neumann (Feb 19, 2021)

denstrow said:


> As a composer who hasn't entered the world of library music yet, but is building a catalog for doing so, would making something like this - albeit with your own music - make more sense than going the library way? Since a library might just pay you 50-100$ per track for a buyout as a newcomer...whereas this way you can generate whatever income from Spotify/Youtube and also place the tracks in non-exclusive libs and earn money in other ways as well. Or is there a better alternative?


The big difference here, comparing you with this YouTuber, is that he has a massive audience on multiple platforms. I don't think you can pull this off on your own, without a big social media following.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

denstrow said:


> As a composer who hasn't entered the world of library music yet, but is building a catalog for doing so, would making something like this - albeit with your own music - make more sense than going the library way? Since a library might just pay you 50-100$ per track for a buyout as a newcomer...whereas this way you can generate whatever income from Spotify/Youtube and also place the tracks in non-exclusive libs and earn money in other ways as well. Or is there a better alternative?


Depends. There's a multitude of people posting their music on YouTube and Spotify and living off of that. A few probably even make bank. Some have tens- or even hundreds of thousands of subscribers. So it is possible, but might not be the most realistic. I only know of a few YouTubers that have that many subscribers and solely post music to their channels.

If you want to earn anything proper from Spotify you need a lot of plays and that might not be the easiest, especially with orchestral music/trailer music.

Selling your music for $50 - $100 per track with exclusive rights is cheap and I would advise against it, but I'm not the one valuing your music. You are, and your clients will base their price on your evaluation. Ones you get into selling your music for cheap you will be seen as cheap and it can be hard to break that cycle, especially trying to negotiate prices with the same client. It will also devalue the whole market if people start selling themselves cheaper and cheaper (its already been happening for the past decades) and will affect everyone.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

Daryl said:


> Yes, it's both immoral and illegal.


Is it?

The first google search I did said this, "Academic *ghostwriting* is not *illegal* because it does not violate any laws". Glancing through the different results seems like most kinds of Ghostwriting is still legal and might become illegal in the future, but isn't at the moment.


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## Daryl (Feb 19, 2021)

It all depends. If you are a PRS member, it is illegal.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

Daryl said:


> It all depends. If you are a PRS member, it is illegal.


What? Either it's illegal or it's not, right? Or do different laws apply to different people? Could you maybe post a link?


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## denstrow (Feb 19, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> Depends. There's a multitude of people posting their music on YouTube and Spotify and living off of that. A few probably even make bank. Some have tens- or even hundreds of thousands of subscribers. So it is possible, but might not be the most realistic. I only know of a few YouTubers that have that many subscribers and solely post music to their channels.
> 
> If you want to earn anything proper from Spotify you need a lot of plays and that might not be the easiest, especially with orchestral music/trailer music.
> 
> Selling your music for $50 - $100 per track with exclusive rights is cheap and I would advise against it, but I'm not the one valuing your music. You are, and your clients will base their price on your evaluation. Ones you get into selling your music for cheap you will be seen as cheap and it can be hard to break that cycle, especially trying to negotiate prices with the same client. It will also devalue the whole market if people start selling themselves cheaper and cheaper (its already been happening for the past decades) and will affect everyone.





Nils Neumann said:


> The big difference here, comparing you with this YouTuber, is that he has a massive audience on multiple platforms. I don't think you can pull this off on your own, without a big social media following.


I have no real following, but I am talking about making this sort of generic music and marketing it for background music for streamers, as he does, as opposed to more nuanced tracks. You could put some some ads here and there to advertise it, but yeah, it seems unrealistic to me to hit those streaming numbers. Obviously for tracks that are more suited to picture, you'd probably want to go a different route.

As per the 50-100$ per track, I'm talking about what I've gathered (from people in forums) that an exclusive library might pay for an unknown composer for his first few albums - I have no real experience pitching, so I don't know if that's the case, just what I've heard. I sure do hope it's more though!


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

The only things I find when googling it is you @Daryl... A lot of the results lead back to Vi-Control where you state that it's illegal and that PRS requires X% for the ghostwriter.

I don't think it's inherently illegal, I just think it's a breach of contract, which is illegal. I guess if you are a PRS member you have a standardized contracted you use when dealing with clients and in that contract it states certain criteria for royalties and whatnot, and if that is not followed then it's illegal because it's a breach of contract.

I've ghostwritten for friends before. They needed something done that they can't accomplish or don't have the time for and I step in and do it for them. I never get credited. You're saying I'm involved in illegal activities?


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## gst98 (Feb 19, 2021)

rgames said:


> If you go to work for Apple or GE or Facebook or pretty much any company in the world they pay you up front and they put their name on everything you do and make vastly more money on your work than you do.


All of those companies have 300K starting salaries, after a few years they are earning 500k+. The immoral part is exploiting for very little pay. Even companies (that aren't outliers like those) that pay less have to abide by minimum wages laws, labour laws etc

I mean, you literally just spelt out half of the forum user bases job. It's good that they know now.



rgames said:


> There's nothing immoral about it. This is the way 99.9% of the world works.
> 
> That's the deal. Deals between consenting adults are not immoral.
> 
> rgames



What are you talking about? So because there is slavery and exploitative child labour that produces a significant share of goods in the world, it makes it moral? or legal?


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

denstrow said:


> I have no real following, but I am talking about making this sort of generic music and marketing it for background music for streamers, as he does, as opposed to more nuanced tracks. You could put some some ads here and there to advertise it, but yeah, it seems unrealistic to me to hit those streaming numbers. Obviously for tracks that are more suited to picture, you'd probably want to go a different route.
> 
> As per the 50-100$ per track, I'm talking about what I've gathered (from people in forums) that an exclusive library might pay for an unknown composer for his first few albums - I have no real experience pitching, so I don't know if that's the case, just what I've heard. I sure do hope it's more though!


