This is no "thank you" thread.

In the beginning I didn’t want to join Audiojungle, the prices were just way too low and they still are btw… But then I did and after 3 years on envato I’ve had these situations popping up over and over again:

…I’ve been visiting some good friends the other day. We’ve had a drink or two and the TV was running. I’ve noticed one of my songs in the background. I tried to not say anything, because if I’d have said that this was one of my tracks, my friends would have asked me how much I’ve had earned. How would you feel saying them that was 18$?

…free files of the month ending up on TV and Radio…

…buyers asking for custom work for under 50$ per minute…

Of course there are not just bad things here, but the good things are rare.

Please Envato. I’m tired.

ALLOW PRO

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I understand what you mean but if you heard your track on TV shouldn´t the buyer bought the Music broadcast and Film License which sells for $304?

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Yeah, if it’s on TV or the radio then you should be getting $36 minimum for an $18 track. Unless it’s a pretty small TV channel then $144 would be more likely. I appreciate the standard price for a track is pretty low, but the volume of sales here is usually pretty good. I mainly submit on VideoHive and although I’d rather get $80 per clip than $8… would I have anywhere near as many sales if that was the case?

While I totally understand your frustration on this and completely agree that the level of expectation needs to be managed, I am not sure anyone can hold envato responsible for this.

Unfortunately when it comes to selling stock material there is no way for the authors or envato to know where they will end up being used or really control this.

All they can do is put in place commercial licenses for more cost (arguably not enough in some cases), add support guideliens as they have recently etc, but much beyond that what they can do it restricted.

As @SpaceStockFootage said if envato massively increased the costs then this would punish the day to day buyers who are not planning on using items for bigger commercial projects and would subsequently drive down sales.

Regretfully it is the same in all the marketplaces e.g. $50 for a full WP theme is insane, as is $30 for an animated video package - it all comes down to volume potential.

Again I totally understand your frustration - just not sure what can be done to resolve it easily.

Not saying Envato should engage in collusion, BUT just saying other sites usually have higher prices, like 2$ for sfx and $25 for a song at least, so it wouldn’t be the end of the world if Envato had higher prices. The free stuff I’m ambivalent about because giving out free stuff is always good for promotion, but do you really want to give out your “best” stuff for free month after month after month?

I have a suspicion that sometimes it happens because the promoted price on AJ is the one for a standard license. And, whilst some other popular stock music sites sell unlimited use royalty-free music for around the same price, it may trick some buyers used to that model into thinking that AJ works just like that: $19 USD, buy once, use forever, all uses. It may never occur to them it can be any other way with royalty free music. I’d really want to see a checkbox menu instead of the dropdown menu next to the music tracks on this marketplace.

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With Envato expanding to the United States, they are going to run into more pushback from people demanding for PRO. The misunderstanding from Envato is, PRO collects royalties from TV stations via a blanket license, NOT from the content creator that is buying the music on Audiojungle. This is how it works in the United States - in Europe, it is different, but writers who are registered with BMI, ASCAP, or SESAC can sell royalty-free work and also get the allotted back-end royalties from TV.

The TV stations airing these commercials/shows have ALREADY paid into a blanket license to ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, and the only thing holding us composers back from getting that money (that is already paid, regardless if they use our music or not) is if they identify it via a “Cue Sheet”

PRO is back-end royalties - it is technically still “royalty-free” as you are not demanding the content creators to pay the up front synch royalties.

For example, I have some non-AJ songs on Fox Sports, where I receive $250 each time a song plays. (this is the “royalty” that Fox has to pay me)

In ADDITION to that $250 every time it spins, I get another royalty from ASCAP (the back-end that is already paid in a pool of money from Fox) This money has already been collected, and the only way ASCAP knows how to distribute the money is by identification on a Cue Sheet.

As I said before, Audiojungle is going to have some serious issues in the US if they continue to ignore these facts. Quality talent WILL leave because of this simple misunderstanding.

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Couldn’t have explained it better @SoundBoys! Other RF sites do this, so why not Audiojungle? This is long overdue!

WorldBeyond, your checkbox for licence costs instead of dropdown menu is a great idea! It would definitely make buyers more aware of the different licenses needed for certain uses.

