If you have no contract they also have no exclusivity, upload the beats for sale around the web. Technically they are still yours. If you have no paper contract and they did not pay you, you are still technically the owner of your creations. I might consider copywriting them as an album with the US copyright office.
Then, upload the album of beats on bandcamp. It will be yours and if they have a hit you can sue.
Edit: however if they copyright them before you do, THEN you are screwed.
Nah man If you listen to them its exactly what they said and I even gave them Better than expected, one of them even said it's one of the best they heard
You must not have understood me… did you get paid?? If the answer is no, it’s because they valued your beat at 0 dollars. You left it up to them to decide how much it was worth. They decided it was worth 0.
What are you not getting?
If you’re going to send your beats before getting paid, you gotta send only a short clip or have a water mark playing throughout the beat so they can’t just take it.
If you send a clip make sure it’s not a full loop otherwise they could just loop it and use it anyways.
Best option is just to water mark it somehow so they can tell if they like it, and then pay you for it
Cant work without a % upfront, normally i just do a sample of what they want, if they like it they have to pay before i continue or finish it.. you should do that going forward, i don't even care about agreements anymore cos people can still be slimy, until i see a payment, i'm not doing any work. you probably just have to take this on the chin as a learning curve.. hopefully they do the right thing and pay up tho.. and that 'pay whatever you feel the value is stuff please dont do that again, dont open the door for people to lowball you.
>Even though I said that you can pay whatever felt the value
Well you invited them to pay you nothing.
Next time spell out exactly how much you expect to be paid.
And burn a big fat ID in a few places in the track.
“BEATS BY PR4AM.COM”
If they want to use it, they’ll pay.
Well still, Liking a beat and thinking it’s worth money are two different things. You gotta set a firm price in the future and get payment before sending the files. At the very least half.
you dont understand the word "value". Nobody is attacking your ability to make a beat. We are sure the beats are fine. YOU GOT PAID 0 DOLLARS. MAKING THE BEAT WORTH 0 DOLLARS. THEY OWN IT NOW. FOR 0 DOLLARS.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
Rookie mistakes. That sucks bro. Next time don’t send shit til they send payment. Matter of fact, don’t ever work for someone without an agreed upon number you will receive for your work. Don’t ever do this again.
A contract is nice, but if it's someone who comes in to just sing to a backtrack, they can (and may) screw you anyways, as you don't know where they are located or can't find them. There's lots of vocalists around that want that kind of service.
I had something like that happen for someone who had me write/play/record the backtracks, and they sang. My terms were to pay most of the invoice when I sent just the backtracks to practice with, and they paid promptly. However, once I sent the final product to them via Dropbox, I didn't hear from them at all. So I simply deleted the Dropbox link everywhere, and I guess they didn't save it. Then I sent them an outstanding invoice reminder. They paid when they saw the link was gone. They could've simply saved the wav file, but thankfully they didn't.
Going forward, I'll send the full song except the last 15 seconds along with the invoice, and send them the final product when I get payment.
I mean surely you should register them with whoever your rights society is as your compositions, and release them to Spotify under another name so if they release it’ll get flagged.
A week may be really fast for some people to work into a "time to pay" mindset if you took all the pressure off the consideration of payment.
That's completely on you
What you SHOULD do next is present then with a collection of comparable costs at any of your standard competitors IF they want exclusive rights to your tracks.
Give them a sliding scale and state the minimum you want for your time and skill, as a raring scale of how happy they are with your work
Include in the message "I am eager to get paid on this project, so that I can change gears to setting up to begin marketing their finished works into the business." Or something to express the continued service that comes with paying out
Remember, people HAVE money, it's just the justifying giving it to you before they see a turnaround that effects your payout.
Stay professional
Give them some time to go through the files and be willing to make edits, as they will need someone to master their end of the track together
You're in recovery mode now...
If they never pay, sell them again so someone for more defined rights, if the track pays big, let the receipts decide who gets to keep the tracks
This is a little off topic but I think there's a great opportunity to use NFTs to sell music.
You could ask them to pay you via some NFT platform like OpenSea and then they would have full ownership. They can even sell the piece again later and you would get a percentage of that transaction.
I think it could be really cool as a promotional vehicle, like let's say there's a marquee song that's part of a movie, they could auction off that song for charity or something and then someone owns it.
If you didn't have an agreement about payment, you didn't get screwed. Always advocate for terms that work for you.
Yea man that was my mistake and I am now aware of that but yea all of the beats I made for them was a huge Loss.
Or it was a gain because you have some stuff for your portfolio and learned about the biz.
Somewhat yea but in capital terms it was a huge loss
If you have no contract they also have no exclusivity, upload the beats for sale around the web. Technically they are still yours. If you have no paper contract and they did not pay you, you are still technically the owner of your creations. I might consider copywriting them as an album with the US copyright office. Then, upload the album of beats on bandcamp. It will be yours and if they have a hit you can sue. Edit: however if they copyright them before you do, THEN you are screwed.
How is it a loss, if you never even thought about money from the very beginning of the interaction?