If you are in the music for money, it's going to be an uphill battle. Making money from music is for most people secondary and took them years to get there. So if you are asking what the best way to make the most money is going to be, I can't help you. There are many ways to make money from music, Harris way is one of them.

I'm not saying trying to make money from music is bad in any way - I think everyone should get paid for their work, but that being the focus when getting into music - or anything for that matter - might not be the best mindset for the long haul.

The YouTube route is going to be tough and so is the trailer house route, there's no easy way that I know of or everyone would be doing it.

Going the YouTube route and doing the same thing Harris is doing by yourself seems braindead, at least to me. Making whole albums of music that is so generic that it's for all intents and purposes interchangeable with each other and just stays in the background is not exactly what I like about making and creating music.

Then marketing that and making something different enough that people will gravitate towards your music instead of Harris (whos already got around 600 tracks in genres) would be difficult without a huge following, to say the least. To start earning money this way you would need a rather substantial library of music for streamers to mindlessly shuffle though while playing.

That's the problem (or not), a lot of people are okay with being paid $50 - $100 for exclusive rights and maybe that's what their music is worth, who knows, but it will devalue the whole market and saturate it with mediocre music either way. If I lowered my pricing and didn't care about getting paid a fair value for my work, I would have so much for work available to me. I would also make it harder and harder for me and others to make a living off of composing.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

gst98 said:


> All of those companies have 300K starting salaries, after a few years they are earning 500k+. The immoral part is exploiting for very little pay. Even companies (that aren't outliers like those) that pay less have to abide by minimum wages laws, labour laws etc
> 
> I mean, you literally just spelt out half of the forum user bases job. It's good that they know now.
> 
> ...


You missed one important part of his argument:



rgames said:


> That's the deal. Deals between consenting adults are not immoral.


Neither slavery nor child-labour is not in that category.


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## denstrow (Feb 19, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> If you are in the music for money, it's going to be an uphill battle. Making money from music is for most people secondary and took them years to get there. So if you are asking what the best way to make the most money is going to be, I can't help you. There are many ways to make money from music, Harris way is one of them.
> 
> I'm not saying trying to make money from music is bad in any way - I think everyone should get paid for their work, but that being the focus when getting into music - or anything for that matter - might not be the best mindset for the long haul.
> 
> ...


I though so too about his approach, I was just curious if it made sense to others for someone like me, who is essentialy starting out.

I'm not in it for the money, nor am I looking for easy money fast - but as a struggling professional musician (classical horn player, freelancing), I am looking for other ways to supplement my income, then, hopefully in 5-10 years, be able to live solely on my music and keep horn playing as a side gig (I'm 39, so the timing seems more or less right). Right now I mostly make music for fun, or do the occasional custom work (jingles, films, composing, arranging, remixing) for some extra cash, but I am working on a few albums with the intent to pitch to libraries and see what happens. I hear contrasting things about that world, so I guess the only real way to know is giving it a shot. I hope to make some initial money to invest in a few select pieces of gear and turning my house into a more "professional" home studio, where I can record myself and others for sessions and see how I can expand from there.


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## Stevie (Feb 19, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> What? Either it's illegal or it's not, right? Or do different laws apply to different people? Could you maybe post a link?


No, different laws apply to different countries. It is illegal in Germany, too.
When you create something (music, art, etc...), you are the author (Urheber).
The authorship cannot be transferred to someone else, as opposed to the US.
AFAIK this is the case in whole Europe.

You can transfer the “right of use” to someone else (publisher, broadcast station), but you will still be the author and have the right of “reasonable compensation” (angemessene Vergütung, UrhG §32).




__





§ 32 UrhG - Angemessene Vergütung - dejure.org


Urheberrechtsgesetz § 32 - (1) 1 Der Urheber hat für die Einräumung von Nutzungsrechten und die Erlaubnis zur Werknutzung Anspruch auf die vertraglich...




dejure.org





The camera man who shot ”Das Boot” sued the production company, because he wasn’t compensated reasonably: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/das-boot-cameraman-jost-vacano-900726

Funny, both contractors were adults...


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

denstrow said:


> I though so too about his approach, I was just curious if it made sense to others for someone like me, who is essentialy starting out.
> 
> I'm not in it for the money, nor am I looking for easy money fast - but as a struggling professional musician (classical horn player, freelancing), I am looking for other ways to supplement my income, then, hopefully in 5-10 years, be able to live solely on my music and keep horn playing as a side gig (I'm 39, so the timing seems more or less right). Right now I mostly make music for fun, or do the occasional custom work (jingles, films, composing, arranging, remixing) for some extra cash, but I am working on a few albums with the intent to pitch to libraries and see what happens. I hear contrasting things about that world, so I guess the only real way to know is giving it a shot. I hope to make some initial money to invest in a few select pieces of gear and turning my house into a more "professional" home studio, where I can record myself and others for sessions and see how I can expand from there.


You could always try and release a few "background" albums on Spotify and other streaming services and market them as copyright-free and see what happens.

If you are a classically trained musician that's a big plus and you could always do Fiverr if you get some simple equipment to record yourself at home. That would be my guess for the easiest way to make some extra money. Although, what I've seen on Fiverr are mostly exclusive rights and just an upfront cost and then you get nothing more. So if you are ok with that then that might be something to consider.

But the whole market is a minefield of traps and people trying to get the upper hand, taking advantage of each other, so be careful while trying to navigate it. I would still advice trying to keep as much of the rights as possible, especially if you're not really earning a lot from your work.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

Stevie said:


> No, different laws apply to different countries. It is illegal in Germany, too.
> When you create something (music, art, etc...), you are the author (Urheber).
> The authorship cannot be transferred to someone else, as opposed to the US.
> AFAIK this is the case in whole Europe.
> ...


