Wholeheartedly agree.
Hi Mojo, I don’t know about you but I am not at all interested in having Envato become the publisher of my music. That ship sailed 4 years ago or so. Why? Because we already registered our “self published” titles at our PRO’s and assigned ourselves as WRITER and PUBLISHER. Does everyone undersand that we “self-publish” here?
All we want Envato to do is gather more information for, at a minimum, the highest tiered broadcast license and especially for TV commercials.
Folks, can I make this very clear once and for all? Please pay attention and write this down if need be:
TV COMMERCIALS GENERATE THE MOST PERFORMANCE ROYALTIES OUT OF ANY BROADCAST USAGE THERE IS. THIS IS A FACT.
Now, there may be some unusual very rare circumstances where my statement may not be 100% true. There could possibly be a rare one off circumstance where someone’s track becomes the opening theme of a very long running and popular TV show, but the chances of that happening in audio jungle from AJ buyers are very slim. BUT I actually do believe it can happen. Anything can happen in this business. I have had 25 year old tracks get picked up for big TV ad campaigns and earn quite a chunk of money. So YES, ANYTHING can happen in this business.
It is National, Worldwide, and even regional TV commercials that pay the big bucks. From my perspective every “air play” on average will pay the composer and publisher (We happen to be both in the AJ ecosystem) about $1 for every time the commercial airs. So if the commercial airs 10,000 times, the writer will earn around $10,000. It just all depends…
Is the spot running on cable only?
Is the spot running on big networks with large audiences?
Yes, the definition of broadcast usages needs to be updated and the most important component is this question:
Will you license this music for a film, TV show, or TV spot?
If TV show networks are shopping here on occasion for music then they should KNOW BETTER and include the writer and publisher name on a cue sheet. Those folks know about that process in the USA and Europe I would hope.
Can someone tell me why I should be deprived of the information when a Korean Advertising agency pays $999 for a broadcast license? Why can I not find out WHO licensed the music? For what Product? brand? Was it for a TV spot? I am sure it was…To be honest, I have no idea what a nationally televised tv spot may pay from Korea. If they run the spot 10,000 times it could be $10,000 in performance royalties, it could be $5000, It could be $1000…I just do not really know but why should I be deprived of finding out?
“When the community wins, we all win”
The “community of composers” is losing a lot of performance royalties folks.
And the insane thing about it is you have all the Eastern European composers here purposefully undercutting the rest of the world by touting ROYALTY FREE MUSIC, PERFORMANCE ROYALTY FREE MUSIC, ADREV FREE MUSIC, to gain a competitive advantage, but little do they know…a truckload of money can be earned if TV spots are getting properly tracked through a PRO.
Quit advocating for Envato to become publisher. They do not know what they are doing in this arena. They’d have to have localized representation set up in all collection territories and we already are self publishing on this site. We already registered our titles as writer and publisher and that can not be unwound.
The top selling authors who have been around here for the last 10 years are the folks most likely to influence change. The change we want is simply information and more data about end usage of broadcast licenses being sold.
If someone clicks BUY music and broadcast and film, a window needs to pop up that asks these questions:
Is this for a TV commercial? If Yes please type in this data:
- Name of Buyer?
- Email Address of Buyer?
- Name of product/ brand / advertiser using the music?
- Title of commercial?
- TV Spot codes (If available)? (all major USA advertisers use spot codes)
- Territory? Country it will air in?
- Name of client, ad agency, marketing agency, or post house licensing the music on behalf of the client?
- First projected Air Date of commercial?
Music Standard License Music Broadcast (1 Million) Music Mass Reproduction Music Broadcast (10 Million) Music Broadcast & Film
_$999_
Use in one end product, free or commercial. Most web uses. Unlimited copies of a downloaded or physical end product. Plus an unlimited broadcast audience, or a theatrically released film . The total price includes the item price and a buyer fee.
License details | Why buy with Envato?
Notice how ENVATO sneeks in “why buy with envato?” but then they tell us we are the sellers…isn’t that conveniently unethical? We are the sellers when it comes to taxes, but they are the sellers when it comes to actually selling a license and servicing the customer.
To clarify I´m talking about the money Envato will earn on the actual sales of broadcast licenses and/or correctly chosen broadcast licenses. I did not include Tim’s suggestion about AJ as a publisher in the summary. That could probably be a whole new topic, honestly I don´t have enough understanding of it to have an opinion at this point.
I have talked to my P.R.O (TONO) which recommended me to apply as self publisher at their website, because publishing royalties from US stays uncollected in my case if I don´t do that. This probably differs from PRO to PRO.
Anyways, just send me a message if there is something I should edit or add to the summary.
Envato already does earn revenue from their “selling platform” when a broadcast license is sold. They simply take their author fee and buyer fee from the transaction.
Step 2 is gathering the information needed to process a “claim” to collect “performance royalties” from TV spots airing on TV. This is the part where at the moment we are all on our own using spy/ detection technology only to get from point a to point b.
Envato will help all of us, especially their most successful authors who probably get their music into tv spots more than most, if they get us more precise buyer info and end usage info.
Information is the key to our revenue success. Without information we are challenged.
