Members niceguy Posted March 4, 2011 Members Posted March 4, 2011 My bandmate suggested we use BandPage to add our music to Facebook. A piece of the legal fine print bothers me: you give RootMusic an unrestricted, revocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, display, publicly perform, transit and distribute any material that you submit. What do you think of this? I don't like it.
Members sventvkg Posted March 5, 2011 Members Posted March 5, 2011 Wooooow...I'm glad you pointed that out..I'm getting rid of my rootmusic bandpage post haste and going back to Reverbnation as long as they don't have that clause in their fine print as well..
Members niceguy Posted March 5, 2011 Author Members Posted March 5, 2011 Yeah that's a pretty blanket statement they're making. Essentially, they can do whatever the {censored} they want with your music and never pay you a dime for it.
Members BlueStrat Posted March 5, 2011 Members Posted March 5, 2011 It's a standard release any online distributor is going to have on their site. It just means they can use your material samples or pictures as promotion for their site and not have to pay you royalties for it. Remember, it's material YOU submitted to them. Not a big deal- and it does say "'revokable". Go look at itunes, Amazon, any of them have similar releases.
Members mikedavid00 Posted March 5, 2011 Members Posted March 5, 2011 I'd accept that and would hope that they actually use your music for promotion.
Members niceguy Posted March 5, 2011 Author Members Posted March 5, 2011 I'd accept that and would hope that they actually use your music for promotion. Thanks for putting it into perspective, guys
Members JohnMCA72 Posted March 6, 2011 Members Posted March 6, 2011 "Revokable" is key. Elsewhere it should say exactly how this can be done, i.e. how much notice, how to give notice, etc.
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted March 6, 2011 Members Posted March 6, 2011 you give RootMusic an unrestricted, revocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, display, publicly perform, transit and distribute any material that you submit.What do you think of this? You give away your music for free. You get nothing, no mechanicals, no royalties ... absolutely nothing, not even a cold coffee from last Eastern.
Members mikedavid00 Posted March 7, 2011 Members Posted March 7, 2011 You give away your music for free. You get nothing. That's debatable.
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted March 9, 2011 Members Posted March 9, 2011 The only party which can debate that, is this company. "revocable" means that they cane cancel your account any time, and delete you music any time. Only the company can revoke, not the songwriter who uploaded his music. "royalty-free license to use" means you don't get payed anything, but they can use your music fro whatever they like, sell it to whom eever, and do not have pay the songwriter anything.
Members mikedavid00 Posted March 9, 2011 Members Posted March 9, 2011 "royalty-free license to use" means you don't get payed anything, but they can use your music fro whatever they like, sell it to whom eever, and do not have pay the songwriter anything. If they do 'use' your music, it's debatable whether you will 'get nothing' from their use of your music.
Members BlueStrat Posted March 9, 2011 Members Posted March 9, 2011 The only party which can debate that, is this company. "revocable" means that they cane cancel your account any time, and delete you music any time. Only the company can revoke, not the songwriter who uploaded his music.. Not so. I've canceled a few of these accounts. And FWIW, I cannot imagine lawyers from national acts allowing their music to be put on websites that surrendered full ownership of the music to them. And if you cared to check virtually ALL online distributors have this same clause in them. But hey, if you want to be paranoid about it, it's a free country. For now,anyway.
Members Johnny-Boy Posted March 9, 2011 Members Posted March 9, 2011 The only party which can debate that, is this company. "royalty-free license to use" means you don't get payed anything, but they can use your music fro whatever they like, sell it to whom eever, and do not have pay the songwriter anything. There are different meanings of "royalty-free" pertaining to music licensing. One meaning that's used often by music libraries is that the music is purchased for a one-time fee and then can be used by the purchaser as many times as needed. The purchaser would still (in most cases) be responsible for submitting performance cue sheets (if used on TV/radio), in which the composer would be paid the back-end. That being said; that's where the composer usually gets it - in the back-end. John
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted March 9, 2011 Members Posted March 9, 2011 "royalty free" for the consumer who may buys from the company, e.g. a video editor, advertising, ad agencies etc., means this clients buy the music once and can used it as many times as he wants without any further notification back to the selling company. In the OT agreement sentence, everything is written in relationn from the company to the musician, not from the musician to the company - in other words, the musician can not revoke, only the company can revoke, and only the company may cashes in royalties, not the providing musician.
Members Johnny-Boy Posted March 9, 2011 Members Posted March 9, 2011 A royalty-free license doesn't necessarily allow a purchaser to sell (only to use). It could be a violation of the composer's copyright to sell. These details would have to be spelled out in the agreement. John
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted March 10, 2011 Members Posted March 10, 2011 to sell. These details would have to be spelled out in the agreement. John This looks like an agreement: you give RootMusic an unrestricted, revocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, display, publicly perform, transit and distribute any material that you submit. The guy who wrote this paragraph has either criminal intent, or is an ignoramus. A songwriter can sign his music away for free, no law can prevent that as long it is in the realms of the law. Also such an agreement can overrides other contracts, e.g ASCAP/BMI registration. A songwriter is usually the owner of his creation, and can do whatever he likes with it, including giving it away for free. Here a normal paragraph as common when a songwriter signs his music to a marketing company: 6. ROYALTIES 6.1 (b) Worldwide & digital sales income: 50% of Employer’s net income. Net Income (defined as Emloyer´s gross income less tax less Technical Costs or direct expense including without limitation advertising sales commission or fees). 6.2 Statements shall be made every six (6) months calendar period and mailed by postage to Producer within ninety (90) days following the close of such a period. The statement shall be sent at the latest ninety (90) days after June 30th and December 31st. Accounting shall be done in USD. Payment of such royalties and fees shall be made on 30 days after receipt of invoice to Producer after statements.
Members Johnny-Boy Posted March 10, 2011 Members Posted March 10, 2011 This looks like an agreement (Rudolf): you give RootMusic an unrestricted, revocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, display, publicly perform, transit and distribute any material that you submit. And nowhere to be found is the word "sell". John:cool:
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