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Epidemic Sounds (royalty free music) info... to love or hate?

gsilbers

gsilbers

Part of Pulsesetter-Sounds.com


maybe we should go to those and any epidemic sound info video from youtybers outside to music and let them know this biz practice in not cool.


And lets remember artists cannot be signed to a PRO



Why does Epidemic Sound ask me to leave my PRO/NRO or collecting society?-​

Our ecosystem is based on our music being able to flow freely to all our customers. We have made this possible through our unique digital rights model, which is based on the premise of us being the sole owner of the financial rights to our music. This wouldn’t be possible if an artist or music creator were affiliated with a collecting society, due to their exclusive affiliation agreements. We hope that this will change in the future.



Here is a video showing if you should or not use epidemic sounds





Maybe we should create a petition in the USA to stop the practice of royalty free so its like in the UK where no one can take your writers share.

anyways... just populating the web with more epidemicsounds awareness...
Click to read more...
 
What's this nonsense? It's the first time I see a library wants their composers to cancel their PRO membership. Pond5 is royalty-free and they don't do that. Royalties is the real deal for composers, what's this?! I even knew a composer who quit making music but still getting royalties from his old works. One time payments wouldn't make it up for composers :barefoot: Is this biz practice growing or something?
 
Royalty free is a misnomer, it just means that a client can use the licenced work in several productions, several times over an agreed period of time without paying more than once for it. So it’s a blanket licence of sorts. It does not imply that the composer won’t get paid (well, unless they have music in a library who doesn’t share the revenue of those blanket licenses), nor it means that composers should lose their back end royalties (which is paid by the PROs in any case).

Clients still need to fill out cue sheets and submit them, even though they buy royalty free licenses. But the client pays only one time, and will not pay any further royalties (which they never have to anyway).

It seems that Epidemic exploits the misconceptions of the concept, and prevent composers from making back-end, even though this is possible without the client having to pay a cent more.

That’s a dick move right there! I agree this predatory paternalism should be regulated.
 
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GtrString said:
Clients still need to fill out cue sheets and submit them, even though they buy royalty free licenses.
Click to expand...
Are you sure about that? How would that even be enforced?

Companies like Epidemic need to crash and burn. But ultimately, shame on the people buying into the services.....and the contributors who continue to feed the flame. There's a few of them that keep popping up in my FB feeds, like "audiio", who advertise lifetime access to their catalogue for a ridiculously low fee. What's worse, is all the comments from self-proclaimed media producers praising the service, often stating that composers are overpriced and greedy. Not surprisingly, I posed a few defensive comments of my own, only to be blocked immediately by audiio. These companies are nothing but bottom feeders attracting bottom feeders.
 
Jeremy Spencer said:
Are you sure about that? How would that even be enforced?
Click to expand...
Yes, filling out and sending in cue sheets is industry standard for public broadcasts. The production company fills out information on what music is being used, the length, the composer(s) ect. You can get standard forms everywhere.

Then they send it to the PRO, and the PRO will pay royalties to the composers for public perfomances/ broadcasts. This money is collected through blanket deals between the PROs and the broadcast companies.

You have to fill out a cue sheet no matter if you got a royalty free license or a regular one. Composers earn the same from both types, and the media producers does not have to pay any additional royalty.

This is between the PRO and the composers - the PRO just need the information from the cue sheet as documentation, so they can pay out from the blanket money.

This is what many don't understand. Royalty free just means that the production company don't have to pay for a license every time they use a track. They can pay once, and use it freely within the agreed time frame. But they still need to fill out and send in cue sheets for each time, so the composers can get their back-end money from the PRO.

There are tons of cue sheets that doesn't get to the PRO's every year, and this money goes into a surplus pool that will be distributed by a percentage scale to the artists that already make the most performance royalties. So, when a production company do not fill out the cue sheets, the average Joe composer's money goes to artists like Megan Three Stallion and Ed Sheeran.

