Leasing beats is pointless in my opinion

S

StanleySteamer

New member
Hey guys as the title says, I feel like leasing beats is pointless. I am only sharing this as my opinion so I welcome the feedback of others as well. In fact, I want to hear other opinions whether you agree with me or not so please make sure you post your opinion. Here are some reasons why I feel like leasing beats is absolutely pointless.

First of all, most artists aren't that serious or even some that are don't feel the need to pay for beats. You sit there on twitter, facebook, instagram, whatever trying to lease beats but the majority don't buy. Most serious artists don't buy because they know more than likely the beat has been leased to someone else or even multiple people.

Second of all, when you lease beats you are going on a set price. Most of the time this set price people either say is too high or too low just to lease the beat. At the end of the day if you get into a studio with a serious artist like 2 chainz or future, they aren't going to pay you $5000 for the exclusive rights to a beat that they know has be passed around and recorded on by a bunch of different artists.

And lastly, when you sell a lease beat the artist is relying on you to mix the beat to the best of your abilities. Or maybe you have your own engineer. Regardless, the quality of the track and the chance of it blowing up are reduced that much being that at that point all you can do is put the vocals over the beat or right at the beats level, depending on how it sounds. If you at least selling the exclusive rights, they can get the track outs and an engineer can fully mix and master the track to the best of their abilities which means upon release and promotion the song has that much more of a chance of blowing up and getting on the radio which means your professional career has just begun.

Now I have my own website where I offer current lease options. Alot of beats I have taken down because I am in the process of rebuilding and uploading a whole new catalog. But lately I am thinking about only keeping the exclusive rights button active which I have set by a "Make An Offer" status. That means the artist will make an offer and via email, paypal, or beatstars(which is my current website host) will notify me when someone makes an offer for the exclusive rights to a track. I can then decide whether I agree with the price and click accept, get paid, and the track outs and mp3 and wavs will all go to the artist. I even have it setup so a contract is emailed and basically digitally signed and agreed upon sale.

As I said I am looking for the feedback of other producers who have been doing leasing or only selling exclusives. I guess my point is that if you are Murda Beatz, Metro Boomin, Zaytoven, Mike Will or TM88 or Southside, are you really going to lease the beat out over and over to major artists like Gucci Mane and Future? Are you going to get that big sale to these types of artists with beats that some 19 year old on Soundcloud made a lil uzi vert style song to? Or are you going to get that one time sale for the bigger amount to that one artist by only selling the exclusive rights to your track? Even if it isn't a big time artist I still feel like you have a better chance of sale because they know it isn't something everyone rapped on and they will obviously pay a bigger amount since it's not just an MP3. Also with the "Make An Offer" button on my site I feel like it gives me an insight on what this artists budget is like and it gives them an insight on what I feel like my work is worth. Just my two cents guys and I would love to hear some of yours!

My website is Rob Dolla$ Beats

Like I said I plan on within a month uploading this big folder i have with over 75+ brand new beats. I really took the time to study music theory and get alot of other things right and I am super confident in my new stuff. Let me know what you guys think and feel thanks alot!
 
The buyer thinks for his own good, the seller thinks for his own good. Not just while selling beats, it's a general rule in business. One may just want to get money to do something little because he is young and knows not everyone will buy an exclusive license. One of your points is correct, serious artists won't buy an exclusive license because the beat is around with many people etc. The most important thing is building a fan base. Then you can work with serious artists alone. I mean you can produce for them a beat that no one else will know until the release of the song.
 
Desire Inspires said:

Yes leasing beats is pointless. So what is your next plan of action?
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Great responses guys! Pretty much my next plan of action is to move forward with only selling exclusive licenses based on a make an offer type deal. Like I said my website already has a button that is make an offer based and once I upload my new catalog of beats i will be removing the option of just leasing beats because at this point it is pointless. Producers are undercutting and just giving away MP3 and WAV licenses for pennies or even worse for free. I believe by only selling exclusives it will increase business for me as well as be more beneficial to the artist seeing how as they will get the MP3, the Wav, and the track outs as well as being full owners of the track and I can still collect my royalties by registering every beat/song I do. I do alot of social media promotion of course and pretty much whoever doesnt use my website as a way of make an offer can email me and I can request an invoice via paypal or something.

Also I am in the process of working with a production manager/promoter so I want to start networking alot more in person and establishing real connections with artists and only selling exclusives. I feel like leasing beats lowers the quality of the beat being that it has been passed around like I said and also most artists look at something for $20 and say oh why cant I just get that for free it's only $20 your beats can't be that good. Make An Offer just seems like the way to go because I can work with the artist budget and I can make more upfront money. For example I would never sell the exclusive rights to a beat for $20 but maybe he would be more interested in spending a minimum of $100 or $200 to own the complete rights to the track. Remember, Desiigner bought the Panda track from producer Menace for only $200 but Menace got his royalty and publishing so he made ALOT of money off that beat. To me in 2017, leasing is dead, only exclusives from now on.
 
The make an offer approach sounds sensible and selling beats is a fool's errand in the current era of music. What about music for film, games, etc. and did you get my PM?
 