Envato, behind the scenes, is probably making this argument: “well this is a pita for us and we’re not making any money from it and blah blah blah”…while that may be the case, our request is not unreasonable because top tiered broadcast licenses are not bought all that often. Tim and PZ and Aurus can probably give better insight into how often they actually sell the top tiered license. My educated guess would be that 95% of the time that license is purchased, the track is going into a TV spot campaign. That will generate substantial performance royalties. If this kind of data only needs to be passed on a few times a year for these authors, all it amounts to is Envato doing their authors a kind favor by putting them in a position to rightfully collect their performance royalties.
In the end it’s just a nice thing to do, it’s the right thing to do. It is how we make a living in this business.
Like I said before…even just ONE big tv spot campaign, just one folks, can very easily generate tens of thousands of dollars in performance royalties. TV spot advertising needs to be taken very seriously and handled with an elevated level of professionalism. We are dealing with intellectual property rights here. We need to stop looking at this place as a local dime store for small bits of candy because big corporations are shopping here!
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Here is an example of “Prime Time” TV spot usage folks
Clients (Post houses and ad agencies) more and more are sourcing music for high end projects like this at audio jungle. Do we really just accept the license terms “as is” and also continue to accept the fact that we will never be informed who? what? when? where? This one is in heavy rotation on air in the USA and if it were not for TUNESAT, I’d never know, and never be in a position to collect the performance royalties. Again, unprecedented times. Why? Why are we allowing high end clients to waltz in here and not tell us who (is licensing this please give me your name)? what (product or brand)? when (will it air)? where (will it air)?
It took me weeks to hunt this down and put myself in position to file a claim at my PRO. Envato please approach music licensing into TV spots with an elevated level of professionalism. Composers and Publishers should have the right to know who (is licensing this please give me your name)? what (product or brand)? when (will it air)? where (will it air)? We’re requesting this for all TV spots because they are very very important pieces of business for writers.
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@SteelSound
I was making my websites GDPR compliant last year, and the EU laws are very strict and complicated about this. If you collect any personal data you must get explicit official consent from the customer. You cannot even collect something simple like emails or use website cookies to track your traffic for analytics without a direct consent from customer. That’s why you see so much “we use cookies” notifications lately and you must click I “Agree”. Penalties for collecting and sharing personal data without a customer consent are 500 000 euros. In this case Envato is the data controller, and I’m not sure they are allowed to share customer info.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, but since the Envato is the data controller it would probably need to get consent from customer to share info with the third party (you). And no one is forced to agree, and customers have the right to be forgotten and their personal info deleted if requested. Since you don’t run this website and it’s debatable if you are a seller or not, it’s not so simple at all.
If you go to a hospital in EU, and you want to send your blood to testing you get a piece of paper you must sign, where you consent that your info will be shared with a third party like some lab.
I was staying in a hotel last month, and I got GDPR compliance to sign because I gave them my personal name and address. (From my ID at check in)
That being said, it’s a very complicated issue and only lawyer could give correct answer, I’m just thinking out loud and maybe I’m completely wrong. I’m still very confused about the rules of GDPR. Any lawyers here? 
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If there were I don’t think they’d be here selling stuff on AJ 
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Lawyer by day and Audiojungle composer by night. Clark Kent - Superman
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Let just reverse the question then, how much data can be collected without complications? We have project name in Elements, so that one should be a no brainer right?
It shouldn’t be too difficult to make sharing of buyer information a condition of purchase. You want to buy this item, we need your information and will share it with the content creator. Period.
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That’s right. Probably need to make changes to the terms of the agreement. If the buyer agrees to sign them and clicks the green check mark. At least the “smoke will become transparent”.
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Yes, you can change the terms and inform the buyer that the third party will get their info. But I don’t know legally what needs to be done in this case. You also become data controller at that point so you also must follow the law as well as Envato. Anyway, I’m a composer and don’t have enough knowledge about this. Envato has an army for dealing with legal stuff, so let them see what can be done.
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You can’t collect data from visitors without their consent. But, they provide their data themselves when they become buyer. So there is absolutely no issue here.
That’s a possibility. Though, I don’t think it’s even necessary. The author is not a third party, we are the direct seller. Envato keep telling us the transaction is between the author and the buyer, and that is why they can’t intervene when we need help.
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That’s true. But I’m not sure that by the current terms Envato is allowed to share that data further. Terms can probably be tweaked to be able to do this I think… Even you as the third party will forward that information to another party like BMI, and they will forward it even further. I’m not an expert, so I don’t want to talk about something I have no clue about. Let someone from Envato tell us what is possible and what is not, I don’t know their terms and legal obligations.
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Cool story, my paypal invoice & bank account statement used for this payment does not agree 
Most services I use ask me for this kind of official consent
I suppose it’s a matter of checkbox during the purchase process with data sharing info which all of us check regularly in various services. Even more - it can be added only to EU sales.
This is easy problem to solve by a law team.
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If you are transparent about what exactly will you do with the data someone provides to you and where it would end up, and if the customer consent to that, that’s ok. But I don’t know if Envato is set up properly to manage this stuff since they run very complicated system currently. I’m too lazy to read privacy and cookie policy 
I’m not a lawyer but… I suppose the only feature we need is receiving data about broadcast use. The same data which buyers send to broadcasters and PROs. So it’s easy to transparently explain in the checkbox description: who, where and why will use this info.
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BTW less then five minutes after my last post, I transferred some cash to one of the local services I use and guess what? I had to click “I consent” checkbox about necessarily data sharing 
It’s normal, we do it every day in EU.