Discovery and APM Release Score Library; No Sync Fees for Composers
Media giant Discovery Communications and leading music library APM Music have released “Discovery Studios Tracks,” a 5-CD set including over 200 tracks of score music selected from shows on Discovery’s cable channels. Discovery has confirmed that composers who wrote the music on the CDs will not be sharing in the sync and license fees generated from the release.
The new CD series is based on Discovery’s 12-year relationship with APM and includes original music cues from the Discovery family of channels, including Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet and Science Channel, available for the first time for licensing into third party productions. The release represents one of the first major score library releases by a major production company seeking to generate additional income from score music contained in its shows.
However when Film Music Magazine asked Discovery Studios whether the composers who wrote the music will share in the sync and license fees generated by the licensing of these tracks, Discovery’s Chris Finnegan confirmed that the composers on the CDs will not be sharing in the sync and license fees generated from the new library. While composers will receive the writer’s share of performing rights royalties for new usages of the music, if those usages are surveyed and paid by the performing rights organizations, it appears that for non-broadcast usages such as corporate industrial films and other usages where performing rights royalties may not be paid, the composers will receive no compensation.
Discovery VP of Music Services Peter McKelvy told Film Music Magazine, “Discovery strongly values the excellent relationship it has developed with the composer community over the past 24 years. We have worked tirelessly to ensure that performance royalties for composers who have been commissioned by Discovery Networks have increased significantly over the last three years. Discovery Studios Tracks allows us to release some great music for use in new production. We feel it’s an exciting opportunity for the composers who have worked with us over the years. Instead of lying dormant on the library shelves this music is now in circulation enabling composers to earn additional performance fees. It’s a winning proposition for all involved.”
APM President Adam Taylor stated, “Since the beginning of recorded music, composers and publishers have been free to negotiate terms that are acceptable to them. A wide variety of business models have evolved over these decades including work-for-hire agreements, which have been a standard part of the film, broadcast, videogame and production library industries for decades. The idea that the Discovery Studios Tracks business model is somehow precedent setting is simply not accurate. Additionally, copyright owners have the right to leverage their copyrights and since Discovery has chosen to find new uses for their owned copyrights, composers will receive additional performance royalties from these efforts”
Composers and other music libraries expressed concern about Discovery’s policy towards composers regarding not sharing sync and license fees with the composers.
Composer and outspoken activist Christopher Kennedy Alpiar said, “This seems to be a very scary first step and a new low for composer treatment. For Discovery to release a product of this type without sharing the income with the composers who created the product is beyond reprehensible. Sadly, this situation seems indicative of a global trend of negativity that composers today are being faced with. Discovery had an opportunity to release a product the right way that helps themselves and fairly compensates the composers who wrote the music. Instead, they chose the short-sighted path of maximizing short-term profits at the expense of those who created the music.”
Yoav Goren, President of music library Immediate Music said, “I’ve always been a very strong believer in composers sharing in sync licensing revenue, even if the creative output is part of a work-for-hire deal. At Immediate Music, all third-party composers participate in revenue derived from music placement in any visual media which generates sync fees. It allows us to continue a strong, mutually beneficial relationship with composers, because this sometimes substantial income can allow for a full-time composing career to flourish. These composers stay loyal to us, and we get great music in return, which leads to happy clients and more licensing revenue! As both a composer and library owner, I am sensitive to both parties sensibilities and requirements, and have found a fair middle ground with regards to sharing sync fees which keeps the business profitable and composers motivated to create more music.”
A veteran Los Angeles film composer who has worked in the library business told Film Music Magazine, “This is a dangerous precedent when composers are shut out of new income streams generated by their own music. It’s bad enough that composers may lose work because of these new high quality score libraries, but the fact that the Discovery Channel has chosen not to share any of the new license income with composers is unacceptable. Every studio in town could release these kind of score CDs from music they already own and composers might as well find another way to make a living.” The composer asked that his name not be used for this article.
The situation highlights sync fees, one of the most contentious parts of library music deals. While many music libraries split sync and license fees generated from their music with composers, some do not, retaining all such revenue for themselves. These fees can be generated by the blanket license of one or more CDs of music to broadcasters and other music users, or individual licensing of tracks for specific productions and usages.
