Hi Tommy,

I want to make sure I understand the question. You will pay other musicians if their music get's licensed via your service? Is that right? You essentially a licensing middle man?

Hey Tommy,

I'm not aware of any industry standards. Licensing varies so dramatically based on budgets and negotiations. At least in my experience. But I don't claim to be an expert on licensing.

Thanks for giving everyone the heads up Greg. I'm constantly amazed that people do this kind of stuff. It's so much easier to make money ethically by treating people well then it is to make a quick buck by ripping people off.

I once got taken by a similar company years ago. It cost me hundreds of dollars to make it go away. Really sucks. Sorry you had to deal with it.

Jap Jap said:

Hey guys, I'm looking for a way into the publishing market, but I have no experience at all. I got a reply with an opportunity from WAP Publishing:

"Hey Jasper, I think we may be able to hook you up with some placements. Check out our contract and the FAQ. The FAQ should answer a lot of your questions about how everything works. I look forward to hearing from you."

In this FAQ the most important part is this:

Does it cost me anything? No. We charge no signing or membership fees

How do I earn money? We split any revenue that we receive from tracks signed with us
50/50. This includes ‘sync’ fees and the publisher’s share of any Performing Rights fees.
You keep 100% of the writers share of Performing Rights royalties, which are collected by
a PRO (Performing Rights Organization) and paid directly to you. It is your responsibility
to register with a pro, if you wish to receive this.

Do you require exclusivity? No. You can do whatever you want with your music, other
than sign an exclusive publishing agreement elsewhere.

Do you re-title songs? Yes. As a publisher, we register all songs under our own name,
so we can report usage and track payments.

Can anyone tell me if this looks like a normal deal? Also, if I go ahead with this are there any risks? It looks like I can just give it a try with one of my albums and earn some money if they place my music. And maybe try more of these non-exclusive deals. Or do I miss something, I want to proceed carefully...

Thanks, Jasper

I might be totally off here so please don't listen to me. I don't want to bum you out on something that could be a good thing. But it doesn't look right to me. It sounds like a company who has emailed this to everyone on the planet. I especially don't like the fact that you can't sign an exclusive publishing deal, and that thy are going to retitle your songs. I've never heard of that.

I don't know, I might be wrong. I know it's pricey, but ALWAYS get a lawyer to advise you before you sign something that limits your future potential. He or she can tell you if this looks normal. It may very well be a kick ass offer. But it could also be a crappy offer with no advance.

I signed with Famous Music Publishing, now Sony. My deal wasn't like this at all. I hope I'm wrong on this.

Thanks for the info Stacy. Good to know. I'm with Sony and have only dealt with major publishers and I have not come across deals like this. But truthfully I leave most of it to the lawyers. Contracts make my head hurt.

Looking a little closer at the company, it appears to be a song library, which, while they would need to work out a publishing agreement, I think of as different from a traditional "publishing company". At least to my mind. Perhaps that's where the disconnect was for me.

Hey Deborah, after talking to my producer about these kind of deals, most folks in the publishing industry see these deals as "admin" deals rather than traditional publishing deals. Certainly publishing is involved, but they are not publishing deals in the traditional sense. At least in my producer's opinion. That is also very much consistent with my experience. I would never sign a traditional publishing deal (which handed over semi-permanent rights to my catalog) without receiving an advance, or at least some pretty advantageous terms. But maybe that's just me.

Hey Terry,

Because I don't go through either for publishing and am not familiar with what they offer on that front I couldn't really advise you on which company would be better. That said, I'm a fan of CD Baby and if both services were equal my personal preference would be CD Baby.

Mike Huberty said
I work with music publishing stuff regularly at Broadjam and a ton of publishing houses that do re-titling agreements as well as some exclusive deals.

Probably at this level, the publishing that you'll be worried about is YouTube and online services. I've met with the Tunecore guys and their deal is decent (but I've heard some complaints from some licensing people that don't think it's very good deal for the artist, but at least they have a pair of song pluggers in LA who are out there promoting the library, which is gigantic, but it's better than no one pushing your music.) 

CDBaby works through Rumblefish and they shine at getting your YouTube royalties. So, there's no real risk in having them do your publishing (and you can always opt out if you get a separate publishing deal.) They have overall probably the best deal for digital distribution, I think, and the guys at Discmakers, who own it, are pretty cool as well. 

But in addition, you should be pushing your music to music supervisors on your own. In fact, when you go to a conference now, the supervisor panels are always more filled than the A&R panels! Just make sure that you've got your publishing company and your songwriter affiliations set up with ASCAP or BMI (or SESAC if you're one of those that are invited) because you'll want to make sure that just in case your song takes off, you've got all the rights to it!

Thanks for the feedback Mike. Great insight.