smartie
FP Firefly!
Licensing issues number two… LOL 
I don’t know it there are any DJ’s here that want to do remix CD’s to sell in a large scale. I wanted to share my experience that I had while putting together a Jazz CD package for a major corporation, 20,000 units that were distributed internationally.
First off I was lucky because back in the day Jazz artists jumped around from label to label and there are lots of small ones around with Major Artist in their Library.
Which brings me to my first point:
Dealing with the majors is a pain in the a**. Not only do they overcharge you and make you eat dirt to get their permission for use of the masters, they hijack you and make you take all their artists. So if you only want two tracks from let’s say BMG and are planning a 12 track CD, they will force you to take all their artist…AND then, they make you press your CD’s through them. UUURRRGGG Talk about feeling as if you have been stripped and put out to fry.
The only good thing that the majors will do is handling the Mechanical Licensing for you. For some reason they can turn that around in a week. Remember there is two types of licensing that you have to get…Master and mechanical. Usually the Mechanical is handled through Harry Fox Agency. And that typically takes 3 weeks to get your authorization back from them. Another pain. But the good thing about mechanical licensing, if the song has been licensed before, they can not turn you down. And the mechanical license is a set rate, so you wont get hijacked by them…hehehe
I was lucky to find the artist I wanted at an off label that was still self owned, and they did not want to deal with any CD pressing. Which is a good thing. If I went through a major each CD would have cost me $2.00 bulk…(no case) and on my own it was 55 cents. Big difference…
I don’t know it there are any DJ’s here that want to do remix CD’s to sell in a large scale. I wanted to share my experience that I had while putting together a Jazz CD package for a major corporation, 20,000 units that were distributed internationally. First off I was lucky because back in the day Jazz artists jumped around from label to label and there are lots of small ones around with Major Artist in their Library.
Which brings me to my first point:
Dealing with the majors is a pain in the a**. Not only do they overcharge you and make you eat dirt to get their permission for use of the masters, they hijack you and make you take all their artists. So if you only want two tracks from let’s say BMG and are planning a 12 track CD, they will force you to take all their artist…AND then, they make you press your CD’s through them. UUURRRGGG Talk about feeling as if you have been stripped and put out to fry.
The only good thing that the majors will do is handling the Mechanical Licensing for you. For some reason they can turn that around in a week. Remember there is two types of licensing that you have to get…Master and mechanical. Usually the Mechanical is handled through Harry Fox Agency. And that typically takes 3 weeks to get your authorization back from them. Another pain. But the good thing about mechanical licensing, if the song has been licensed before, they can not turn you down. And the mechanical license is a set rate, so you wont get hijacked by them…hehehe
I was lucky to find the artist I wanted at an off label that was still self owned, and they did not want to deal with any CD pressing. Which is a good thing. If I went through a major each CD would have cost me $2.00 bulk…(no case) and on my own it was 55 cents. Big difference…