Discovery Communications reaches more than 1.5 billion cumulative subscribers in over 170 countries through 100-plus worldwide networks, led by Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Science Channel, Investigation Discovery and HD Theater, as well as leading consumer and educational products and service
For more information about Discovery Studio Tracks, visit http://www.apmmusic.com
Comments
By Tim McLane on July 29th, 2008 at 16:48
This trend is the same sickness that affects all of humanity at this, the spiritual low-watermark of history: we are like the girl who got herpes from the boyfriend and then goes back and dates him again. I know how hard it is to get a gig as a composer but if we don’t start standing on principle, what can we expect? I’m distressed at the duplicitous/double-speak statement: ““Discovery strongly values the excellent relationship it has developed with the composer community over the past 24 years.” I suspect that these companies use such statements because they have learned that there will be no protest, no complaint, no matter how many such statements they make. Predatory companies are not the disease; they are the sign of a deeper problem: we, the artists, just don’t care enough.
If we don’t want to see our profession die — and I mean wither and fade away–we have to make sacrifices. And don’t think it can’t happen. I lived in a country where the business owners started in this same way–taking the benefits away bit by bit, resulting in the complete destruction of the local music business. The result? They had to go outside the country and pay sometimes 10x the cost for jingles, etc. My point is that even they don’t care.
Let’s take stock of our lives, rededicate ourselves to the beauty of our music and the sacrifices needed to make it happen and then, and do what we need to do to preserve our careers and this wonderful profession.
By Joseph Renzetti on July 29th, 2008 at 17:05
This situation is possibly a violation of anti-trust law. But since composers are not represented as a group – not by the AFoM, or BMI or ASCAP, composers are on their own, and there will be no law group filing any suits. This is just an other step to “absolute free music.”
Glad to be of service – Joseph Renzetti
By Steve Ballard on July 29th, 2008 at 21:47
This is absolutely shameful! What a slap in the face to all the hard working composers and songwriters!!
APM President Adam Taylor stated,“Since the beginning of recorded music, composers and publishers have been free to negotiate terms that are acceptable to them. A wide variety of business models have evolved over these decades including work-for-hire agreements, which have been a standard part of the film, broadcast, videogame and production library industries for decades.”
Those industries are the ones shoving the “work for hire” contracts down the composers throat’s for years and use it as leverage against them. Enough so that “veteran” composers refuse to give their name making statements against them.
APM and Discovery Channel are simply smiling at composers while reaching around and stealing their wallets.
By C.M.Dess on July 30th, 2008 at 02:02
It’s really too bad things need to be this brutal. That there can’t be some real excitement, accomplishment, reward in the process instead of a constant beat down courtesy of capitalism making a “salesman” of everything. We’re just trying to make this world a bit more tolerable for everyone while minding our own business, there’s no reason we should be treated like this. Left to rot out of existence. The administrators eat, so should the architects of sound. We sacrifice our health and security, even our minds on our travels, that needs to be acknowledged in the form of cold hard cash since we took all the risk to get good enough to work “with” them. Time to be more civil. Where did the mutual respect go? Absorbed by mass theory?
Does the government appreciate how important this “career” is to the economy? How legal careers that add value to the day are a good thing and open up vacancies in the penal system? The schools, teachers, bank loans, cars, licenses, health policies, taxes, instrument builders, press that are interconnected?
We are like any other engineer…we are imagineers…we make a safe haven for others in moments of despair at the very least. We build a mental support where material support isn’t enough. Once people go sound, they usually don’t go back, it’s another way to explore your mind. How about when their kids get into music, however will they stand up for them. I don’t think you can blame any one party, the system is out of range at this point, so many epic battles to wage, many feel this is a good chance to exploit the diverted focus. It needs some major care. It needs some thought from the invisible hands.
By Johan van der Voet on July 30th, 2008 at 02:47
Who does not sign a work-for-hire agreement?
Why can composers in America and Europe not stand together and fight the downward spiral of giving away our copy RIGHTS!
Are we composers, at the start of our careers making the mistakes that lead to these situations?
Who cares?
Johan (board member MIMM, a group of 140 Dutch media composers http://www.mimm.nl))
By Steve Ballard on July 31st, 2008 at 19:53
We are not the only ones to be taken advantage of by Discovery Channel.
“Over $1 million is due from Discovery Communications of Virginia and Evergreen Films of Pacific Palisades to FX artists of formerly known Meteor Studios of Montreal, of whom did the special effects for Journey to the Center of the Earth, leaving artists without jobs or back pay.”
By Jules Bromley on October 7th, 2009 at 01:30
Correct me if I’m wrong, but we accept up front fees to some extent in return for assigning our sync rights. That’s always been the case.
Now that we’re aware of this type of additional exploitation, it can easily be anticipated and accomodated in work for hire agreements. The bigger issue is how prepared composers are to risk losing work by standing up for these rights. Too often I hear all kinds of rhetoric on forums and elsewhere, and then hear the horror stories of the god-awful terms composers have been desperate enough to accept when actually faced with losing a job.