Sales has been cut in half, after joining P.R.O.

Envato Authors AudioJungle
1

Not sure if I did my biggest mistake by joining a Performing Rights Organization (P.R.O.) Did I?

Fact is, my sales has been cut down in half since I joined P.R.O. and declared it on every audiojungle item as I have to, according to the rules on audiojungle.

In the last 24 Months or so, my sales performed on a pretty steady volume for about $500 a month. Now after 4 Months since I’m with P.R.O it came down to about $250 a month.

So what could be the reason and what could be done to prevent such a devastating outcome.

Here my thoughts I’d like to share with you and an invite to join this discussion!

1.)
Nonetheless audiojungle states very clear what it means to purchase music from a P.R.O. related author, it doesn’t appear very obvious and very down below anything else on those pages.

It says:

If you purchase P.R.O. music, the performing rights are not included with your license, however generally you as the customer / producer still won’t have to worry about any additional P.R.O. licenses or fees.

Again it is pretty clear but I’m afraid customers won’t get this information for sure, thats why I wished audiojungle would put more afford into the clarification with campaigns on a regular basis.

Because of the bad image and a wide spread of misinformation about anything with Performing Rights Organizations campaigning for a better understanding would be very helpful.

2.)
I found some audiojungle items were the author states in the item description that his/her audio file is non related to P.R.O

Further on he/she tells the customer that his/her work is really royalty free and the buyer has never to face all the trouble and hassle that comes with P.R.O related music. Without any clarification or explanation why this allegedly could be.

Is this a fair thing todo? Taking advantage on an already confused customer, dragging sales away from those authors who been with P:R.O?

Should all the P.R.O authors also put an extra text on their items against music non P.R.O related?

I don’t think so we shouldn’t have a contra vs pro war over the head of our customers.

Again best thing would be multiple campaigns on a regular basis educating our customers that it is not a bad thing buying music from a P.R.O

Please feel free to join this discussion and tell us about your experience /opinion.

Also the envato / audiojungle staff his highly invited.

2

You sure didn’t. Quite the opposite.

This roughly coincides with the introduction of music in Elements, which is much more likely to have an impact than your joining a PRO. Also, there is no such thing as stable sales on Audiojungle. Even very Top authors have not been able to maintain their sales.

Report them. If this is not allowed when it comes to AdRev, it sure isn’t either when it comes to PRO.

This bull**** sure spreads misinformation. Shame on the one who came up with this text!

nope, not fair. This is both antagonizing and moronic. And all lies of course.

Haha, that’d be fun to flip it around. “PRO music, the only responsible music”

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3

It’s coincidence in my opinion. Simple statistic drop in sales, especially in the winter/Christmas/New Year time. I haven’t heard about drop in sales after joining PRO. In fact, for single buyers non PRO music can be the only choice, but I’m talking about a very small percent of buyers which should not affect overall sales.

On the other hand PRO registered music is more valuable for big players, so you can earn more e.g. via broadcast license.

4

January plus Elements = bad sales

5

It’s very normal to look for some explanation why sales are suddenly shifting. It could be a lot of things combined, I highly doubt that your PRO registration has anything at all to do with this.

The usual suspects last months are Elements, credits removal, forced transaction fees etc. I don’t know how many subscribers there were in Elements before Audio got introduced, but lets say it was 80 000, if so that means that all those Elements customers suddenly got access to Audio at that time. So it would be natural with a dip down in sales I would suspect. But also let’s not forget over saturation, slow holiday months, and increased competition outside Envato.

Some blog information about PRO music would be great, for both customer and authors, especially us authors needs to be aware of how smart it is to register in a P.R.O :slight_smile: Remember some customers specifically need PRO registered music as well.

What is most surprising to me is that you have had steady sales for 24 months. I don’t think very many authors can say the same?

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6

Hey Guys,

Thank you for your feedback.

It seems everybody is on the same road here, me personally haven’t even considered that the element thing might play a role here.

To be honest, I did know about the horrible idea and I was in a state of denial until today.

If this becomes a proven fact that elements have such an impact on our business, well I don’t see my self keep on going here.

I red across the forum about elements and found that other authors have seen advertising by envato on their item pages even on exclusive authors, to drag customers to the element thing.

Boy how disgusting is that?

Well, according to the latest annual report, envato claims to be the one of the companies with the most happy employees.

Not so much happy authors I guess.

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7

You know there have been a couple threads where this was discussed. Truth is that the majority of the customers here just want quick, cheap, hassle free music. They don’t want to be bothered with licensing trouble, altough there is non when they do everything right.

Another thing is that many authors here stay away from AdRev or PRO, because the fear of loosing customers. Sadly, it seems to work out for some of them. AdRev and Content ID in general is protecting our music of getting monetized without a license and PRO registration is important for us musicians because we’ll be getting payed this way when our music gets played on TV or Radio.

In both circumstanes, the customer has nothing to pay extra. Except he’s a Broadcaster.

One could argue that customers know that they have nothing to pay extra if they purchase the right license, but it seems that many are asking themselves why others offer music without AdRev or/and PRO.

Envato is already helping the cutomers with links and explanation.

8

If $250 is all you are getting for 4 months, having 200+ items here, I would re consider being exclusive. Is it really worth it?