Regarding enforcements, cue sheets are industry standard with big production companies, so they know what to do. This is as old as the film business. There is a reason why Tunecore offers music detection for composers, and why watermarking is a thing. But many young producers may not know the drill, and smaller companies may also need a little help with this. And they can get help from the music libraries and PROs as well.

Just not from companies like Artist and Epidemic that pisses on everyone..
 
gsilbers said:
maybe we should go to those and any epidemic sound info video from youtybers outside to music and let them know this biz practice in not cool.
Click to expand...
I've been doing it from time to time but mostly to deaf ears, people don't care, the youtubers get money from Epidemic Sound for endorsing them, and the clients just want to get the best music for the lowest price, which at the moment is a subscription service like Epidemic, Artlist, Premium Beat etc.

Epidemic is the only one (that I know of) forcing you to sell the rights for the songs and preventing the composers having any pro money, they do however pay up front (a few hundred $) and you do get 50% of the streaming royalties, just not anything from other use, many others (like Artlist) prevent you from using content id but it's not nearly as bad as what Epidemic does.

Even The Finnish Broadcasting Company uses Epidemic Sound, even though their operating budget comes from taxes, and therefore they should always support domestic composers and paying pro royalties, however Finns can't even join Epidemic Sound even if they wanted to, since they only allow composers from either the United States or Sweden. The European Composer and Songwriter Alliance and Finnish organizations have condemned the practices of Epidemic, but nothing seems to be happening.
 
GtrString said:
Yes, filling out and sending in cue sheets is industry standard for public broadcasts. The production company fills out information on what music is being used, the length, the composer(s) ect. You can get standard forms everywhere.

Then they send it to the PRO, and the PRO will pay royalties to the composers for public perfomances/ broadcasts. This money is collected through blanket deals between the PROs and the broadcast companies.

You have to fill out a cue sheet no matter if you got a royalty free license or a regular one. Composers earn the same from both types, and the media producers does not have to pay any additional royalty.

This is between the PRO and the composers - the PRO just need the information from the cue sheet as documentation, so they can pay out from the blanket money.

This is what many don't understand. Royalty free just means that the production company don't have to pay for a license every time they use a track. They can pay once, and use it freely within the agreed time frame. But they still need to fill out and send in cue sheets for each time, so the composers can get their back-end money from the PRO.

There are tons of cue sheets that doesn't get to the PRO's every year, and this money goes into a surplus pool that will be distributed by a percentage scale to the artists that already make the most performance royalties. So, when a production company do not fill out the cue sheets, the average Joe composer's money goes to artists like Megan Three Stallion and Ed Sheeran.

Regarding enforcements, cue sheets are industry standard with big production companies, so they know what to do. This is as old as the film business. There is a reason why Tunecore offers music detection for composers, and why watermarking is a thing. But many young producers may not know the drill, and smaller companies may also need a little help with this. And they can get help from the music libraries and PROs as well.

Just not from companies like Artist and Epidemic that pisses on everyone..
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The thing is, it’s obviously cheap skates buying these bargain bin priced subscriptions, so I doubt they’ll be bothered to submit cue sheets.
 
AceAudioHQ said:
I've been doing it from time to time but mostly to deaf ears, people don't care, the youtubers get money from Epidemic Sound for endorsing them, and the clients just want to get the best music for the lowest price, which at the moment is a subscription service like Epidemic, Artlist, Premium Beat etc.

Epidemic is the only one (that I know of) forcing you to sell the rights for the songs and preventing the composers having any pro money, they do however pay up front (a few hundred $) and you do get 50% of the streaming royalties, just not anything from other use, many others (like Artlist) prevent you from using content id but it's not nearly as bad as what Epidemic does.

