Musician Selling Whole Music Libary

It would be perhaps too easy to suggest musicians in hardship are like many other tradesmen of today, feeling the pinch of the world recession because of the shrinking demand of those with both money and a willingness to spend. However one has to look deeper into the developments in the music industry to really understand the dynamics that are affecting musicians trying to make a living today.

The challenges of the music industry are probably well presented than by artist Alex Jenkins. As a musician and composer for all his life Alex has used his life’s experiences to fuel his passion for music. Alex rhythmic and electronic based compositions are as dark as he sees the world through his own eyes.

Now getting to a point where age and health inspires him to look for a gentler way of life, Alex is looking to sell the copyright (also known as ‘buy out’ in the music licensing business) to the highest bidder and advertising his music for licensing or outright sale at AmbientMusicGarden.com and Background-Music-Library.com. Alex is hoping his decades of musical recordings and compositions from the past will build a future where he can focus on taking the weight from his hard working bones and focus on helping his family build a brighter future.

However with the dramatic changes that have occurred over the past twenty years in music there is less likely hood of any business wanting or indeed needing to purchase music outright. Only rarely does this seem to happen nowadays.

Let me explain.

Whilst skill and talent may not neccessarily be evolving in increasing numbers in the population, access to professional level musical production tools has increased because the cost and complexity of setting up your own music composition and production studio has reduced. This has resulted in more potentially talented musicians being able to create more music at less cost that then means more choice for buyers of music in the consumer market as well as the business market for licensing music (for example, for advertising, films and TV shows as well as less exciting music uses such as presentation backgrounds and short run DVD productions). So with more musicians making more music available licensees are able to reduce the cost of licensing a piece of music. Simple over supply of demand.

Creating music in volume at professional level has never been more accessible to talented individuals.

Twenty or more years ago musicians formed bands together because they needed a pair of hands to play each musican instrument within a composition. Soon after this, with the development of the home four track recorder, midi communications between instruments, samplers and sequencers, composers were for the first time realising they could create musical works from their own compositions with no additional help. Collaboration between artists could be based on compositional input whilst real instruments became valued for the performance value separately from their use as tools for creating songs.

Where does this leave musicians like Alex?

Alex has a very large collection of pieces of music, albeit mainly only archived in mp3 format which reduces the markets that are likely to license a piece of music for a particular use. The outright sale of a composition without notation or a higher quality file format is very unlikely.
In addition, because the music industry is also contracting due technology developments such as the availability of illegal downloads, many consumer focused musicians and record companies are attracted to the big numbers involved in licensing for films, TV and advertising for the potentially large financial sums involved but also because of the potential for free marketing that music can gain from exposure to a buying market via a film or successful TV series, driving short term sales of music in the consumer market place. This has meant a reduction on average of the negotiated price for a sync and / or master recording license for use of a piece of music in film, TV and advertising.

I recently spoek to a band manager who had their music licensed in various big film names such as The Matrix. He told me that musicians are working harder than ever before to win deals that are on average half the price of the same license ten years ago.

The result is that those who were traditionally in the business of film and TV licensing are also seeing their incomes dropping. More musicians producing more music cheaper in addition to even more music entering the market from other parts of the music business has seen this shift.

So for now Alex can still consider his musical works as a cash cow for its ability to more likely be licensable repeatedly to as wide a range of markets he can have a profile within as opposed to any markets who are willing to purchase the copyright of music at high prices.

If you would like to syndicate this article you have the writer’s permission if the following author’s note is included in the page directly under the article.

Written by Guy Lewis.  Guy writes about the music industry specialising in music for business, in particular royalty free music for background use for many business licensing needs.

Apparently Neil Young’s record company is filing a patent application for a new audio format. Whether this will compete with mp3 is more likely to be journalist hype than real in my opinion, surely the file sizes of the average track and LP are now asily downloadable via today’s broadband speeds, the only reason we would need more compression is to gain a better quality audio. I’m not sure the average consumer needs that so mp3 will continue. Perhaps it is a format for high quality hi fi or cinema use.

Also worth considering is the availability of a new format, its adoption by audio software manufacturers and the barriers to that such as the cost of licensing the technology. Well, In around a month’s time the details of the technology will become available from the patent office, when the commercial offerings happen is another matter.

Full artical here

Background Music is Proving Invaluable for Businesses

Kindly supplied by MusicWorksForYou.com.

Music service providers are performing wonderfully brilliant tunes for their end users, usually retail, hotel and restaurant chains. The services they provide have a proven track record of aiding sales and making customers “sticky�, or not quick to leave.

The secret of the background music success is fill silence, or drowning out clutter with relevant soothing sound that is punctuated by on spot messages that either announce the companies brand or are directed towards some desired action; like buy more.

Decades of market research has provided insights on how to target niche markets so that the music and messaging, even the on hold messaging, heard in the background of most establishments can have even a greater positive effect on the potential customers and/or clients.

According to a leading marketing research firm, one grocery chain realized a nearly 10% gain in gross sales after the background music began to target the shoppers with regionally relevant music and messaging.

The play lists are comprised of licensed music and have transformed greatly over the past few years. Understanding that focus will change from one chain to the next, even one town to the newt inside the same commercial chain, background service providers are buying licenses that help build greater libraries of music to choose from. Gone are the days of favourite tunes being recorded by no name studio musicians and broadcast into the elevators. Today, music libraries of the music providers are filling up with current hits by our favourite stars.

With the high tech delivery systems available, including DSL high speed internet connections, site management now has even greater control over the play list generated for them by the marketing arm of the music providers; making targeting prospective customers an even easier task.

The services provided by such music are certainly proving to be invaluable as more and more marketing efforts are becoming more narrowly focused.

