 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: ALOMARvelous12
Date: 2004-02-02 21:27
Which is the case?
1. When we buy music scores and pay the money, does the retailer then give a percentage of this to the publisher, who in turns gives a percentage of what they get to the composer (a direct relationship between the money spent on the music and the money the composer receives)? If this is the case, what are some estimates of these percentages?
OR
2. Is it that when we buy the books, we increase demand for them, which causes the dealer to order more from the publisher. Then, the publisher pays the composer royalties depending on how much they send out. In this case, the composer's earnings would be really indirect to the costumers spendings.
OR
3. Publishers buy the composer's work straight up and prints copies to sell to the dealer.
OR
4. A combination of some/all of the above.
And this same question for CD's. When we buy CD's, how do the dealers, publishers/labels, producers, engineers/studio workers, musicians, and composers get paid?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: BobD
Date: 2004-02-02 22:37
In both cases the retailer sends emails to everyone and they come to the store to get paid.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: msloss
Date: 2004-02-03 12:50
The typical arrangement for a published composer usually includes some form of flat fee for the rights to publish the work, and depending on the leverage the composer has may also include backend payments based on the volume sold. On music sales themselves, retailers buy either from jobbers or directly from the publishing houses at a discount from cover price (generally 40%) and resell to you at "retail" to make their profit.
Performance and recording rights are handled separately. The Harry Fox Agency, ASCAP, and BMI handle royalties and other fees on behalf of the composer. When you buy a CD, about 8.5 cents/minute per CD is paid to the composer/publisher in mechanical rights. The artists are generally under contract with the labels and may or may not get royalties on sales depending on their deals and how good their lawyers and union delegates were. Most engineers are salaried by the recording studios -- only the very best can get a cut of the actual revenue pie. Producers, A&R, marketing, etc. all get paid out of the label's cut.
Mark Sloss
Northbranch Records
Splendid Isolation Studios
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: David Peacham
Date: 2004-02-03 13:22
msloss wrote: "When you buy a CD, about 8.5 cents/minute per CD is paid to the composer/publisher in mechanical rights."
I know nothing whatever about this subject, so I can't dispute your figures. But am I right to deduce that if I buy a 1-hour CD of Britten, for example, who is dead but still in copyright, about 5 dollars goes in composer's royalties? Whereas if I buy an hour of Beethoven then nothing goes in composer's royalties. This would suggest that CDs of twentieth-century music should be much more expensive than those of earlier works - and I'm not entirely sure this is true.
-----------
If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: msloss
Date: 2004-02-03 13:41
Sorry - actually, a gross oversimplification. I hit "post" too fast and forgot to go back and finish that thought. The formulas are more complex than that. It is about 8.5 cents for the first 5 minutes of a work, and then it moves to a per-minute charge after that. Figure it works out to about $1 per CD for a typical release.
But, you hit on it on the head. Yes, it IS more expensive to record the work of living composers. Why do you think there are so darn many recordings of Mozart and Beethoven? Public domain, baby. Once the label gets past the production costs (a good reason for putting out reissues, by the way), there is considerably more gravy in the "classics" than having to pay royalties to living composers and estates of the recently deceased. Heck, cost me $500 to rent Appalachian Spring for a concert last year that was free to the public.
That being said, unless you are a big name composer, you probably don't command full freight on the royalty formula anyway. I've contracted mechanical licenses at 50 - 75% of book and the composers were grateful to get that much because they got recorded (helps manuscript sales).
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