Ah, yes, I can definitely see that being the case. I'm talking about the USA since that's where Harris is located at.


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## MarkusS (Feb 19, 2021)

Fry777 said:


> What? Either it's illegal or it's not, right? Or do different laws apply to different people? Could you maybe post a link


Ghostwriting is actually illegal in all European countries (to my knowledge), including UK, Germany, and France.

This has nothing to do with being a member of a PRO or not. The PROs don't make the laws but they can enforce them better than a single composer because they have huge budgets at their disposal and lawyers working for them.

Ghostwriting is illegal because you have to credit the composer (or author in general), it's written in the copyright law (you can simply consult it on the web as I did for Germany, I know from lawyers in France it's the same).

Now, once again, if NO ONE complains about it, nothing will happen. It's the composer who was working as a ghostwriter who has to do all the legal work and bring his case in front of a court (or work with his PRO to do so).

Edit: here is an interesting article on Epidemic's malpractice:

_"More importantly, SVT and Epidemic Sound are not respecting the right of attribution which grants authors the right to have their names attached to their works. This moral right of attribution is recognised at international level for decades and is an integrant part of Swedish law. The vast majority of EU Member States grant authors strong moral rights, providing for an unwaivable right of attribution, as well as a right to object to false attribution, a right to integrity, a right to protection of honor and reputation, as well as a right to withdraw the work from public access. The right of attribution does not only constitute a direct link between the author and his or her work but also secures the public’s interest in ensuring that our society knows, trusts and honors the creator._"

https://composeralliance.org/ecsa-strongly-condemns-the-malpractices-of-epidemic-sound/


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## Manaberry (Feb 19, 2021)

MarkusS said:


> Now, once again, if NOONE will complain about it, nothing will happen. It's the composer who was working as a ghostwriter who has to do all the legal work and bring his case in front of a court (or work with his PRO to do so).


Exactly.

But it's also so damn closed.
There is no margin to operate if you are not the one being ripped off. You can't even report music stealing if you are not the rights owner.

It's like not being able to go to the police to report a crime if you are not the victim. It's pathetic.
You can't protect your own people. You can only warn them.


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## gst98 (Feb 19, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> You missed one important part of his argument:
> 
> 
> Neither slavery nor child-labour is not in that category.


It was merely illustrative, an extreme example. I didn't think it would be taken so literally. Nevertheless, adult has different meanings in different countries. But I don't see why this should only be afforded to adults, seems like it more to do with human rights. Shouldn't matter if they are children or adults.

Anyway, the sweatshops in China then. There are plenty of immoral things to choose from, but the point remains that because something is common place does not make it moral or legal.


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## Daryl (Feb 19, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> What? Either it's illegal or it's not, right? Or do different laws apply to different people? Could you maybe post a link?


No, you don't understand how PRS works. As a PRS member, you give all of your Writer's share to PRS. Legally they own it. The agreement says they will then pay it back to you (minus an administration charge). Therefore you legally cannot give your Writer's share away to anyone else, because you don't own it.

Hope that's clear now.


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## Daryl (Feb 19, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> The only things I find when googling it is you @Daryl... A lot of the results lead back to Vi-Control where you state that it's illegal and that PRS requires X% for the ghostwriter.
> 
> I don't think it's inherently illegal, I just think it's a breach of contract, which is illegal. I guess if you are a PRS member you have a standardized contracted you use when dealing with clients and in that contract it states certain criteria for royalties and whatnot, and if that is not followed then it's illegal because it's a breach of contract.
> 
> I've ghostwritten for friends before. They needed something done that they can't accomplish or don't have the time for and I step in and do it for them. I never get credited. You're saying I'm involved in illegal activities?


If you're a PRS member, then yes, giving away the Writer's share is illegal, because you don't own it.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

Daryl said:


> No, you don't understand how PRS works. As a PRS member, you give all of your Writer's share to PRS. Legally they own it. The agreement says they will then pay it back to you (minus an administration charge). Therefore you legally cannot give your Writer's share away to anyone else, because you don't own it.
> 
> Hope that's clear now.


But I would still presume that's because of some sort of membership contract? So, in and of itself it's that breach of contract between you and PRS that's illegal, not the fact that you are ghostwriting.


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## Daryl (Feb 19, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> But I would still presume that's because of some sort of membership contract? So, in and of itself it's that breach of contract between you and PRS that's illegal, not the fact that you are ghostwriting.


No, not at all. Everything you write is automatically assigned to PRS. You cannot give your writer's share away, because it's not yours to give. It's European law that says you have to have credit. It's your legally binding contract with PRS that says PRS has the sole rights to decide what happens to your Writer's share and has exclusive rights to administer it.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

Daryl said:


> No, not at all. Everything you write is automatically assigned to PRS. You cannot give your writer's share away, because it's not yours to give. It's European law that says you have to have credit. It's your legally binding contract with PRS that says PRS has the sole rights to decide what happens to your Writer's share and has exclusive rights to administer it.


Europe? Harris is not based in Europe.

Although, the way that's worded sounds kind of fucked. So in EU I can't decide what I do with my IP? Or is this an opt-in type system where I have to consciously create a membership and agree or is it more like if you live in EU you are automatically forced into this membership?


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## Stevie (Feb 19, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> Europe? Harris is not based in Europe.
> 
> Although, the way that's worded sounds kind of fucked. So in EU I can't decide what I do with my IP? Or is this an opt-in type system where I have to consciously create a membership and agree or is it more like if you live in EU you are automatically forced into this membership?


Are you some kind of troll?