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If it makes you feel better mike, AJ is the only site where I’ve continuously got my songs rejected as well. I think AJ just gets so much attention that they are trying to be more strict about not wasting buyers time with all sorts of repetitive songs that all sound alike, they want things that are more unique as sub-categories become saturated.
I’m actually I’m not so sure cause getting paid $250 just to play a song once? That sounds like too much to me unless it’s a huge song or collection of songs that took a ton of work for a superball ad for a big company. The real world needs continuous work to get new resources and thats why most people get paid by they hour or per contract. If I was making some project and I was putting the work into selling it and arranging the whole project and only getting paid $10 sale or view or w/e, well why the hell am I paying some random song writer who only wrote one song for a huge percentage of work they had nothing to do with? It’s the same exact greed people try to revolt against, there needs to be a balance cause no one’s innocent in this.

I think if it’s on TV at all it needs a broadcast license, no?

yes ok u are right, the low prices just mean more volume but in the end how many of us can really live out of these volumes at this time and just stick to running marketplaces? i think that a few elite authors can, as for the rest of us we get pocket money … and the worst is still to come when the extra fees come, when the self pricing is in stored and so on … as i am pretty much convinced the result of all this will be a good drop of revenue for all of us …

hi Charlie and isn’t it possible to increase control on the items are being used and scale a bit more the prices and licences, maybe it could a solution, don’t u think so?

are u talking about reselling a work to a customer? because if so , don’t fool yourself, the guy who is reselling is making much more more money than the one who is creating and that’s problem, besides a bit the same kind of problem as cultivator have all around the world, when they are the ones working hard and the ones being paid with despise, when middle men and supermarkets make a whole of money in the process

Not always the case. If they’re a bigger business its a lot more probable, but even then it doesn’t make them immune to losing money. It’s only a really small percentage of people that the “make millions from doing nothing” situation applies to. Ultimately, its the same case as here, there’s lots of and lots people making ukulele songs just as there’s a lot of people who are willing to wash dishes and that’s why dishwashers get paid less and fewer people who actually know how to run a business into anywhere but the ground since it takes experience. If it ever becomes really easy to learn how to be a manager/owner, which is sort of is since it’s in part just common sense, there’ll be an influx of managers and owners and its likely the wages of managers will go down.

yes especially if big and that they make a loooooooooot of money and that they do estimate that they do make enough because the shareholders are dissatisfied not to get their usual substantial increase yearly …

that’s also sad to see an author who is comparing guys who are supposed to be artists and to have developed skills for long being compared with dishwashing guys. Don’t get me wrong, i have a huge respect for them as they work hard and are assuming themselves , they are the merit not to depend on anybody and get their living, but it doesn’t really take incredible skills to wash dishes … and even if the guys that u refer to , who play ukulele are numerous that doesn’t mean that all can do it well all the same and same goes in every single job anyway … u maybe right as uniqueness makes the price go down in a general way , now there’s a middle way too and having people not earning anything out of working hard there’s something for me , sorry to say just that

You don’t seem to understand most people are not big and don’t make a looooooooooot of money, most people either fail or do average. Just take a look around here, are 90% of the authors the top 10% of authors? No, that doesn’t even make mathematical sense.
Does it actually take “incredible” skill to do all sorts of stuff in audio like music? Well if it does, why are there such a huge number of artists and submissions as well as the fact that there’s soooooooooo many submissions that multiple platforms deem it necessary to impose large base quality standards and reject thousands of submissions? If it actually took such incredible skill, then yeah the few hypothetical artists that were here probably would be making a lot more money pretty easy, but there’s thousands of people every day grabbing a guitar and a piano and practicing. The whole music industry is just another job, it’s something you work at and over time you get more experience and make more money and that’s why usually the people who do have more experience here do better ( as in, not just in real life in general, but more experience HERE on THIS website, more submissions, more exposure, more client relations, etc), it’s not some magical dream come true. Saying that you deserve so much more than everyone else simply undermines the loads of work that thousands of other people do every day.