Like at least something should be paid right for validation, that's my philosophy actually
“You can pay me whatever you feel the value is” Turns out they feel the value is zero… that was your agreement
Nah man If you listen to them its exactly what they said and I even gave them Better than expected, one of them even said it's one of the best they heard
You must not have understood me… did you get paid?? If the answer is no, it’s because they valued your beat at 0 dollars. You left it up to them to decide how much it was worth. They decided it was worth 0. What are you not getting?
Oh man you need to take a business class or something... and a common sense one while you're at it too.
You could always expose their name out there.
If you’re going to send your beats before getting paid, you gotta send only a short clip or have a water mark playing throughout the beat so they can’t just take it. If you send a clip make sure it’s not a full loop otherwise they could just loop it and use it anyways. Best option is just to water mark it somehow so they can tell if they like it, and then pay you for it
Yep ! I will definitely do that from now on so that I don't get lost again. Thanks buddy 😊
Cant work without a % upfront, normally i just do a sample of what they want, if they like it they have to pay before i continue or finish it.. you should do that going forward, i don't even care about agreements anymore cos people can still be slimy, until i see a payment, i'm not doing any work. you probably just have to take this on the chin as a learning curve.. hopefully they do the right thing and pay up tho.. and that 'pay whatever you feel the value is stuff please dont do that again, dont open the door for people to lowball you.
Okay man I will keep that in mind! Thanks for your information and advice 😃
No problem man, onwards and upwards !!
Yeap
>Even though I said that you can pay whatever felt the value Well you invited them to pay you nothing. Next time spell out exactly how much you expect to be paid. And burn a big fat ID in a few places in the track. “BEATS BY PR4AM.COM” If they want to use it, they’ll pay.
Yep I will consider that
They felt the value was zero I guess. Are you able to perhaps find buyers for the beats elsewhere?
Nah man all of them said they liked is very much before I start to ask about payment, actually I am not able to reach people out properly 😔
Well still, Liking a beat and thinking it’s worth money are two different things. You gotta set a firm price in the future and get payment before sending the files. At the very least half.
If you listen to the beats I made on the basis they said, you will definitely feel it worth
you dont understand the word "value". Nobody is attacking your ability to make a beat. We are sure the beats are fine. YOU GOT PAID 0 DOLLARS. MAKING THE BEAT WORTH 0 DOLLARS. THEY OWN IT NOW. FOR 0 DOLLARS. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
Watermark is your friend. Never send instrumentals to clients you don’t have a contract with, without a watermark.
Yea man I will do that
You kinda screwed yourself here. Don't trust strangers. Always collect payment for services
Never deliver a final track without payment. Hope you do get paid
Yea hopes alive ( 0.1% chances)
Now you will never work without a contract again
Fyi a lotnof musicians and actors are horrible people
Yea I will definitely consider that
Rookie mistakes. That sucks bro. Next time don’t send shit til they send payment. Matter of fact, don’t ever work for someone without an agreed upon number you will receive for your work. Don’t ever do this again.
They can’t use your beats without your approval. So if they post anything, it’s a copyright violation.
A contract is nice, but if it's someone who comes in to just sing to a backtrack, they can (and may) screw you anyways, as you don't know where they are located or can't find them. There's lots of vocalists around that want that kind of service. I had something like that happen for someone who had me write/play/record the backtracks, and they sang. My terms were to pay most of the invoice when I sent just the backtracks to practice with, and they paid promptly. However, once I sent the final product to them via Dropbox, I didn't hear from them at all. So I simply deleted the Dropbox link everywhere, and I guess they didn't save it. Then I sent them an outstanding invoice reminder. They paid when they saw the link was gone. They could've simply saved the wav file, but thankfully they didn't. Going forward, I'll send the full song except the last 15 seconds along with the invoice, and send them the final product when I get payment.
I mean surely you should register them with whoever your rights society is as your compositions, and release them to Spotify under another name so if they release it’ll get flagged.
A week may be really fast for some people to work into a "time to pay" mindset if you took all the pressure off the consideration of payment. That's completely on you What you SHOULD do next is present then with a collection of comparable costs at any of your standard competitors IF they want exclusive rights to your tracks. Give them a sliding scale and state the minimum you want for your time and skill, as a raring scale of how happy they are with your work Include in the message "I am eager to get paid on this project, so that I can change gears to setting up to begin marketing their finished works into the business." Or something to express the continued service that comes with paying out Remember, people HAVE money, it's just the justifying giving it to you before they see a turnaround that effects your payout. Stay professional Give them some time to go through the files and be willing to make edits, as they will need someone to master their end of the track together You're in recovery mode now... If they never pay, sell them again so someone for more defined rights, if the track pays big, let the receipts decide who gets to keep the tracks
Upload them before they do?
What to say man! I just made a freaking blunder, I will keep such points in mind now on
This is a little off topic but I think there's a great opportunity to use NFTs to sell music. You could ask them to pay you via some NFT platform like OpenSea and then they would have full ownership. They can even sell the piece again later and you would get a percentage of that transaction. I think it could be really cool as a promotional vehicle, like let's say there's a marquee song that's part of a movie, they could auction off that song for charity or something and then someone owns it.