I think leasing is still okay if you package the stems ("track outs" as you mentioned) with the lease. This'll raise the value of the package and help the customer mix in their vocals better. Plus you still hold the copyright and can lease the package to other artists as well, ...but it's just a better package and people should pay more for it.

I don't even openly lease beats (well songs in my case), but somebody emailed me asking for the stems, aka "track-outs", so I sold them to him but I kept the copyright. Don't sell your copyright unless somebody buys exclusive, of course. I think that's how it works, right?

And as the one and only OGBama said, musically I think the greatest area of revenue is in the TV/Film licensing game. I was just accepted in catalogs for like horror/thriller shows and cartoons. You gotta find the music publishing catalogs for hip hop with clients like VH1 and MTV.
 
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Epsilon-144 said:
I think leasing is still okay if you package the stems ("track outs" as you mentioned) with the lease. This'll raise the value of the package and help the customer mix in their vocals better. Plus you still hold the copyright and can lease the package to other artists as well, ...but it's just a better package and people should pay more for it.

And as the one and only OGBama said, musically I think the greatest area of revenue is in the TV/Film licensing game. I was just accepted in catalogs for like horror/thriller shows and cartoons. You gotta find the music publishing catalogs for hip hop with clients like VH1 and MTV.
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I don't even openly lease beats (well songs in my case), but somebody emailed me asking for the stems, aka "track-outs", so I sold them to him but I kept the copyright. Don't sell your copyright unless somebody buys exclusive, of course. I think that's how it works, right?

Great response from you and OGBama. My honest opinion is leasing beats, especially if I was to include the track outs, will significantly decrease the value of the beat itself in terms of me actually trying to sell it exclusively. But of course that is just my opinion.

And for OGBama, I don't believe that selling beats in today's era is foolish but it is about how you market and sell your product. I truly believe only selling exclusive beats to people and sending completely tagged up or just beat snippets to peoples emails so they can get an idea of what the track fully sounds like can rake in alot of cash. After all, once you get big in the industry, which is what i assume everyone who makes beats goal is, you will only be selling exclusive rights since 2 chainz or drake won't want a beat that has been licensed to a 17 year old and his entire Senior class of rappers. But getting those TV and film and video game licensing I have heard is great money of course and that is definitely a different aspect and area I will look more into for myself. But I think LEASING beats is dead but selling exclusives isn't a lease, it's completely selling the track itself. I don't think that will ever completely die.

Also OGBama, I responded to your PM sorry for the late response!
 
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hmmm, but if you have a hot (popular) beat, people will still pay for your permission to use it commercially. They're not allowed to use it without your permission so they'll ask to buy permission (leasing). Of course they can buy the song for personal use for $0.99, but that's only for personal use. If they want your song for commercial use, the price for the song can rise to like $50 - $100+. I think if it's a popular beat/song, it'll lease.

but ya of course, exclusive has a lot more attractiveness, but is priced higher too, so...it's a juggling game of supply and demand. What do the clients want and how much money are they willing to spend?

Having both can't hurt.


...I'm also exploring the option of making custom songs for people with exclusives rights sold after the project is done, ..like a ghost producer basically.
It's just once they buy the song for say...$500-$1,000, maybe $2,000, and they run with it and get a hit that generates $$$,$$$ ... I can't claim anything because I sold the rights for ~$1,000 ya know lol so... but that's all on them as the cutomer. They can do whatever they want with it after they buy the copyright. It's all theirs.


edit: ...and if you're already leasing a beat, you can't sell it exclusively anymore. It's already lost it's exclusiveness. ...or is there another meaning to exclusive that I'm not getting? It's exclusive meaning only one person can use it, right?
 
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Epsilon-144 said:
hmmm, but if you have a hot (popular) beat, people will still pay for your permission to use it commercially. They're not allowed to use it without your permission so they'll ask to buy permission (leasing). Of course they can buy the song for personal use for $0.99, but that's only for personal use. If they want your song for commercial use, the price for the song can rise to like $50 - $100+. I think if it's a popular beat/song, it'll lease.

but ya of course, exclusive has a lot more attractiveness, but is priced higher too, so...it's a juggling game of supply and demand. What do the clients want and how much money are they willing to spend?

Having both can't hurt.


...I'm also exploring the option of making custom songs for people with exclusives rights sold after the project is done, ..like a ghost producer basically.
It's just once they buy the song for say...$500-$1,000, maybe $2,000, and they run with it and get a hit that generates $$$,$$$ ... I can't claim anything because I sold the rights for ~$1,000 ya know lol so... but that's all on them as the cutomer. They can do whatever they want with it after they buy the copyright. It's all theirs.


edit: ...and if you're already leasing a beat, you can't sell it exclusively anymore. It's already lost it's exclusiveness. ...or is there another meaning to exclusive that I'm not getting? It's exclusive meaning only one person can use it, right?
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No, when you lease a beat you still own it until you sell the exclusive rights. If you leased the same beat to over a 1000 different artists and then someone like young dolph comes along and says he wants the exclusive rights, you can still sell the exclusive rights(although i would tell him that the beat has been passed around and leased a bunch of times).

