How do u sell beats? - How do u sell beats?

Yes , the " poormans copyright" is indeed just that.
Now , think about what happens to poor people in court.
Get $30 and protect yourself.
I cant stress this is enough.
You CAN NOT TRUST ANY RECORD LABEL!
They will phuck you.[/color]

i read the papers that the copyright office has....and it says something like you can copyright your beatz in volumes as long as all of the works are by the same author/s ......it costs $60 though.....what about that?.....

Hold up here. This thread got off to a wrong start. You reallywanna get your beats heard? The ONLY way that any good label (major or big independent) is gonna pay you for your beats is if - (1) The shiz is truly hot, and (2) If you got an artist, who already has a deal, to get down on your shiz be4 hand. It would be STRAIGHT LUCK, lottery style luck, if someone from the label listened to your beats and got back at you. The beat cd's that we get never ever make it out of the jewel case. The other thing that you could do is to get in through another producer, who's already got it cracc'n, if he believes in your music. Any producer who really has it goin' on would NEVER steal your beats. Not that it isn't possible, but only a loser would do that. Nearly every producer has a serious ego. They make their living from having a sound of their own, not your sound. It's pretty easy to tell the differences in production styles from producer to producer. I've seen a few cats get into it over who really did the beat, but it's when the protege has a very similar sound to the mentor, which is bound to happen when the protege used the mentor's sounds to make the beat.

That thing about A&R people being dishonest and all... It sucks to tell people that you ain't feelin their stuff, so A&R end up lying to try not to hurt anyone's feelings. I know some really good, honest people who work in A&R. I also know some people, at the highest levels, who aren't as nice. It's the same in any business. But if you really got game, all of that doesn't matter. I'm working on scoring an A&R gig at Priority/Capitol right now. I'm sure I'm gonna have to let some people down, but oh friccin well. I'm tryin' to make good music, get rich, and run the damn show. This game is a hustle, and that should be understood before you try to join the team.

Many labels and agencies DO NOT accept unsolicited material. The cd's (that we never listen to) all have the copywrite written on them. I'm not really sure if that holds up, though. It doesn't matter. Make your own label by breaking a new artist who has something new and different to offer. Then you'll write your own checks. WORD

but isn't the aps. and seq.file together with the drums proof that you made the original beats?

The court doesn't care who made the beat. People can get one of your beats and instantly come up with a contract saying you gave them the beat after they copyright it. Another thing is that they can also buy the exact equipment you have and pay someone to remake it exactly. They will have the .aps and .mid files then too. That's why it is important not to take any money up front with whom you are dealing with. You have to have some type of agreement first.

Ideally you should copyright your beat BEFORE you

A.) ATTEMPT to sell the beat.

B.) send the beat to a label for demoing.

C.) give someone a CD of the beat to listen to. (unless your camp or true friends, but they can GANK you as well)

There are a lot of naive beatmakers out there that can get eaten alive locally by sharks. Because local people are the hungriest, a lot of them tends to eat the closest thing to them which could be YOU. That type of activity alone keeps a load of people from actually making it.

Also to comment on what a previous person said, most record companies aren't out to scam by flat out stealing. A big problem can be local people getting a hold of your beats and copyrighting them. A lot of them don't even know how to make beats. What they'll actually do is record a song to your track and copyright the track saying they did EVERYTHING including the beat without mentioning your name. That is normal practice for St. Louis people.

Also if dealing with people locally, you should never SELL a beat, what I mean is just signing a pretty vague contract saying you sold the beat to so and so for $$$. That is known as work for hire. That alone can take away a lot of protection at that case you no longer own the beat so someone doesn't need to pay you or include your name. An exception is if someone offers you a substantial amount of cash like $1000-$5000 and you really need the money. In that case you can buy more gear and make better beats. But what you should do is either sell or give people PERMISSION to use your track in a recording of theirs. This protects and helps you in a wide variety of ways. The main way is that they will not exclusively own the track you made. I sometimes regret not letting a tighter MC spit on my tracks because I sold it for chump change. Another is you can give or sell permission of the same beat to anybody else you want to. Another thing you should do to really make it clear is state how the track can be officially bought. I believe this way also promotes competition, because how many beats have you sold to people who does nothing with the beat, don't put out an albulm, or do not even perform.

