LP recently attended the UK AIM Music Publishers in Audio-visual media: Rights holders, owners and music users seminar. Guests speakers included:

KARINA MASTERS - Sony/ATV Music Publishing UK (Director of Synchronisation & Marketing).
ELAINE VAN DER SCHOOT - KPM Music House (VP Production Music/Global Creative Development)
ANDY HARROWER - PRS For Music (Director of Licensing, Broadcast & Online)
TONY SATCHELL - Managing Director of Candle Music & Committee Member of PCAM
JONATHAN TESTER - Bucks Music Group (Synchronisation Manager)
MARK FISHLOCK - Composer & BASCA Media Executive Member

There was a lot of talk of the increased competition, but also how independant labels and artists are at an advantage in todays market place. Some of the intresting things we noted:

How do you get music into the BRICK areas (Brazil/Russia/India/China/Korea)?
The general conclusion was that there was no defined way of doing this presently. The challenge was to find a away an easy way to clear rights in these areas. One way will be wait until the industry settles on a watermarking standard and can track this way, for example what the Digital Watermarking Alliance are trying to do http://www.digitalwatermarkingalliance.org/

MetaTags in MP3:
This is something we at LP are very aware of. Karina Masters made a special note of how important it was to always ensure that every track has been correctly tagged with the relevant categories as it is becoming more important when trying to find music in large databases. If your music has this already supervisors will love you.

Sync Fees and trends for 2010:
From Jonathan Tester – Bucks Music Synchronisation Manager

US TV Big e.g. CSI: $5-8K

US Cable: $2-3K

Canada TV: $1-2K

UK Film (non title or trailer): £10-50K

US Film (non title or trailer): $12 -50K

Film trends:
Film companies are starting to ask for exclusive and unreleased music that they can then have a part of the income stream. It was stressed to always maintain at least 50% ownership of music of you have to share the income streams.

For Films you can organise a contract for 3 levels if they are on a budget. This is more difficult to manage but good for film on low budget
Festival – First fee
When a distribution deal arises – Second fee
Getting worldwide distribution – Third Fee

MCPS blanket fees
The MCPS blanket fees are now covering the independent agencies as well. You can view all the rates by downloading the PDF here http://www.prsformusic.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/ProductionMusic/5701_rc_complete_final.pdf

Collecting fees and Reporting:
Make sure in the contact you always put a clause to say you get a copy of the cue sheet. Much revenue is lost due to poor reporting on behalf of the production companies. Also get the clock number for commercial adverts so it can be tracked. Usually this is not done because its some runabout that is dumped with the task. Chase them up - its worth it.

You should always be paid before a product – however in reality this can be 30 days later or up to 3 months as they are waiting for payment form a client themselves.

Team LP.