And as far as selling the exclusive and not being able to claim money after that's not necessarily true. Depending on your contract and terms of agreement, you should still be able to claim a percentage of publishing and royalties. Similar to what happened with Desiigner and Menace when he sold him the Panda beat. Menace sold the beat to Desiigner for only $200 for the exclusive rights and track outs, but the song blew up and became a number 1 hit and went like 6 times platinum and Menace got paid ALOT of money through royalties and publishing. Also, the song has been featured in movies and even TV episodes and I almost want to say it was on either Madden 16 or 2k16 at the time so that's a video game as well. That's alot of money to make on the back end when you really think about it. I would be surprised if the producer Menace isn't a millionaire by now.
 
I think leasing can be beneficial if you do it right..

Also, from my experience, rappers who buy beats online generally don't care if a beat has been leased.. if they like it - they buy it.

StanleySteamer said:
Similar to what happened with Desiigner and Menace when he sold him the Panda beat...
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Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't he say that he originally found the beat on YouTube?
 
SFTRAXX said:
I think leasing can be beneficial if you do it right..

Also, from my experience, rappers who buy beats online generally don't care if a beat has been leased.. if they like it - they buy it.



Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't he say that he originally found the beat on YouTube?
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Yes he did find it on YouTube but that doesn't mean he leased the beat. It was just on YouTube as a way of marketing similar to putting beats on SoundCloud. You want people to be able to hear it. But Desiigner contacted Menace and sold him the beat exclusively.
 
StanleySteamer said:
Yes he did find it on YouTube but that doesn't mean he leased the beat. It was just on YouTube as a way of marketing similar to putting beats on SoundCloud. You want people to be able to hear it. But Desiigner contacted Menace and sold him the beat exclusively.
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Do you think it mattered to him whether the beat was leased or not?
 
I'm pretty sure that people who look online for beats don't care who's "been on the beat".

If they did, they wouldn't be looking online ~ or am I wrong?

Exclusivity goes out the window IMO once the beat (regardless of where its been uploaded to) is made publicly available. Online beat buyers know this and accept it as "part of the game".
 
the real draw to the panda tune is the vocals. They were different and funny (i think it was one of the first tunes with a really funny hype man in the background). Tbh, i don't really notice the music when i think of that tune. lol
 
SFTRAXX said:
Do you think it mattered to him whether the beat was leased or not?
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At that point and time no I don't think it mattered. However, at the time he only paid $200 for the beat and that was before he was famous so I am sure that was what he could afford. But now if Desiigner wanted a beat he would pay much more than $200 for the exclusive and he wouldn't want a beat that has been passed around a thousand times either. Just my opinion though.
 
SFTRAXX said:
I'm pretty sure that people who look online for beats don't care who's "been on the beat".

If they did, they wouldn't be looking online ~ or am I wrong?

Exclusivity goes out the window IMO once the beat (regardless of where its been uploaded to) is made publicly available. Online beat buyers know this and accept it as "part of the game".
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I agree with you to a certain extent. Beatstars and Soundclick have some way to supposably make it so that people can't just convert your beat link to an MP3. But another way to preserve it is to tag the beat every 4-8 bars through out on sites like YouTube and SoundCloud or only upload snippets. I used to do snippets but in the future I will just tag the beat up on YouTube and SoundCloud and only tag the beat once like I always do on my actual website.

Another thing is that everything is online nowadays. Amazon has put RadioShack out of business and significantly hurt BestBuy's sales. Also Netflix completely annihilated Block Buster. It's just the age we live in now where things are more digital and online based. But production is a little different.

All I'm saying is when you are making beats and being creative you never know what beat is going to be your best or considered a hit. I doubt Menace knew once he made Panda that it was going to be his signature beat that was going to change his life and start his career. So when people say they will just make custom beats when they come into contact with a more serious and famous artists my question is how do you know that you will make your next beat the one they really want vs the one you uploaded and sent out for free to everybody to use and now someone who is serious really wants it but is declining because its been passed around. Lil Scrappy once tweeted out on twitter he needed beats for his upcoming album or mixtape. I was one of the first to see it and I replied to him and he actually responded to me and I sent him a link to my site. He liked this one beat i did called bruce wayne. It was a sample track and he was like has this beat been leased or sold before? I told him yes and he was like well make me something nobody as heard and similar to that. I said ok and spent like 3 days cooking up 5 or 6 different beats and I sent them to him and he was like he will let me know if he heard something he likes. Next thing I know I never heard from him again and the project still came out.
 
I guess I don't personally find leasing beats to be pointless because I lease beats all the time. Maybe I might feel different if the sales were few and far between...idk..


On a side note have you ever watched any of Curtiss kings videos?

Peep this one I think it might be somewhat applicable here:


 
SFTRAXX said:
I guess I don't personally find leasing beats to be pointless because I lease beats all the time. Maybe I might feel different if the sales were few and far between...idk..


On a side note have you ever watched any of Curtiss kings videos?

Peep this one I think it might be somewhat applicable here:


Click to expand...


1. Love Curtiss King's videos
2. Internet rappers will rap all over a tagged up beat regardless
 
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