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are u kidding me buddy, how are there so many people and items?! that’s a serious question?! hahaha and that’s supposed to be your point in the end? well i tell you how, indeed, there are a lot of guys who have been learning music for long (who have gradually got into high skills for some of them by the way), many people trying to break through the music industry or combine work and passion and a lot of them did not even have any opportunity to showcase what they could do but here they can, and AJ is one of the possibilities for them, as well as freelancing also, and both are naturally working together so that the guy try to survive or live out of their art …

no doubt that u are a elite guy according to what u are mentioning, that’s fine all can believe and tell what they like. However, if u believe that , let me tell you that your way of reasoning doesn’t make that much sense either in your case , not only mine according to you.
For instance , if i was running a tv channel or a radio that , here, there turned out to have only weak guys who could not do any other things that running the marketplace, then i would certainly not come here to buy. Numbers and quality are not necessarily incompatible indeed, this is not because guys are numerous , they are all weak … (to tell you about a thing that i know way better than AJ, in GR, there are a lot of incredible flyer makers and man! these guys are killers, their work rock the building and they are here , they are even rather numerous , which doesn’t mean that they suck for that matter, as they are not only good but also very different styles and that variety serves the marketplace and buyers). IN addition, i dare hope that if some people , just like u mentioned a bit by the way, are coming here, this is because 1° they know that they can afford buying when they do not have so much money to spend 2° that they have quality music to grab for their projects and that they are not only interested in buying poor and cheap … (and it seems to me that a good deal of radio or tv channels can afford hiring a guy sometimes all the same, if u know what i mean). Unlike what u seem to believe that’s not always the guys who are complaining the most and who are not the most wealthy and unlike what u seem to think, they are generally the most eager to save money everywhere while they are far away from belonging to the poorest or being hard up, some of them are just into that very aggressive commercial attitude, they want to make obey at all cost, period. Sorry to tell you just that but thats’ the truth,the ugly truth i might add , besides, please explain to me how we all can find so many websites full of stolen items which are given for free download? what does it basically mean that the cheap prices are still not down enough? come on a flyer for instance here , this is 6$, less than a cup of coffee in some cities of this world, and no more than one drink sold in a club … IN any case, if u wish i have hundreds of stories accumulated in 13 years of experience to underline that eagerness, i will be happy to share some of them … lol

as for dealing with users , i can tell you what is the problem if u want me to do , this is that here, unlike what happens in some other places, they accept all people and that obviously brings either a lot of guys (and not always super professional ones by the way) to swell the community of authors and to drastically increase the number of submissions. Let me also remind you that there are some guys who have just finished training . Actually, they would like to develop experience when no one gives them any single opportunity to do and, here , they have the occasion to develop a portfolio and to build experience on their own and make sure to materialize there good potential, that’s also how u get a continuously increasing number of guys in the mix. U may also consider that if they are in this situation , this is that they do not have talent enough, well if so this is really naive because the world of job nowadays is much more about networks and lookalike issues than competences, unfortunately.

as we are discussing with mass and all this stuff, let me also remind you off the history of the marketplace and how the whole thing started. In the first place, it was invented by some guys who had their freelance projects not accepted by the customer who had hired them . Thus, they tried to make sure that they did not lose the concerned works and tried to make money out of them … . I guess that u are no stranger to the fact that, today, guys , they spend time to create items specifically for marketplaces … so that doesn’t sound much compatible with what u are saying as from a rejected thing that some may suspect as not being good quality enough (as it was not accepted), we end up with guys providing works that they have been specifically working on and taking much time and effort to elaborate …

u also consider the fact that authors and items are a bit melted in the mass now as a way to show that guys are not so good but the fact of the matter is way different, all are accepted and naturally join, who can blame them for this? all can submit works and both authors and items increase gamely in time that’s a fact and yes , some maybe not so good items are being accepted , so what? is this authors fault? they run their opportunity anyway, that’s not authors who approve their items for them to be on sale … not to mention that u seem to forget about something that is not pleading in favor of any kind of control indeed, if u search, u can find out some items, almost everywhere, which are really poor and however , they get a good number of sales , so what does it mean in your point of view? well, i tell u , that means that there’s a potential purchasing base for all styles, even for the worst items and for non-tasty or too flat things on sale … . And, once again, it take us back to the way things work, nowadays, u do not need to be the best in what you do to succeed, u need either networks or a real ability to promote what u do … .Let’s be honest all the buyers do not have the skills to say what is a good item and why and let’s also be honest all the way, some of them select items according to their own tastes, without trying to ask to themselves what is the kind of thing that “their target” would like to have to deal with …

