Contracts & Agreements

Hey!

So I've resurfaced, and have a bunch of new things to show you. You'll be seeing some interesting blogs through the rest of this week and the next, along with more updates on my latest projects!

Firstly today, I'm going to have a chat about contracts and agreements used in sound production work and throughout the music industry.

Music

Since starting producing music under Jbox around 4 years ago, and as it's moved towards becoming a business as opposed to just a hobby; I've gradually become more exposed to the factors of copyright law and various contracts surrounding the industry.

For me, one of the first things I began to understand is what rights I actually have when it comes to ownership of my work. Almost all of my music, I own 100% of the rights to. That is I own the publishing rights - the music and lyrics - and the master rights - the actual sound recording and performance of the works.

However this is going to start changing quite a bit soon since I'm starting to co-write more. When working with other songwriters, we would start to use a collaboration agreement; which is first agreed on verbally and then put down in writing to keep communication clear. So before any music is written, the parties involved have something in place and have been ok'd by everyone. I believe it's pretty important to get this sorted beforehand, because after the fact and when there is potentially money on the table, it may not be as nice of a conversation.

If there's two writers involved: such as myself and a songwriter who was written the lyrics and performed the topline vocals, or myself and another producer/songwriter - I would do a 50/50 split of ownership. If a lyricist is involved, the publishing rights has a simple clear cut: I would own the musical composition, and the lyricist would own the lyrics.

When I have sent my previous works off to mastering engineers (and the same would apply if I sent it to a mixing engineer), I would be invoiced with a one-off service fee and they would not take shares in the ownership of the work. Of course this may not always be true with some bands/artists. In the case of a band utilising a producer, it depends on the relationship between the roles, how much they've attributed to the resulting product and ultimately what everyone has agreed on.

APRA have done a really great article on working with other parties, I definitely would recommend you check it out: http://apraamcos.com.au/music-creators/copyright/working-with-co-writers/

Game Sound

For one of my larger projects I'm undertaking currently, where I'm designing the entire soundscape for a PC game with a goal to be distributed on Steam; our team of 6 have had a face-to-face meeting and have agreed on an equal split between all involved. Since we have formed a game company where I am basically an employee/member rather than the developers hiring my services as a third party, I am included in that split. One thing I'll have to make sure gets done is that the agreement made is put down in a form of documentation before we get anywhere close to a release date.

In the case that the game company did hire me as a third party contractor, trading as Jbox Music; it would be a similar case to that if I sent my musical works to an arranger/producer/engineer (except in reverse). It could potentially be a one-time fee where I am assigning the company the copyright ownership of the works, relinquishing all my rights. Or whether it's agreed that I have a share in the sales of the product and the company has an exclusive license to use my works for the agreed purpose.

I'd say I'm still a bit hazy when it comes to how contracts work when it comes to the games entertainment industry, but here's a really great article on game audio contracts that describes the differences between in-house sound designers and third party contractors:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132537/game_audio_contracts.php

Working/Project Contracts

For the funk band EP recording project alongside Stefan Volejnik, I'm undertaking a mixing & mastering engineer role. We have had a working agreement laid out in writing since the beginning of the project's lifespan. This plan included our designated roles for the project, with scheduling and risk management spreadsheets. The importance of having this documentation has become very apparent, since I am unable to attend two of the three recording sessions due to other commitments I had locked in prior to the project. By utilising the work contract and adjusting it during a face-to-face meeting, we have agreed to shift my role to an assistant recording engineer (for the third session) with my major role taking place as the mixing & mastering engineer. The way we had set up our scheduling and risk management spreadsheet, we gave ourselves a buffer for a potential situation like this to happen. So as a result, the project continues on a steady pace towards the deadline goals.

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I'll have an update for you on the EP project early next week after the final recording session this Sunday! Also, Little BIGSOUND is this Saturday and by looking at the program I know I'm going to get so much good info out of the day. Can't wait to give you a recap! Stay tuned.

- Lachy