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where TV networks get the little snippets of music they uses between promotional pieces and the series they produce? That music comes from folks like you and me, and they get it for free. I was recently alerted about a contest one network is running where the winner's song will be featured on a future episode of the series. No money of course but you can put it on your resume. Upon further examination the contest turns out to be a scam to get free music. Thousands of bands and singers will submit tracks, and one will be chosen. The rest are not only out of luck, their music can now be used any way the network wants to without owing you one penny in royalties. So if you want to donate a song to them on the slim chance it might get played on the air, go for it. Most likely, you are just helping a huge corporation screw a bunch of fellow musicians. We all lose.

jimmydanger wrote:where TV networks get the little snippets of music they uses between promotional pieces and the series they produce? That music comes from folks like you and me, and they get it for free. I was recently alerted about a contest one network is running where the winner's song will be featured on a future episode of the series. No money of course but you can put it on your resume. Upon further examination the contest turns out to be a scam to get free music. Thousands of bands and singers will submit tracks, and one will be chosen. The rest are not only out of luck, their music can now be used any way the network wants to without owing you one penny in royalties. So if you want to donate a song to them on the slim chance it might get played on the air, go for it. Most likely, you are just helping a huge corporation screw a bunch of fellow musicians. We all lose.

Suckers!

Another good reason to turn that garbage off and do something productive.

p.t. barnum got it right.

I forget the exact time length, but basically tv can use ANY song piece as long as they keep it below that time (7 seconds or something like that, I think) without paying.

When the networks do want to use a particular song they will get someone to rerecord it so they have exclusive rights and won't have to pay royalties. Musicians have been getting screwed for centuries.

that's only true to a point. Most of the music comes from libraries, where so long as you have copyrighted it, you will get royalties based on the prerequisites established between the library and the specific network. Sometimes it can equal pennies, and other times much more. For instance, the Today Show used an 11-second clip of one of our songs as background music during a segment, and we got a check (from ASCAP) for roughly $300.

Yeah, they run contests and get a lot for free, but usually the music directors are given specific direction as to what the producer wants as far as mood, style, genre, etc, so the music director usually spends much time trolling libraries.

Some libraries are free to join (and pay the least to musicians, of course), and others are membership only. The membership only ones tend to have better network clients, and tend to also filter the music (approval process based on recording quality mostly).

The ones that sleaze me out are the ones who get cheeseballs to re-record well known stuff, but change the beat just a hair, and then invert a chord here or there, you hear a LOT of mimic'd ac/dc songs. This tends to be most common with reality shows, which have little to no music budgets.

Those shows are ruining entertainment, not just television, but music too.

oh? a 11 second clip of Hall & Oates pays 300 bucks..nice

Dane Ellis Allen wrote:oh? a 11 second clip of Hall & Oates pays 300 bucks..nice

I'm sure H&O would have a much higher royalty rate than a regional artist who just happened to have a happy sounding score that fit a particular news story that day.

well you still are doing good to have your music on NBC television.. congrats kramerguy..

Dane called it. congrats Kramer.

Talbot

Kramerguy wrote:that's only true to a point. Most of the music comes from libraries, where so long as you have copyrighted it, you will get royalties based on the prerequisites established between the library and the specific network. Sometimes it can equal pennies, and other times much more. For instance, the Today Show used an 11-second clip of one of our songs as background music during a segment, and we got a check (from ASCAP) for roughly $300.

Yeah, they run contests and get a lot for free, but usually the music directors are given specific direction as to what the producer wants as far as mood, style, genre, etc, so the music director usually spends much time trolling libraries.

Some libraries are free to join (and pay the least to musicians, of course), and others are membership only. The membership only ones tend to have better network clients, and tend to also filter the music (approval process based on recording quality mostly).

The ones that sleaze me out are the ones who get cheeseballs to re-record well known stuff, but change the beat just a hair, and then invert a chord here or there, you hear a LOT of mimic'd ac/dc songs. This tends to be most common with reality shows, which have little to no music budgets.

Those shows are ruining entertainment, not just television, but music too.

Finally . . . some good news.
Congratulations Kramer.