as for what u said as regard to music, this is not really exact in my view, the fact of the matter is that music is generating passion and a whole lot of people would really love to live out of it when there’s not space enough for them all . So, the kind of thing that u mentioned, the guy taking a guitar, i assume it does happen but try to have a look at the whole range of broadcasts dedicated to this and u’ll realize how a huge number of guys have very high skills and get discovered in the lookalike “the voice”, “american idol” or whatever and how many of committee members are impressed with the skills that many developed despite they are very young , however did they get noticed beforehand?! no, they were “stuck in the mud”, “overflowed in an ocean” or u may call it, whatever kind of image that u may like using it’s working the same way as long as job are felt as being attractive …

as for what u said, we do agree indeed, the policy that we have to deal with is a policy of volume, but why?! can u imagine spending days of work and getting 2$ per sale, and how are u going to live out of it ? i mean except if you are living in a dream country with no tax, very low cost of life and so on and so forth … or that u sell thousand of those low cost items … .
That will be my conclusion, nowadays, i guess that most of the guys do pay much attention to what they create in general way but some have been choosing the mass or volume because they know that this is working to make them survive, if people want the thing to work differently, then they need to dare express and do what kit takes to have changes coming true… . Nowadays u cannot afford spending a week without a new submission without seeing sales drop gamely , here is what happens today so , does anybody wants to change this? please raised your hands, mine is raised already, if anyone wants possible options, i have tons of them to offer … are u kidding me buddy, how are there so many people and items?! that’s a serious question?! hahaha and that’s supposed to be your point in the end? well i tell you how, indeed, there are a lot of guys who have been learning music for long (who have gradually got into high skills for some of them by the way), many people trying to break through the music industry or combine work and passion and a lot of them did not even have any opportunity to showcase what they could do but here they can, and AJ is one of the possibilities for them, as well as freelancing also, and both are naturally working together so that the guy try to survive or live out of their art …

no doubt that u are a elite guy according to what u are mentioning, that’s fine all can believe and tell what they like. However, if u believe that , let me tell you that your way of reasoning doesn’t make that much sense either in your case , not only mine according to you.
For instance , if i was running a tv channel or a radio that , here, there turned out to have only weak guys who could not do any other things that running the marketplace, then i would certainly not come here to buy. Numbers and quality are not necessarily incompatible indeed, this is not because guys are numerous , they are all weak … (to tell you about a thing that i know way better than AJ, in GR, there are a lot of incredible flyer makers and man! these guys are killers, their work rock the building and they are here , they are even rather numerous , which doesn’t mean that they suck for that matter, as they are not only good but also very different styles and that variety serves the marketplace and buyers). IN addition, i dare hope that if some people , just like u mentioned a bit by the way, are coming here, this is because 1° they know that they can afford buying when they do not have so much money to spend 2° that they have quality music to grab for their projects and that they are not only interested in buying poor and cheap … (and it seems to me that a good deal of radio or tv channels can afford hiring a guy sometimes all the same, if u know what i mean). Unlike what u seem to believe that’s not always the guys who are complaining the most and who are not the most wealthy and unlike what u seem to think, they are generally the most eager to save money everywhere while they are far away from belonging to the poorest or being hard up, some of them are just into that very aggressive commercial attitude, they want to make obey at all cost, period. Sorry to tell you just that but thats’ the truth,the ugly truth i might add , besides, please explain to me how we all can find so many websites full of stolen items which are given for free download? what does it basically mean that the cheap prices are still not down enough? come on a flyer for instance here , this is 6$, less than a cup of coffee in some cities of this world, and no more than one drink sold in a club … IN any case, if u wish i have hundreds of stories accumulated in 13 years of experience to underline that eagerness, i will be happy to share some of them … lol

as for dealing with users , i can tell you what is the problem if u want me to do , this is that here, unlike what happens in some other places, they accept all people and that obviously brings either a lot of guys (and not always super professional ones by the way) to swell the community of authors and to drastically increase the number of submissions. Let me also remind you that there are some guys who have just finished training . Actually, they would like to develop experience when no one gives them any single opportunity to do and, here , they have the occasion to develop a portfolio and to build experience on their own and make sure to materialize there good potential, that’s also how u get a continuously increasing number of guys in the mix. U may also consider that if they are in this situation , this is that they do not have talent enough, well if so this is really naive because the world of job nowadays is much more about networks and lookalike issues than competences, unfortunately.