You asked, we answered. And now all of a sudden you realize: damn these guys are talking about the EU? We made that very clear right from the beginning.

To sum this up: no, it's not possible to sell your soul here in Europe.


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## Daryl (Feb 19, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> Europe? Harris is not based in Europe.
> 
> Although, the way that's worded sounds kind of fucked. So in EU I can't decide what I do with my IP? Or is this an opt-in type system where I have to consciously create a membership and agree or is it more like if you live in EU you are automatically forced into this membership?


I said as a PRS member. I guess you missed that. If you are not a PRS member, PRS rules don't apply to you.

However, European law is just that. Law. In Europe.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

@Stevie, @Daryl, I'm just trying to understand. I'm sorry if I'm coming off as a bit dense and I very much appreciate the information. First of, the thread is about what Harris Heller did with his new business idea and then the legality and morality of it came up. I missed when we switched over to something else, my bad.

I'll give an example of what this sounds like to me when I read it.

You guys: _It's illegal to sell cars._

Me: _No, it's not?_

You guys: _Yes, it is if you don't own the car._

There is a big difference between ghostwriting being illegal and giving away the full rights of something you've made to multiple clients. It's as if I sold a piece of music with full rights to a client and then sold that same piece to another client and someone would interoperate that as it's illegal to sell music. It's illegal because I didn't own the music anymore after that first sale.

I think I understand it now.


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## Daryl (Feb 19, 2021)

So to be perfectly clear. Ghostwriting is illegal in the EU and UK. It may not be illegal elsewhere.


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## darkogav (Feb 19, 2021)

LOL.. does he also have beach front property in Utah for sale?

Yeah, rich guys that have figured out secrets on how to get rich go around publicly posting their secrets on YouTube to spread good will and love to the world.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

Daryl said:


> So to be perfectly clear. Ghostwriting is illegal in the EU and UK. It may not be illegal elsewhere.


That's much cleared instead of the blanket statement of ghostwriting is illegal period.

Not sure about the music industry, but academic ghostwriting is apparently legal in UK and Germany.

I honestly can't find a lot about the legality of ghostwriting in the EU when it comes to composers and songwriters. I would guess it would be illegal for someone claiming to be the artist of something that they commissioned from a ghostwriter even if that writer is based outside of the EU. It's the person inside of the EU that will be in hot water, correct?


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## MarkusS (Feb 19, 2021)

Jonathan Moray said:


> I honestly can't find a lot about the legality of ghostwriting in the EU when it comes to composers and songwriters.


Maybe you are confused about the terms. In the law, there is of course not written: "ghostwriting is forbidden".

Ghostwriting means you write music that is then credited to another person.

In the EU you have to give credit for a musical work to its author. Read the copyright law of each country it's written there in simple terms (no need to be a lawyer to read it).

I doubt the person with the Youtube channel is per se doing anything illegal. He claims he knows about music licensing (he's in the US and the authors he buys out are anywhere around the world, we don't know where - maybe in Srilanka or Taiwan) and he has found a weakness in the streaming system that he exploits. The original idea of streaming royalties is of course that it goes to the authors of the music. So he's "playing the system", so to speak, some would say "cleverly", at the expense of the actual authors.

What we are saying is, that this kind of practice WOULD be illegal in Europe and considered amoral. It's relevant to the discussion because I would say that a practice like this (from the Youtuber) is exactly the reason why these laws exist in Europe.

Now it is up to you to think that composers deserve the right to credit and a fair payment or not.


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## marclawsonmusic (Feb 19, 2021)

AlexRuger said:


> Someone please double-check my math because these numbers are ridiculous.


I think he might also be collecting mechanical royalties, but yeah $150K does sound a bit dubious.


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

MarkusS said:


> Maybe you are confused about the terms. In the law, there is of course not written: "ghostwriting is forbidden".
> 
> Ghostwriting means you write music that is then credited to another person.
> 
> ...


Thanks.

Yes, I doubted it would say ghostwriter and instead be more general terms on how someone is to be credited for their work. I tried to find the EU law that said proper crediting was needed for composer and artist but didn't find anything. You're saying it's country-specific but every country in EU has this law?


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## blackzeroaudio (Feb 19, 2021)

Instead of everyone getting pissed...

Let's pool some of our songs into a giant playlist and see if we can get a streamer to pick up our playlist


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## SupremeFist (Feb 19, 2021)

I would agree with the utopian-libertarian view that this is all fine because it's an agreement between consenting adults if the guy had explained to the composers how he planned to leverage their product for his own benefit. If he didn't, of course, there was no _informed_ consent.


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## Kent (Feb 19, 2021)

SupremeFist said:


> ...If he didn't, of course, there was no _informed_ consent.


This.


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## el-bo (Feb 19, 2021)

SupremeFist said:


> I would agree with the utopian-libertarian view that this is all fine because it's an agreement between consenting adults


But you do understand that this can still lead to exploitation, right? If so, is that ok?


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## Jonathan Moray (Feb 19, 2021)

SupremeFist said:


> I would agree with the utopian-libertarian view that this is all fine because it's an agreement between consenting adults if the guy had explained to the composers how he planned to leverage their product for his own benefit. If he didn't, of course, there was no _informed_ consent.


I don't know. Maybe he did inform them? Harris said something that made it sound like he "knew" at least some of the people he commissioned, but that might o ly extent to their newly formed "professional" collaberation. Most of the albums seem to have one or two producers meaning Harris commissioned the artists to create a full album and I guess they would understand what that meant when giving away full rights. Who knows.

