Klarinet Archive - Posting 000276.txt from 2009/02

From: Michael Nichols <mrn.clarinet@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Fair Use
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:14:43 -0500

On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 7:35 AM, David Blumberg <blummy@-----.net> wrote:

> Then there's the rental issue. Why rentals even exist boggles me.

It probably has something to do with there being a limited market for
the sheet music. If a work is going to be performed pretty much
exclusively by professional-level ensembles (a lot of rental pieces
are like this), that seriously limits the market for purchased sheet
music to that work, because once one of these orchestras (let's say)
purchases one of these works, they put it in their library and never
have to buy it again. Factor in that there aren't nearly as many
professional groups as there are schools out there, and the economics
of music sales start to look dismal.

Now there are two ways of dealing with this. You can jack the price
up, so you don't have to sell as many copies. That's what they did
with the suites to John Williams' film scores (assuming you buy the
original pro. version--they're $525 a pop on SheetMusicPlus; the
school ensemble versions are available for purchase for a lot less).
Of course, once you sell one of these pieces, that's it, you probably
won't ever sell that piece to that ensemble again.

The other option is rental. You can potentially charge a little less
per rental than you would for purchase, but, in exchange, you get
repeat customers, because they have to pay every time they perform the
piece. You can also bundle other necessary materials with the sheet
music more readily, like if it's a piece for orchestra and tape
recording (like Hovhaness's "And God Created Great Whales," which,
when I played in a performance of it, was a rental and included a tape
of recorded whale song, which is part of the piece).

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