I don’t mean buying out a song to retain full ownership rights… I mean, buying in the sense that the Audiojungle author still retains ownership, but he no longer gets to sell it on here or anywhere else.
I have several heavy games under development and would like exclusive use of some songs on here. What would be a reasonable price to exclusively buy out a song?
Depends on who you’re asking. A 4 digits price is normal, but I’m sure that some composers will be happy with a few hundreds.
||+1000395|Art-of-Sound said-|| A 4 digits price.
probably this. it also might depend on the length…but most of all speak to the author themselves.
Nice thread 
KabbalisticVillage said||+1000395|Art-of-Sound said-|| A 4 digits price.probably this. it also might depend on the length…but most of all speak to the author themselves.
it probably also depends on what modifications are needed to perfectly fit your project.
But generally, a four digit price will do.
Hi drww588,
if you want exclusive material, why don’t you contact the authors of your preferred tracks and ask them, if they compose something similar exclusive for you?
Zineb_Chraibi saidHi DR588, I think what you really are asking is that you be able to license the songs you like on this site for exclusive use in your game, and you want to then disallow the composer from being able to license that same song here on AJ or anywhere else.
Is this what you are looking to do?
You say “I have several heavy games under development and would like exclusive use of some songs on here.”By wanting “Exclusive use of the songs” you are saying to the composer “no one else can use these songs while I am using these songs.”
To me it sounds like you do want to buy these songs and take ownership of them.
Why would a composer want to have their song tied up in your game exclusively unless you would be willing to pay a large sum of money for the license? A game exists “in perpetuity” does it not?
Or would you want exclusive use of the song for just 1-3 years, for example?What you are asking for is quite ambiguous and you need to clearly define your needs for the music.
lemega SAYS Hi drww588,if you want exclusive material, why don’t you contact the authors of your preferred tracks and ask them, if they compose something similar exclusive for you?
These are great questions I’ll answer both of them at the same time:
First, yes, I do want exclusive use of some of the songs on here. A 4-digit sounds reasonable for a quality track, as there are many on here. I guess taking “ownership” of the songs isn’t too important to me. For example, I don’t wish to resell the actual song, I just want the song to stop being sold. I understand for many quality tracks on here, there are already many buyers, and the whole purpose of this is to minimize the chance that people playing my games would hear the same soundtrack elsewhere. When I say ownership, I mean: the difference is that the author retains full ownership of it. For example, in custom web development for a client, most projects we create still belongs to us, including all assets, pictures, code, etc… In that case, we won’t be able to sell the app to anyone else, but we still own all the bits and pieces that make up the project. We can still reuse pictures and source code in future projects for other clients. On the other hand, in some more expensive projects, the client wants to take full ownership of it - in that case, 100% of the stuff we create belongs to the client. The client pays much more and we sign a contract saying we hand everything over, and won’t be allowed to use the bits and pieces in future projects.
Maybe it’s different for audio recording, and I’m sorry if it is. I come from a software development background and am a total newbie with music licensing. If what I’m saying is totally ridiculous, please let me know
It’s my same idea here – to both save costs on my end, and to allow the author more freedom, the author retains full ownership of his work and is allowed to use bits and pieces to make another song. I don’t own any vocals or musical notations or anything else. I also cannot resell the song as it is. But the author would simply stop selling that specific song to anyone else. He’s of course allowed to create another song using the pieces of the exclusive song and sell that.
I could contact the authors and have them custom-compose songs, but that is very time consuming for both of us and is outside of the budget I’m allowing for music. In a past game development, a (not a famous) composer quoted rates of $12,000 USD+ to custom-compose a song. That isn’t cost-effective for me at this point. Plus, I would already know what I like, based on the samples on this site and in author’s own website portfolios and it’s much faster to pick from what’s already been made.
It’s not different in audio recording, but that’s not the licensing model audiojungle is based on. If you want exclusive material you have to assign a musician to compose exclusively for your project. If you take a track from audiojungle, you can’t minimize the chance, that this special track is available somewhere else. Maybe others bought it before you and use it in their projects - or it is used on a videohive project.
It depends on the composer, the music you are looking to license, and the time you which you want to license the track exclusively. I can’t speak for other musicians but if I were to quote on that request I would see how often I licensed that track since it was created. I would calculate the percentage change from the time I created it to the time I was offered an exclusive quote. I’d do a little math and figure out based on the current sales rate what my ball park numbers would be. I’d take that number and multiply how ever long the license would be. If it was in perpetuity I’d probably multiply it by 100, if it was 5 years with a reversion clause I’d multiply by 5 years. So if you wanted a track that I’ve made 150 bucks on in a year and you wanted that in perpetuity I’d take 150x100 years to come up with 15,000 and that’s without calculating the percentage change. That would give a rough starting spot on how I would figure it.
But musicians are like snowflakes, everyone handles business a little different. I create music for a living so to me I see the value in what I create. Some musicians on here are very good, but don’t have that same pressure of having to live off a music portfolio. You could probably work out something for a lot less with them. For what your trying to do I would make sure you contact the musician directly and make sure to have a contract drawn up just so everything is squared away.