But if I were to give away full rights to something without caring what it was used for or ended up (like giving away full rights on fiverr) I don't think I'm entitled to know if my music was to be used in the next Spielberg movie or a no-name porno. If I did care I wouldn't be selling my stuff on fiverr with total rights and have a proper contract/ask questions. Maybe they did, maybe they get royalties, maybe we are over thinking this. (doubt it)


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## SupremeFist (Feb 19, 2021)

el-bo said:


> But you do understand that this can still lead to exploitation, right? If so, is that ok?


I'm inclined to think exploitation is more obvious in the general wage-slavery model than in piecework, where at these prices presumably none of the composers are depending on this income to make their living. But in a broader sense, yes of course exploitation of labour to siphon off excess value ie profit is inherent to capitalism itself.


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## el-bo (Feb 19, 2021)

SupremeFist said:


> I'm inclined to think exploitation is more obvious in the general wage-slavery model than in piecework, where at these prices presumably none of the composers are depending on this income to make their living.


I don't understand why this would be the case at all. Why wouldn't people look to such platforms as a way of making a living? If there are no other opportunities and you have a computer, a modicum of musical talent and a houseful of mouths to feed, then it would seem to be a viable option. 

But really, exploitation can exist wherever one party has very little option other than to accept what is being offered. The need of one is being exploited by the other. Both parties know that there are thousands of others that will accept the same terms, so the one will not offer more reasonable terms and the other will just consent. That's exploitation.


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## Varishnipu (Feb 19, 2021)

Very smart guy who do this...I wish him for more successes in the future...he deserve the rewards for the hard work..


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## gzapper (Feb 20, 2021)

Here's the reason why this guy's model has been working. Metallica, whose suits started youtube's royalty issues, did a live concert on Twitch. Their algorthymn said it was copyright music so replaced it with PD material. Its quite excellent.


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## el-bo (Feb 20, 2021)

gzapper said:


> Here's the reason why this guy's model has been working. Metallica, whose suits started youtube's royalty issues, did a live concert on Twitch. Their algorthymn said it was copyright music so replaced it with PD material. Its quite excellent.


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## SamC (Feb 21, 2021)

I’ve gotta say as much as I don’t like it, what he’s done is pretty brilliant and insanely shrewd.

I’ve been harping on about this type of future for ages now to composers/publishers and they turn a blind eye. Ownership of your own material and streaming is where things are heading, if not already.

The more holes get poked through this current system, the faster we’re sinking.

People need to look at these new forms of entertainment like twitch for what they are - there are millions of eyes and ears on them, and that equals cash.

Having said that, not sure his numbers quite add up unless I’m missing something. Spotify payments are pretty dreadful, but I imagine if he pulls mechanicals, streams and Adsense, maybe?

As far as the ethical approach - I don’t know what kind of contract, if any, he struck with the composers, but if you’re a composer on Fiver, I don’t imagine your music rights are at the forefront of your mind, so I wouldn’t be too surprised if they did sell all ownership.


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## Gingerbread (Feb 21, 2021)

What if one wanted to do this without the exploitation? For example, if I made all the music tracks myself, churning out a bunch of generic-sounding, somewhat agreeable 2-minute music tracks. The goal wouldn't be $150,000/month, but certainly a few thousand a month would be wonderful!

How many tracks would one need to produce? And was this guy only successful because he already had a popular YouTube channel by which to advertise his Spotify channel?

The main question is: if working full-time on it, how many short simple tracks could one person create, and how many would be needed to make a reasonable passive income of $3,000 or $4,000 per month?


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## Nate Johnson (Feb 21, 2021)

Gingerbread said:


> What if one wanted to do this without the exploitation? For example, if I made all the music tracks myself, churning out a bunch of generic-sounding, somewhat agreeable 2-minute music tracks. The goal wouldn't be $150,000/month, but certainly a few thousand a month would be wonderful!
> 
> How many tracks would one need to produce? And was this guy only successful because he already had a popular YouTube channel by which to advertise his Spotify channel?
> 
> The main question is: if working full-time on it, how many short simple tracks could one person create, and how many would be needed to make a reasonable passive income of $3,000 or $4,000 per month?


The marketing is going to be the more important aspect to focus on - this guy has a following that will eat up whatever he dishes out. _That’s_ the full time job (hence paying other people to create music)


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## lsabina (Feb 21, 2021)

Gingerbread said:


> What if one wanted to do this without the exploitation? For example, if I made all the music tracks myself, churning out a bunch of generic-sounding, somewhat agreeable 2-minute music tracks. The goal wouldn't be $150,000/month, but certainly a few thousand a month would be wonderful!
> 
> How many tracks would one need to produce? And was this guy only successful because he already had a popular YouTube channel by which to advertise his Spotify channel?
> 
> The main question is: if working full-time on it, how many short simple tracks could one person create, and how many would be needed to make a reasonable passive income of $3,000 or $4,000 per month?


Well, I don’t think you have to be a “full-time” composer to crank out one 2 minute lofi/chill heavily-looped instrumental track a day. Certainly a decent composer/producer with the right tools can do one of these in a couple of hours. So...365 a year! I think directing people to your music is where the challenge is. Also, registering everything with the proper agencies would be time consuming, but it would have to be done to recoup everything you’ve got coming to you.


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## iwritemusic (Feb 22, 2021)

Basically elevator music. But it gives hope to people like me who can't mix either!

😛


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## iwritemusic (Feb 22, 2021)

lsabina said:


> Also, registering everything with the proper agencies would be time consuming, but it would have to be done to recoup everything you’ve got coming to you.


Not positive about this bit I think outfits like DistroKid will handle ContentID as part of the publishing and submission process.


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## lsabina (Feb 22, 2021)

iwritemusic said:


> Not positive about this bit I think outfits like DistroKid will handle ContentID as part of the publishing and submission process.


You’d still want to register your works with your PRO as both writer and publisher, as well as Harry Fox Agency and Sound Exchange, etc. (if you belong to these organizations).