What I do is sell permission from ($100-$500) or give permission to someone in your camp for a beat. The only way to buy it is under the condition that I get my name on the song (could be in the cd book) as the beatmaker and I get one point and my publishing and to sell over 5000 units.

To summarize the record industry isn't that bad. A lot of record companies will not sign an artist if they don't know who did everything, like the beats, writing, producing, recording etc. It is important to keep log of that because if it appears to them that you are dishonest, kiss yourself goodbye to a deal because they don't want to end up in court as much as you do and a lot of times they end up paying people more money than they could of did up front if the truth was told. A new thing I am seeing in studios is having people fill out studio reports. This basically is a report of who was in the studio and what function did each person perform(if you did nothing say nothing). I don't know if this is used for tax information but maybe it can be useful in court in the future.

I know this is pretty long but I get emotional when people talk about the business.

I know this is pretty long but I get emotional when people talk about the business.

Me 2. My comments are NOT based on the "local" hustle. I don't really consider local as being the "business", either.

Hey ya'll,

I took a class on the legal aspects of the Recording industry and I asked my professor who is also a business lawyer the same question... here's what he told me. Take this if you guys want, but to me it kind of makes sense.

You can either copyright songs individual, or put them on a beat CD and copyright that whole CD. Let's say you give the CD to Mr. Shady Business Man/Producer and he jacks one or two of the beat from that dope CD you made. You can take his ass to court 'cause you officially copyrighted that beat/s on your CD. The copyright on that CD proves that you own the copyrights to the beat/s and is official legal documentation. On the other hand, let's say you give the beat CD to the Music Director at SEGA and he wants to use only one of your beats for a video game. If you decide to give that beat to him you should send it out for an individual copyright since he only wants one beat, otherwise your giving up the Cd's copyrights. It's another $30, but hey, you're gonna cop some major bread if it hits the shelves. If you ou have to give up your copyrights for them to duplicate, make sure it reads that on the contract...but remember it's only for them to duplicate and not anything else. All contracts are negotiable and you need someone with a background in law to translate it for you 'cause some contracts can be up to 15 pages and more! And you want to keep your publishing rights....NEVER NEVER give those up! That's money on top of your royalties. Publishing is a whole different monster, but in a nutshell....it's the money you get for your music after it's been played on commercials, clubs, movies, radio, etc... In order to collect the papes you need to register to ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. These organizations monitor where your songs get played and are the only agencies that can collect the publishing royalties for you. I believe ASCAP has a yearly fee, about $60 - $100, I think BMI is one flat fee, $50? and SESAC is mainly for country music.

Ofcourse this is not the only way of protecting your beats and is just a brief overview of copyrights (just to give you an idea)...clearing samples is a whole different beast!!!! There are many sites online you can go to. My advice (if you don't wanna copyright all your beats) is to make a beat CD of the beats you shop around.

I wish you the best and one more tip of advice....never let the music business take away your love for the music you create 'cause some people get so caught up in the business they lose focus on making REAL DOPE SH-T!!!!

PEACE

"I don't really consider local as being the "business", either."

I understand what you are saying but I think it is in a way. What about getting signed to small local "indie" labels? Even major labels who sign non-priority acts put them out in a local market first to avoid risking too much money. I just think that a lot of problems people have when getting signed from the big leagues comes from a lot of mistakes people did as local artists. Anyway I feel a person who can't handle local politics would get CRUSHED by a major label due to ignorance of basic business concepts. I feel the local market is like school for the business. It could be elementary, high school, or college depending on the person but your level of business education can have a significant impact on an artist career.

some interesting posts that might help a little....

http://www.futureproducers.com/forums/s ... adid/23849

http://www.futureproducers.com/forums/s ... adid/22964

I think that we pretty much agree on the subject. It's all about having a mind for this shiz.