You can send me a message via my profile. Give me more details about your project, type and length of music needed and we can talk more in-depth about it.
lemega saidHi drww588,
if you want exclusive material, why don’t you contact the authors of your preferred tracks and ask them, if they compose something similar exclusive for you?
I think this is best.
The author does something very similar to the track you want. This track has never sold and will never be sold.
A good approximation of how much exclusive licensing of AJ track would be worth can be calculated using some economy. The exact value could be found using “discounted cash flow” method, it means, a sum of all future sales discounted for the reference interest rates. The more simple way, is to use a fixed “P/E ratio”, for example 10, and so calculate the total sales that song can generate in 10 years.
By multiplying the sales amount if made during last year by 10, we can estimate the value of a song, calculated the same way as it is for other money making assets in economy. Our songs are indeed money making assets so this approach seems just right. For more information about economy background I spoke about, search for “discounted cash flow” and “P/E ratio”.
I never thought about including such exclusive licencing model for AJ tracks, and I’m not sure if AJ would be interested in adding this kind of licence. But I thought about something similar, related to treating the tracks as assets having some value. So, users could be allowed to auction the tracks. One user would buy other user’s song this way, including the rights to sell it on AJ. It would be a good investment to buy an AJ track that makes a lot of sales, and the author might like to receive a bigger amount of money once instead of waiting for years for this money to accumulate, and AJ would get a percentage of the transaction value.
In this model, the buyer of the song would also be allowed to delete the song from AJ and use it exclusively if they wish so.
drw588 saidI could contact the authors and have them custom-compose songs, but that is very time consuming for both of us and is outside of the budget I’m allowing for music. In a past game development, a (not a famous) composer quoted rates of $12,000 USD+ to custom-compose a song. That isn’t cost-effective for me at this point. Plus, I would already know what I like, based on the samples on this site and in author’s own website portfolios and it’s much faster to pick from what’s already been made.
It depends on the person you talk to really, I’ve done fun little soundtracks for indie games for as low as $100 for no budget games. But that’s when I’m really bored and don’t have anything else on my plate. If you’ve got the cash to buy out songs on here you’ll surely find a decent composer who can work with you on a project, no harm in asking around.
Allegro120 saidlemega saidHi drww588,
if you want exclusive material, why don’t you contact the authors of your preferred tracks and ask them, if they compose something similar exclusive for you?
I think this is best.
The author does something very similar to the track you want. This track has never sold and will never be sold.
+1
AudioLeaks saidAllegro120 saidlemega saidHi drww588,
if you want exclusive material, why don’t you contact the authors of your preferred tracks and ask them, if they compose something similar exclusive for you?
I think this is best.
The author does something very similar to the track you want. This track has never sold and will never be sold.+1
+1
I’ve made exclusive tracks (with lyrics and vocals, I might add) for $300 that aired on nationwide American ABC. Buyer was granted all the rights. Some of you may say that’s too cheap, but I can’t count the number of times I’ve offered a track for $300 only to be turned down by someone saying “they can get it cheaper somewhere else”. Now I know they can, but I’d say the keyword here is “it” - yes you can get music for free, but do you get:
Taking these (and other) factors into account makes for a more substantial business proposal. The final price should reflect the level of customer service as well as the level of artistry. For me it’s not a problem to deliver a custom track in a day for $300, that’s business as usual. I do however understand that if you’ve been working on a track for a month you’d probably want more. It’s a bit irrational to think about music that way, however, because in the end the customer/client does not want to care about how many hours you put in a track, it’s all about how it sounds and what similar tracks out there can be bought out for a lower price.
One comment about buying out exclusivity - I recently offered a TV show cue exclusively for only $320 above the non-exclusive license, and they still chose to go non-exclusive. I guess they figured that any other show or business using the same music would really do them a favour - it’s more or less cross-promotion and if anything it gives more exposure of the brand. Buying out to be able to sell the music is of course a another story.
O
Zineb_Chraibi said@Stockwaves, if the production company/ TV show music supervisor for ABC paid you an advance of $300 for a song, I’m sure you will also be collecting PRO royalties (as “writer”) too right?..I hope. So you received an advance of $300, but they will file a cue sheet and you will collect back end writers royalties? And they will be the publisher? If not…This is a problem and we’re back to racing to the bottom, no one should ever give up their writers shares ever…even for $300.
+1
Regarding $300 for exclusive rights, in my personal opinion, that is not something I would really consider!
garethcoker saidRegarding $300 for exclusive rights, in my personal opinion, that is not something I would really consider!
+1
garethcoker saidRegarding $300 for exclusive rights, in my personal opinion, that is not something I would really consider!
Agreed. Also, I’m sure it’s been mentioned already, but a composer really has to consider the amount a track could potentially earn over a few years, if not it’s entire lifetime.
If I sold the ‘exclusive rights’ to my top selling track before it became popular, and compared the income to say $300, I’d be absolutely gutted! And not being allowed generate any further income from it? No way.
I really do think the best way is to pick a composer who’s music or sound fits what is being sought after, and get them to create a bespoke track. No complaints or resentment that way.