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## Max Kusari (Apr 9, 2021)

A bit late in the discussion... 

I watch his content since he started out on youtube and twitch and as a regular twitch user, I know that he just filled a demand and I think the Idea behind it is some next level stuff. (positive & negative)

Twitch always was a "grey zone" when it comes to "use music in streams"... I always wondered, around 2018, why people are allowed to play their spotify songs during the stream and no one says anything.

"Why? its exposure for the artist" -> correct, but you dont have the specific rights to stream this music to an audience, its for private use!

And voila - mid 2020, Twitch got hit by a massive DMCA claim from a well known mega company and everthing since then, even until now, got down the road... most people are afraid now to play music during the stream, some are still doing it, risking their account and their income.

Where is my point? 

Well, this is the place where Harris stepped in. He quickly build a library and said "here, this is music you can use for your stream for free!". Combined with the reach of his platform, his reputation as the stream doctor who nows everything about twitch and the perfect time for this release, it just had to work and it payed out, as you can see. 

Of course, you can question the way he build up this catalogue etc. but as said several times - every composer has the right to sell their stuff for the price they want...if they decide to give it away for this low, its their fault. We will see this more and more from now on... you may think Fiverr destroys the market? Its just the beginning.


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## davidson (Apr 9, 2021)




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## MarcusD (Apr 9, 2021)

It's the equivalent of ghost writers composing music to be bought out by an artist, to then be perpetuated as their own works to earn money from.

What would be nice is if he also provided a small publishing return to said composers. But that would be entirely down to the terms agreeded between him and the composer. 

I just hope the composers are fully aware of his intentions and have the ability to factor this into negotiations and he's informing them of his intentions before they agree terms.

Cleaver guy to turn that into a business model for streamers, might not be an agreeable model. As I said, just hope the composer's are fully aware in fairness.


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## el-bo (Apr 9, 2021)

Max Kusari said:


> every composer has the right to sell their stuff for the price they want...if they decide to give it away for this low, its their fault. We will see this more and more from now on... you may think Fiverr destroys the market? Its just the beginning.


Nobody on Fiverr is selling their music for what they want. No digital designer is happy being paid five dollars to design a logo, for a law firm whose lawyers are earning hundreds of dollars per-hour. People are doing it out of necessity, which is exactly why it is exploitative


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## Valérie_D (Apr 9, 2021)

*What I find difficult to grasp is that I often hear that artists don't receive much from itunes and spotify. My music is on spotify via libraries and I receive ''cents'' from time to time.

Even with a huge amount of tracks, how come his music is found by the listener and played so much that he receives that amount every month? I might have miss something..


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## iwritemusic (Apr 9, 2021)

Valérie_D said:


> *What I find difficult to grasp is that I often heard that artists don't receive much from itunes and spotify. My music is on spotify via libraries and I receive ''cents'' from time to time.
> 
> Even with a huge amount of tracks, how come his music is found by the listener and played so much that he receives that amount every month? I might have miss something..


If I recall correctly, people will just leave his stream or playlists running in the background. Since each track is about 2 minutes long, he gets credited for a stream every two minutes for however many hours they stay on his stream. That's how it adds up.

Nathan


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## Max Kusari (Apr 9, 2021)

el-bo said:


> Nobody on Fiverr is selling their music for what they want. No digital designer is happy being paid five dollars to design a logo, for a law firm whose lawyers are earning hundreds of dollars per-hour. People are doing it out of necessity, which is exactly why it is exploitative


Hmm, to discuss this we would need another, very big and long topic.
Of course its not that easy as I said in this oneliner, I am aware of that.

It is a bit of a problem right now, to bring the whole world on one market, without proper rules and laws, because of e.g. currency and living costs - there are so many talented people in 3rd world countries and lets say 5-10 Dollars is sooo much more for them, so they can price it that way... the other way around, they also have to pay 500 Dollars for e.g. a VST library and thats impossible for them to pay, because that would meant like 5 months of rent. (totally over the top examples, but I think you get where I want to go)

And we have so many more points to add, why Fiverr is like it is and why the world will have to see a drastic change in regards of services... I also see this in the 3D industry for gaming artists and it gets more and more worse. (Worse meaning, getting harder to get fair payment for your work)

But thats totally OT - just pointing out, that in the case of most composers, who will and are doing this for a living, selling on Fiverr is not really a breaking point in their career in both ways. Or atleast I want to believe, that it is that way.

Edit: I know this is a hot topic and please dont see my statements as final or black/white - as I said, a complex topic.


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## marclawsonmusic (Apr 9, 2021)

Valérie_D said:


> Even with a huge amount of tracks, how come his music is found by the listener and played so much that he receives that amount every month? I might have miss something..


I think there might be a compounding effect of having music on a Twitch stream with XX number of viewers. So it's streamed not just once, but XX times. 

There is also the mechanical 'sync license' side of this - since it's music synced to picture - I think he is collecting that royalty as well. So a double royalty situation. 

(at least, these are my guesses based on what I saw in those videos).


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## allen-garvey (Apr 9, 2021)

el-bo said:


> Nobody on Fiverr is selling their music for what they want. No digital designer is happy being paid five dollars to design a logo, for a law firm whose lawyers are earning hundreds of dollars per-hour. People are doing it out of necessity, which is exactly why it is exploitative


Every merchant wants to sell their goods at full price, so by that logic every time you buy something on sale you are exploiting the merchant. If Ben Osterhouse is selling something for $100 and you buy it for $50 during a Black Friday sale, have you exploited him out of $50? I would like to be paid $100 for this comment, but out of necessity I am being paid $0, am I being exploiting by vi-control?