as we are discussing with mass and all this stuff, let me also remind you off the history of the marketplace and how the whole thing started. In the first place, it was invented by some guys who had their freelance projects not accepted by the customer who had hired them . Thus, they tried to make sure that they did not lose the concerned works and tried to make money out of them … . I guess that u are no stranger to the fact that, today, guys , they spend time to create items specifically for marketplaces … so that doesn’t sound much compatible with what u are saying as from a rejected thing that some may suspect as not being good quality enough (as it was not accepted), we end up with guys providing works that they have been specifically working on and taking much time and effort to elaborate …

u also consider the fact that authors and items are a bit melted in the mass now as a way to show that guys are not so good but the fact of the matter is way different, all are accepted and naturally join, who can blame them for this? all can submit works and both authors and items increase gamely in time that’s a fact and yes , some maybe not so good items are being accepted , so what? is this authors fault? they run their opportunity anyway, that’s not authors who approve their items for them to be on sale … not to mention that u seem to forget about something that is not pleading in favor of any kind of control indeed, if u search, u can find out some items, almost everywhere, which are really poor and however , they get a good number of sales , so what does it mean in your point of view? well, i tell u , that means that there’s a potential purchasing base for all styles, even for the worst items and for non-tasty or too flat things on sale … . And, once again, it take us back to the way things work, nowadays, u do not need to be the best in what you do to succeed, u need either networks or a real ability to promote what u do … .Let’s be honest all the buyers do not have the skills to say what is a good item and why and let’s also be honest all the way, some of them select items according to their own tastes, without trying to ask to themselves what is the kind of thing that “their target” would like to have to deal with …

as for what u said as regard to music, this is not really exact in my view, the fact of the matter is that music is generating passion and a whole lot of people would really love to live out of it when there’s not space enough for them all . So, the kind of thing that u mentioned, the guy taking a guitar, i assume it does happen but try to have a look at the whole range of broadcasts dedicated to this and u’ll realize how a huge number of guys have very high skills and get discovered in the lookalike “the voice”, “american idol” or whatever and how many of committee members are impressed with the skills that many developed despite they are very young , however did they get noticed beforehand?! no, they were “stuck in the mud”, “overflowed in an ocean” or u may call it, whatever kind of image that u may like using it’s working the same way as long as job are felt as being attractive …

as for what u said, we do agree indeed, the policy that we have to deal with is a policy of volume, but why?! can u imagine spending days of work and getting 2$ per sale, and how are u going to live out of it ? i mean except if you are living in a dream country with no tax, very low cost of life and so on and so forth … or that u sell thousand of those low cost items … .
That will be my conclusion, nowadays, i guess that most of the guys do pay much attention to what they create in general way but some have been choosing the mass or volume because they know that this is working to make them survive, if people want the thing to work differently, then they need to dare express and do what kit takes to have changes coming true… . Nowadays u cannot afford spending a week without a new submission without seeing sales drop gamely , here is what happens today so , does anybody wants to change this? please raised your hands, mine is raised already, if anyone wants possible options, i have tons of them to offer …

Depends on the number of viewers… under 1m, under 10m and over 10m. So if you were in the UK for example, you’d need an under 10m or over 10m for most channels… BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4, maybe Channel 5. The only time you could get away with ‘under 1m’ would be some obscure freeview channel like ‘women and horses’, ‘paranormal conspiracies tv’, ‘the knitting channel’ or BBC4.

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Normally I don’t bother to read any threads here, but on this one just one question.

Does anyone know the difference between a Royalty Free licence and a Rights Managed licence???

In order to go over to the Rights Managed model would cause enormous issues for a Royalty Free site like this one. The litigation alone would be unbelievable.

I don’t understand quite why people don’t just do their RF tracks for an RF site and their RM tracks for a PRO based site.

Another thing that is probably misunderstood is that tracks for a PRO based site tend to differ quite bit. Most people here based on their style of tracks and/or their comfort zone, would not get onto a good PRO based library btw. Take that as read. Reason mostly is because of swamping. Most, if not all high quality PRO based libraries have pretty good distribution and distributors with fairly experienced sales teams. They DO NOT under any circumstances want the same track 5000000 times, I guarantee you that. Also, people like the BBC that I see mentioned will not deal with anything but PRO style outlets. Main reason: COST. RF would be ridiculous in the extreme to them.
And that is why you get lesser known TV stations that are perhaps a little lazy putting up RF tracks for basically nothing. The PRO won’t do anything about it either, because the track will not be, and CANNOT be registered with them if it’s RF>

Feel free to argue the point. But before you do, give someone like the PRS a ring and see what they say. Hahahahah!