I wanted to take a minute to talk about T&C's on this and other sites on which you upload your music. PLEASE read the terms on websites before you go uploading tunes everywhere. I developed the agreement on this site to reflect how I feel about music rights; i.e. you created it, so you own it.
This section from AW's Agreement can sometimes confuse people:
you agree to grant to us a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive right and license (including any moral rights or other necessary rights) to use, display, and offer for stream, uploaded media in whole or in part until such time as you notify Artist Weekly in writing (via postal service or at support@artistweekly.com) of your desire to remove your work from the service.
What does this really mean? That worldwide royalty-free non-exclusive right thing sounds scary, but it just means that we aren't going to pay you a royalty every time someone clicks on your song. And it's worldwide because we don't restrict who has access. Here's the kicker though: Any time you want us to stop using your song, you can shoot us an email and we delete it and sever the agreement.
From the first paragraph:
All of the songs transmitted through www.artistweekly.com remain the property of the respective artists who upload them
That's right, we don't own your songs in any way. If we decide to use your material for promotion we have to pay you a royalty.
This is from the Idol Underground T&C's (I just copied the good parts but you can read the whole thing on their site):
a. During the Term you hereby grant to us and our sub-licensees the non-exclusive, worldwide right to:
i. Reproduce, distribute, perform, and/or display the Masters, in whole or in part, as individual tracks or coupled with other master recordings, as both non-interactive and on-demand digital audio streams.
ii. Reproduce, distribute and/or display the Related Materials in connection with uses of the Masters as provided for herein.
iii. Perform the Masters via terrestrial and/or satellite radio broadcast.
iv. Edit, reproduce and/or perform up to thirty (30) second samples ("Samples") of each Master and make such Samples available by streaming to promote the Masters.
v. Perform and/or display the Masters, Samples and/or Related Materials during or in conjunction with the display of any audio or audio-visual third party advertisements on the AI UNDERGROUND Site.
So they can edit your music, reproduce, perform, use your song in promos, play you on the radio, but at least they'll pay you, right? Wrong:
c. With respect to all uses of the Submitted Content as provided under Subparagraph 2(a), we shall have no obligation to make any payment of any kind (including, without limitation, any royalties) to you or any other person, firm or corporation whether or not we and/or our licensees shall receive any monies or other consideration in connection with such uses
I'm not singling out IdolUnderground -- this is a fairly standard agreement. BTW, when someone tells you it's a "standard agreement," start running. I think people have the idea that they probably won't have to worry about this stuff, and if they do it's a good problem to have because it means their work is being recognized.
The internet has opened up new doors for artists. Be careful what doors you open, because there may be someone on the other side waiting to take your songs and throw you out on your butt.
This has been a public service announcement from ArtistWeekly.
Has anyone else found any particularly anti-artist wording in some of these contracts?