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## iwritemusic (Apr 9, 2021)

All I know is charging $30 for four hours of work on a $2k MacBook with $2k of software not an effective pricing strategy for any business, let alone rights and royalties.

If this story were about were any other species we would not be having this discussion, so perhaps it would be better to treat this as a phenomenon and not a moral issue: musicians don't stick up for themselves and their careers perish.

"What could be more wholesome or natural?" - Auntie Mame


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## Rubric (Apr 9, 2021)

rgames said:


> No, it's not immoral if everyone agrees to it.


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## TonalDynamics (Apr 9, 2021)

tc9000 said:


> wherever there's a "stream" (sorry) of bright-eyed enthusastic dreamers looking to make it big, there are always predatory hustlers preying on the herd.
> 
> he is quite open about what he's doing, so fair play to him. people ya need to worry about generally dont share their approach.


I have long been astonished at how financially irresponsible 'artists' can be.

We're not even talking advanced market economics here, just the basics of 'don't sell your shit for less than it's worth', which seems to totally escape a lot of them.


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## tc9000 (Apr 9, 2021)

TonalDynamics said:


> I have long been astonished at how financially irresponsible 'artists' can be.
> 
> We're not even talking advanced market economics here, just the basics of 'don't sell your shit for less than it's worth', which seems to totally escape a lot of them.


i guess that's where agents traditionally came in - good ones anyway. take the agents out of the equation and people get scalped. i guess getting representation is harder in this brave new gig economy world :-(


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## TonalDynamics (Apr 9, 2021)

tc9000 said:


> i guess that's where agents traditionally came in - good ones anyway. take the agents out of the equation and people get scalped. i guess getting representation is harder in this brave new gig economy world :-(


A lot of agents are just suddenly flooded with mediocre composers (or contemporary writers/singer-songwriters in general) and take all the dedicated, 'legit' ones for granted more than they used to as a result.

It's kind of like that insurance commercial where the two tennis pros are on court slapping forehands and backhands at each other, then all the spectators in the audience rush the court with their own rackets and balls and start unleashing mayhem until the players can't even move.

On the greater whole, the digitizing of music was great and opened doors, but it certainly has added exponentially to the 'noise' we are all exposed to on a daily basis.

However I am and have always been of the mind that 'the truth will out' at some point, and if you are confident in the quality of your work and struggle well enough for long enough you will get your material into the right ears, of someone who can either commission work or get you connected with the right people to make that happen, with the caveat being that we perhaps end up making more compromises than we would like and putting up with stuff that our predecessors didn't have to deal with.

Quality always wins eventually (eventually being the key word here, sadly)


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## Dex (Apr 9, 2021)

iwritemusic said:


> If I recall correctly, people will just leave his stream or playlists running in the background. Since each track is about 2 minutes long, he gets credited for a stream every two minutes for however many hours they stay on his stream. That's how it adds up.
> 
> Nathan


Yep. He got thousands of people (the streamers) to commit to listening to his music and his music alone for several hours every day. Most streamers stream really long hours. If I understand it correctly he is collecting nothing from twitch, only from Spotify. That’s the thing - twitch is only allowing music that they don’t have to pay for.

Pretty brilliant, but probably only a few more people can pull this kind of thing off before the economics of replicating his scheme stop working.

Alternatively, if you have 10+ hours of music already on Spotify and none of it is registered with a PRO or any other organization that would demand a sync/performance/rebroadcast fee, get out there and start advertising your Spotify stream to twitch streamers!


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## muratkayi (Apr 12, 2021)

Rubric said:


>



wow, that was powerful.


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## lsabina (Jun 17, 2021)

OK...I’ve decided to try this out myself, in my limited way. Beginning in March, whenever I had some free time, I would get to writing a lofi jazz tune, with the intent of generating enough material for my own playlist to designate as royalty free. So I now have a 50 song playlist that contains a bit over two hours of music. I know that “jazz” isn’t necessarily what most streamers are after, but hey, it’s the music I know. I also know that 2 hours is coming in at a bare minimum, but for this experiment, it will have to be enough. So...I have the tunes and playlist, all written and published by me. What I do not have is any sort of strong streamer presence or connections, and so, I’m looking at this as a experiment to see if any bucks can be made, in a random, “put it out there” way.
Link to Spotify playlist:


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## Soundbed (Jun 18, 2021)

AlexRuger said:


> $150,000 per month in streaming royalties.
> Focusing on just Spotify, which pays $0.00437 per stream: 150,000 / 0.00437 = 34,324,942 streams per month. _Thirty-four million. _His top five tracks all have over a million streams, but that's all-time, not per-month, so...eh? Not sure if I totally buy the $150k number, but moving on...
> 34,324,942 streams per month / 40 streams per streamer per day = 858,123 streamers using this music.
> Assuming that it's _highly improbable _that he has literally _over half _of the world's streamers using this music -- his Spotify "monthly listeners" is as of this moment only 207,200, which in order to reach 34 million streams per month would require each and every one of them to listen 165 times _each, per month, forever _-- let's just go ahead and be generous and nudge that number down to a square estimate of 500,000 streamers (I'm essentially assuming that the other streaming services combined all add up to about his Spotify numbers).
> ...


i think your math might be wrong in a few places?

example: You counted his current catalog of tracks versus his initial $50k investment for instance. Did he say how many tracks he got for $50k? Not sure. But it was less than his current 653 tracks on Spotify, right?

maybe the $100k investment is closer to the 653 track count, but we won’t know how much of the investment went to the (other*) composers. 

fwiw, I’m presume some musicians would be “happy enough” to write 2 minutes of simple music for, say, $100. I presume they probably don’t live in L.A., they probably live in cities where the cost of living is much, much lower.

I’m not sure how I feel about the idea that they are de facto being “exploited”… I will write a new post to ask some questions about that. 