Visit Music Works to have a complete understanding of the background music effects on various trade bodies.

This is a old piece of news but a fundamental case in European law for the benefit of musicians who are considering entering the royalty free background music market.

We all are aware of the old dinosaurs we call record labels, but there is an older creature lurking in the shadows; the performing rights society. They
have been, yet still act as if they are a monopoly in many cases and in particular, in Europe.

This case came to court in 2005, whereby, “the main Spanish collecting society Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (‘SGAE’) sued Ricardo
Andres Utrera Fernendez, the owner of Metropol, a disco bar located in Badajoz alleging that he had failed to pay SGAE’s license fee..”

(see the full article about how musicians and music customers can be sure they can use royalty free background music instead of music that have royalties due here at the Creative Commons site)

Quite simply, the court rejected the performing rights society’s claims because the owner of the bar proved in court that the music he was using was
not listed in the societies music and thus not managed by the society. An important point here is that Fernendez was able to prove that he exclusively
used music licensed to him (via a Creative Commons license) that was not managed by the performing rights society. Had he mixed both sources of music he would no doubt have been found guilty & would have needed to pay the fee.

The Creative Commons article continues by stating,

“This case shows that there is more music that can be enjoyed and played publicly than that which is managed by the collecting societies..

…As CC Spain project lead Ignasi Labastida said: ‘This decision demonstrates that authors can choose how to manage their rights for their
own benefit and anyone can benefit from that choice, too. I expect that collecting societies will understand that something has to change to face
this new reality.?’”

Performing rights societies say they are there to support and protect the artist from missed revenues but even though they are ‘not for profit’ in
reality the only interest they have to heart is their own jobs.

Sure these guys do good for artists, and have done great in the past but my concern is that they are deliberately reluctant and can become quite
aggressive with anyone that threatens their monopoly and so deliberately restrict artists from exploiting new business opportunities. The protection
of their monopoly and the restrictions to artists are two very different things that are often mixed up with their own protectionism.

Who was it that said it is hard to convince a man of something if it means he will loose his job?

Just found this site offering background art for music related projects.
Lovely artwork :-)

Go check it out here:

Webweavers
Clipart For Background Music.

Not withstanding the science that surrounds creating a polished production,
and not ignoring the talent that goes into playing an instrument and
composing a piece of music I believe the barriers to entry into professional
music now are lower than ever before.

As long as you can create and have the stamina to continue to develop your
skills and talent, you will be able, with modern technology to create a
potential masterpiece.

Autechture recently said that it would be good for everyone to have the same
tools to hand, giving everyone who is keen to make music the same potential
as each other. I agree.

In addition, I can see that there is a lot of talent out there that whilst
they create great music, wont get their heads above the everyone else’s and
achieve some form of recognition.

Musak Holdings recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The article at
chron.com (now disappeared so replaced with Wikipedia’s page and reference to the chapter 11 event) about Musak Holdings, an infamous supplier of background
music.

“Long-standing debt” ($320 million in assets and a debt of $465 million).
The article states ” a slew of store closures is also at fault, executives
said recently, as the continuing recession causes struggling businesses to
cancel their Muzak accounts.”

Well, I can see a lot of stores are suffering and closing in the current
economic downturn but there are others who are looking at ways to reduce
their costs and are looking at more cost effective ways to provide music to
their stores. Royalty free background music is of course, perfect for this
since it does not have attached to it the additional cost of performing
rights royalties due for every play of a track. Quite simply, the price you
pay up front for the license enables you to use the music with no additional
royalties due. Not only are businesses finding this a way to reduce costs,
but also a way to get a music publisher on board who can gather the right
music to fit the business need.

The Internet, of course, enables businesses as well as consumers to look for
new suppliers who can provide better products and services and this will
continue with the background music market this year with background music
becoming available from royalty free libraries who are primed for providing
businesses better deals with even better and targeted music.

Unfortunately, like most large corporates, they only see the change when it
hits the numbers at board level. Im sure the guys talking to the customers
on a day by day basis have heard the same story for a while, but for that to
penetrate the well furnished board room hang outs is another matter.

Today’s business music market looks very different to it was when Musak
Holdings started out. Whilst most of the innovation that has taken place in
the music industry has been high profile there has, and will continue to be
much innovation in the following few years.
Just watch.

Well! I never knew Jarre had created an album called Music for Supermarkets!!

In an article titled,“Music For Supermarkets” located at everything2.com Xwiz describes the creation and distruction of this album so that there was only one album ever produced.

I wonder what it sounds like in a Supermarket. Supermarkets, as we all know
don’t have an environment that works well for listening to music. However
that challenge is the one for the sound team and the music composers who
work on compositions and masters that can be heard and enjoyed whilst the
tinkle of shopping trolleys collide and the music bounces off every
reflecting surface from entrance to checkout.

Ambient Music Garden. Music for healing and therapy products.
Electronic Music Library. Complex sync licensing made simple.
Background Music Library. Music to back your business.
Relaxation Music Garden. Just listen & relax.

Thanks for visiting Background-Music-Library.

We are currently building up our assets and will be bringing news and comments along the way from the world of music that is here for supporting your business by welcoming in your customers, making them feel good and doing this at a more cost effective way than traditional royalty performance society routes.

Today you can see our catalogue at Ambient Music Garden where we will soon be launching our subscription service for renting music that is cleared for background use with no additional royalty licensing requirements.

We only offer chilled and feel good music. So if you like Rock, Urban, Country then there are some great other people out there that can help you better. Anything chilled, relaxing, ambient, downtempo, chillout, lounge or nu-jazz, please check us out first.

Please keep in touch & thanks for reading :-)