question on beat selling

F

Falopo

New member
Hi, i record a lot of hip hop as well as write and produce. I have several people who are interested in buying some beats. I have a pretty good idea about how this stuff works in the bigger scheme of things. But the people i am working with dont really have that much street credit yet, a lot of them are just some teenagers, some have some money to spend and others are broke, but they still want to buy some beats.

my question is, what kind of deal should i work out with them. I have a hard time selling a beat to someone for cheap (say 100 or 200) without any security in knowing that if something happened with the beat, that i would have a piece.

theres so many possibilities running through my head and im getting confused. please help thanks
 
do up a contract and make sure youe keep credit and have your beats copywritten or lease them out like some people do...i feel you on ppl not having the money to buy beats
 
thanks for the response. about the copyrighting part, are you saying that i should have my instrumental beats copyrighted before i sell it to someone?
If i were to sell a beat to some kids that are probably not going to go anywhere, would it be too much to ask to split the copyright?
 
you should have all material copywritten...its a 30$ fee and you can put as many beats as you want on it..but it will be listed as a Vol. so if you do hear your beats anywhere else you have to scan throught that cd to find it..as for splittin the coppyrights..after they records on it you can have it in ur agreement..its up to you..50/50 deals are always a win win for everybody...

http://www.copyright.gov
 
OK thanks again, this is helping me get figure some stuff out.
so why the sr and not the pa. isnt it the music itself you want to copyright, because if a label decides to sign an act they will do the sr. hmm but i guess if a label signs an act, they're not going to rerecord the beat and have a new sound recording.
And if my beats are copyrighted before vocals, what happens when i add vocals. do i have to reassign copyrights. and then do a pa and an sr form for the individual song?
One more question: So i can use one sr form for 10 songs and they will be each individually covered?
 
oh and one more thing, some of these kids that want to buy beats are planning on selling demos and cds. if i ask for a percentage of royalty, how do i know i would ever see any of that? how would i know if they sold 100 or 1000. and owning 50% of copyright does that entitle me to any money for each album sold.

and one final question for now (i like getting info): lets say a label signs an act, and i own 50% of copyright on a song that the label wants to use on an album. what happens then?
 
ok..if its a demo..i would really worry about it unless the pushin 1000 or more but if the doing a cd ask for a percentage..but have it in writting..it will hold up in coart...but on the other hand you proable wont know how many they sellin unless they live in your town and you can work with them...but have everything worked out in your agreement..and hope that they come thru with the money..

if it happend..they usely will try to buy you out of your copyrights...do a search on here..there area lot of helpful threads in here,,i dont know it all but im learning new shit everyday
 
Ok so that sounds pretty good. I guess the whole point of owning 50% of copyright would be incase they got signed to a label and it would also give me the ability to use the song on mix cds and such. If they were to make an album for release would I ask a common producer fee like 3% or something.
 
Falopo said:
OK thanks again, this is helping me get figure some stuff out.
so why the sr and not the pa. isnt it the music itself you want to copyright, because if a label decides to sign an act they will do the sr. hmm but i guess if a label signs an act, they're not going to rerecord the beat and have a new sound recording.
And if my beats are copyrighted before vocals, what happens when i add vocals. do i have to reassign copyrights. and then do a pa and an sr form for the individual song?
One more question: So i can use one sr form for 10 songs and they will be each individually covered?
Click to expand...

the sr is for you...once youe get the vocals on the beat then you and/ot the artist needs to fill out the pa form...but usely when a label sign they will have the artist redo the song with a inhouse producer or big name producer...unless they really feelin it..

your 10 songs would be coved as a volume..it makes it a little harder to find the tracks in question when you have them all on one cd...but just keep a track listin of what you copyright so if that happends you can tell them what track to goto..

hope this help
 
and the pa form can only have one song per each form? and if i only do an sr form for the beat, whats to stop someone from rerecording the song and then i wouldnt get any credit because the actual music isnt copyrighted, just the sound recording?
 
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its just like the SR form..hit the site they can answer alot of your questions http://www.copyright.gov

its nothing from the artist re-recording it..you just need to have all of details about the song you all are doin in a agreement and signed so if he does its like a breach of contract...
 
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