*He indicates he may write some music too (he was working n a guitar part earlier that day). Others have mentioned he’s a musician too.


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## Soundbed (Jun 18, 2021)

On the topic of exploitation…

And the “value” or “worth” of one’s music.

... and getting paid what it’s “worth”….

A lot of you seem to be saying composers should know the value of their music, and not sell it for less than it’s worth.

First,

For most American companies, if I live in LA or NYC: I'll get paid much more doing the exact same job vs if I lived in a rural area in the middle of the country where the cost of living is much (much!) lower.

Is it the same in the EU? (I really don't know.)

Either way; if a composer in one part of the world where cost of living is much lower gets hired by an employer in another part of the world where the cost of living is much higher, how should these cost of living differences factor in to "fairness," in terms of "value" of the composition? I am mostly asking the folks from the EU or those who seem to be saying there is a way to determine what is fair in the Global economy based on laws in the EU.

And I'm asking because I am genuinely interested in learning.

My sense, having grown up with the American model, is that someone living in a region of the world where the cost of living is high, might be "fairly" paying someone a fixed dollar amount even if it seems "low" to those from regions where the cost of living is high because it's relatively "high" in a region of the world where the cost of living is relatively lower. I'd be willing to hear other perspectives on the fairness aspect.

~

Second, I really wonder what education some of you want to impart to these "exploited" composers?

If the"exploited" composer doesn't know how to make ... let's say $2000, or even heck $200 from a 2 minute track, how are they supposed to earn "what it's worth"?

Where should they be going to earn more than $50, $75, $100 per 2 minute track that will allow them to not be "exploited"?

Who are the buyers?

Are you saying there are opportunities all over the place where they can get a $200 up front fee plus a 50% back end deal, of course retaining authorship a getting credited appropriately?

If so, where are they? Sign me up!

AFAIK those deals are not easy to simply "educate" someone into getting ... a lot of factors come into play. But ... if there's an education to share that will teach all the "exploited" composers how to sign up for deals like that I'd like to know where it is. Truly and honestly.

I'm not asking how to make the music, and I'm not asking how to read and sign a fair contract; I'm specifically asking if there is "education" for how to actually get paid more than $50-100 per 2 min track, plus royalties, more or less "guaranteed" — and retain authorship & get credited properly as the composer.

Because it's far more common to get 50% of zero dollars with no money up front these days, in my personal experience, as a "fair" deal.

I'm guessing many will say the idea is NOT that there is an education on how to get those "golden goose" deals ... the education is that IF someone can make $1000 on a track they did not write, THEN they should share $500 with the person who wrote it. But that's not the way "work for hire" law works in the USA.

So the education is ... I don't know, maybe change the laws in the USA?

(see third point below about YMYF)

I really don't know what the "education" is needed here. I'm interested in learning.

Even if the composers move to the EU, or the UK specifically for PRS, how would they go about finding deals that are objectively (or even subjectively) BETTER than what the composers might be getting from StreamBeats currently — taking into account their cost of living might go up substantially...?

If there's not an action plan, then this education might be about principles more than paychecks.

~

Third, Your Music Your Future is a group y'all may want to follow if you don't already. https://yourmusicyourfuture.com

~



iwritemusic said:


> $30 for four hours of work on a $2k MacBook with $2k of software not an effective pricing strategy for any business


Why assume that high cost of the initial outlay by the composer? Much of the music I heard could be made on an inexpensive, old PC and using free software. Several DAWs are free and plenty of synths are free. The music requiring mics and live guitars would cost s bit more, but many of the vocals could be coming from Splice (for instance) which is $7 a month or Arcade which is $10 a month.


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Sep 28, 2021)

christianobermaier said:


> That's the system. No hidden catches. Everyone is free to do this.


This is exactly my thinking. People who usually want to gripe about this, have either been stung by others (I get it), or they are simply bummed that they did not think of it themselves. Free market, free for everyone to try.

He is simply being a clever investor, takes a lot to do

I am thinking about moving more into crypto and eventually real-estate, as my main career (IT) increases my chances

It's nice to have projects, risk and wisdom with a nice balance


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## TonalDynamics (Sep 28, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> On the topic of exploitation…
> 
> And the “value” or “worth” of one’s music.
> 
> ...


Well rule #1 when peddling one's wares, is to base your quote price on what the _buyer_ generally pays for similar items - this is the only metric that really matters in terms of determing a monetary 'value'.

So I could care less for instance, what some media group in Denver pays for music (if that's where I'm working out of) - if I'm selling to buyers who work out of L.A., all I care about is what they are typically paying for it.

Ascertaining this information requires certain knowledge of course, because you can't trust a studio (or anyone) to give you a fair offer - they will low-ball you every time, the magnitude of which goes up proportionally the more desperate you seem to them.

Conversations with people actively working in the industry, and first-hand accounts of their dealings with studios or content producers are invaluable resources, and generally the best sources of information.

Of course this also requires that you have a good sense of the 'quality' of your own work, so that you neither overestimate your leverage, nor sell yourself short... which is easier said than done for obvious reasons.

Also all of this is a skillset of its own, which tends to detract from the act of making music and doing good work (which is why the big dogs have managers)

As it turns out the 'business' part of the music business is the most obnoxious part by far

🤦‍♂️


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## Martin S (Sep 28, 2021)

”In Capitalism, humans exploit other humans. 
In Communism, it’s the opposite“  

’Smart’ people’s path is paved with the humans they fucked over along the way…


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## dcoscina (Sep 28, 2021)

I don’t do anything on spec anymore. If there is no promise of pay and the game developer/filmmaker/etc can only promise a cut of the sales, sorry but pass. Those days are long gone.


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