Even The Finnish Broadcasting Company uses Epidemic Sound, even though their operating budget comes from taxes, and therefore they should always support domestic composers and paying pro royalties, however Finns can't even join Epidemic Sound even if they wanted to, since they only allow composers from either the United States or Sweden. The European Composer and Songwriter Alliance and Finnish organizations have condemned the practices of Epidemic, but nothing seems to be happening.
Click to expand...
interesting. yeah, everyone seems to be asleep on the wheel on this stuff.

but i think epidemic sound , and others still have to license any music differently for braodcats right?

Btw , from what i remeber, spotify was pushing these random ghost artists into their playlists to later find out it was epidemic sound artists that spotify uses to get their streaming revenue from tracks. Some shady deal like that.
 
GtrString said:
Yes, filling out and sending in cue sheets is industry standard for public broadcasts. The production company fills out information on what music is being used, the length, the composer(s) ect. You can get standard forms everywhere.

Then they send it to the PRO, and the PRO will pay royalties to the composers for public perfomances/ broadcasts. This money is collected through blanket deals between the PROs and the broadcast companies.

You have to fill out a cue sheet no matter if you got a royalty free license or a regular one. Composers earn the same from both types, and the media producers does not have to pay any additional royalty.

This is between the PRO and the composers - the PRO just need the information from the cue sheet as documentation, so they can pay out from the blanket money.

This is what many don't understand. Royalty free just means that the production company don't have to pay for a license every time they use a track. They can pay once, and use it freely within the agreed time frame. But they still need to fill out and send in cue sheets for each time, so the composers can get their back-end money from the PRO.

There are tons of cue sheets that doesn't get to the PRO's every year, and this money goes into a surplus pool that will be distributed by a percentage scale to the artists that already make the most performance royalties. So, when a production company do not fill out the cue sheets, the average Joe composer's money goes to artists like Megan Three Stallion and Ed Sheeran.

Regarding enforcements, cue sheets are industry standard with big production companies, so they know what to do. This is as old as the film business. There is a reason why Tunecore offers music detection for composers, and why watermarking is a thing. But many young producers may not know the drill, and smaller companies may also need a little help with this. And they can get help from the music libraries and PROs as well.

Just not from companies like Artist and Epidemic that pisses on everyone..
Click to expand...

I dont doubt this is true... but i think the royalty thing comes more into play with YouTube specifically since there is no broadcast type royalties. And there is no writers share type of system when uploading videos (that i know of).

So anytime any library gets an email from prodcution companies asking for music for their youtube video the libraries give them all this runaround of rights etc plus conditions etc. therefore these royalty free music places are becoming more and more popular as YouTube now has surpases broadcast in terms of viewers.
 
Royalties in industries that *do not* use the equivalent of PROs are vastly higher and much more fairly distributed.

Search if you're interested in reality.

Or... carry on and rest assured the PROs have your best interests at heart. They really do. They promise. Just don't ask too many questions.
 
gsilbers said:
I dont doubt this is true... but i think the royalty thing comes more into play with YouTube specifically since there is no broadcast type royalties. And there is no writers share type of system when uploading videos (that i know of).

So anytime any library gets an email from prodcution companies asking for music for their youtube video the libraries give them all this runaround of rights etc plus conditions etc. therefore these royalty free music places are becoming more and more popular as YouTube now has surpases broadcast in terms of viewers.
Click to expand...
Well, there is a difference between broadcast and Youtube ect. Nobody has to submit cue sheets for corporate videos, YouTube videos, student films, personal videos, web sites ect. I'm sure Epidemic and Artist has a big audience there. No problem

But composers who wants to monetize and build a career should always register works with a PRO. That is the backbone of making money with music. Their systems can be complicated, sure, but that's what you need to understand, so work on it.

If you just want to have fun, and be free, hey man don't bother with anything. You can do anything you like, including feeding trolls like epidemic and artlist.
 
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GtrString said:
Well, there is a difference between broadcast and Youtube ect. Nobody has to submit cue sheets for corporate videos, YouTube videos, student films, personal videos, web sites ect. I'm sure Epidemic and Artist has a big audience there. No problem

But composers who wants to monetize and build a career should always register works with a PRO. That is the backbone of making money with music. Their systems can be complicated, sure, but that's what you need to understand, so work on it.

If you just want to have fun, and be free, hey man don't bother with anything. You can do anything you like, including feeding trolls like epidemic and artlist.
Click to expand...

Maybe i failed at transmitting what im trying to say.

Youtube is bigger than all Cable tv networks. (Which is where most composers make their royalties).

And growing. Therefore, Epidemic sound will eventually be the way composers make most of their money.

https://bluemarblemedia.com/how-youtube-is-beating-cable-tv/

Its not corporate video and random small stuff anymore. There is content specificallty made for youtube which can costs upwards of a million dollars. And are viewed by way more people than any TV show ever.

Hence the problem. Yes, it mightbe mostly corporate and small stuff but there is a big chunk of content thats very well produced by big players like disney, wb, sony etc. And those production teams are not using PRO libraries.
And Eventually will keep growing.
 
rgames said:
Royalties in industries that *do not* use the equivalent of PROs are vastly higher and much more fairly distributed.

Search if you're interested in reality.

Or... carry on and rest assured the PROs have your best interests at heart. They really do. They promise. Just don't ask too many questions.
Click to expand...
If you think anyone in this business has your best interests at heart - other than you, your SO, and possibly some developers - you are naive. This is a false choice (implied).
 
Well if you release your PRO registered works through a distributor, you also get royalties from YouTube (Google). Epidemic buys you out for peanuts, but its the ownership of your rights that makes you money. Period.
 
GtrString said:
Yes, filling out and sending in cue sheets is industry standard for public broadcasts. The production company fills out information on what music is being used, the length, the composer(s) ect. You can get standard forms everywhere.

Then they send it to the PRO, and the PRO will pay royalties to the composers for public perfomances/ broadcasts. This money is collected through blanket deals between the PROs and the broadcast companies.

You have to fill out a cue sheet no matter if you got a royalty free license or a regular one. Composers earn the same from both types, and the media producers does not have to pay any additional royalty.

This is between the PRO and the composers - the PRO just need the information from the cue sheet as documentation, so they can pay out from the blanket money.

This is what many don't understand. Royalty free just means that the production company don't have to pay for a license every time they use a track. They can pay once, and use it freely within the agreed time frame. But they still need to fill out and send in cue sheets for each time, so the composers can get their back-end money from the PRO.

There are tons of cue sheets that doesn't get to the PRO's every year, and this money goes into a surplus pool that will be distributed by a percentage scale to the artists that already make the most performance royalties. So, when a production company do not fill out the cue sheets, the average Joe composer's money goes to artists like Megan Three Stallion and Ed Sheeran.

Regarding enforcements, cue sheets are industry standard with big production companies, so they know what to do. This is as old as the film business. There is a reason why Tunecore offers music detection for composers, and why watermarking is a thing. But many young producers may not know the drill, and smaller companies may also need a little help with this. And they can get help from the music libraries and PROs as well.

Just not from companies like Artist and Epidemic that pisses on everyone..
Click to expand...
This is the answer I'm looking for regarding cue sheets. Noice!!!!
 
I suspect Epidemic lists themselves as the writer and the publisher on cue sheets and collects money from PROs as well. But that's just my conspiracy theory of the day.
 
Fitz said:
I suspect Epidemic lists themselves as the writer and the publisher on cue sheets and collects money from PROs as well. But that's just my conspiracy theory of the day.
Click to expand...

Tale as old as time, it's what predatory producers and labels have done to artists since copyright has existed...
 
Company doesn't sound like the worst thing on Earth. I heard of people making money from selling their music to them. So at least the composer gets something as opposed to signing to a company in perpetuity and never getting their music licensed. Not everyone is chasing performance royalties. Money in the pocket can be used to buy new gear.
 
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