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-- this is what u make producing trance
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Originally posted by Storyteller Oh and online business 101: never try and sort out heated discussions through public media. Reach out publically to let the accusing party contact your company. Form theron always go for the personal approach. Email, phone, inviting him to the office, whatever.

Bedroom producers like me have a lot to learn. For the record, I dont really care about those royalty statements there, I lost the urge to "check" them after checking the first time to find like 3 euro or so. Besides the incident happened about 2 years ago, thats why I havent followed up on them, I have no more care for that remix unfortunately.

i've seen this over and over.

MSZ is nice, doesn't want to piss of people that are running things, and the people running things know this and use it against them. It is shameful. The people in charge should want to foster talent. It just drives me nuts when people that put time in effort into something lacking in reward and then have to deal with this. This sort of ******y is to be expected when there is alot of money being made. But come on, this is all fucking indie.

If i ran a label, and someone did this to one of my artists, I would start dating said label's mom. I would go to bat, with a bat and fuck you up. Because all my artists , my children my wittle bundles or creativity are special. Seriously tho, i would not want to ever see me in charge of a business that has the sort of capital where money buys things money should not be able to buy things. I would make sure say the guy that sent that email, would fuck someone i paid without a condom and make sure he has AIDS. I would find out who supplies you your coke, i would lace it with some javex, and make you hurt real bad. You send my artist a mean email. I give you AIDS and fuck with your coke.

Oh, and by the way, I literally made $10 off my only vinyl release. That was awesome. That label was shit and continues to be shit. In the end, I'm not sure if the label just covered costs or dicked me over, but I got the $10 after repeated asking. At least it was something and I'm just proud to have the vinyl.

http://www.discogs.com/Johnson-Corb.../release/594697

o

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Originally posted by alanzo Oh, and by the way, I literally made $10 off my only vinyl release. That was awesome. That label was shit and continues to be shit. In the end, I'm not sure if the label just covered costs or dicked me over, but I got the $10 after repeated asking. At least it was something and I'm just proud to have the vinyl. http://www.discogs.com/Johnson-Corb.../release/594697

Cool, did they atleast send you a few records? I used to hang out in those guy's chat a few years ago. I forgot their collab name, they were pretty cool guys and they alluded many times they made quite a bit with royalties with a bunch of releases, I wont go into detail. I was happy for them. Sorry to hear though.

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Originally posted by alanzo At least it was something and I'm just proud to have the vinyl.

word I'd settle for nothing if it meant getting a few copies of my own record. Release on vinyl or an advance (anything really) are the only incentives i can see to sign to a label, otherwise what is the point

maybe if they dropped the minimum payout completely. When you're unemployed and eating ramen like 3 nights a week $10 can change your life. But I get the feeling they woudln't make any money at all that way.

Re: o

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Originally posted by MSZ Cool, did they atleast send you a few records?

Haha, nope, I had to buy the records myself off of eBay and a few other places. I have a regular and found a white label on ebay (pure luck).

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Originally posted by Lolo Okay, I'm still hoping that there's a little bit good sense in each of us, that's why you see me reply again. I won't comment here on what you said. I'm just going to add my 2 cents, and you will make conclusions the way you want... Our friend MSZ got sent FOUR royalty statements on time (and I have evidence here on my desktop and sent that to him today still), on 15-10-2010, on 13-04-2011, on 18-10-2011, and on 16-04-2012. So far, those royalty statements are still marked as unread, yet they still remain into his account into our artist baseware. The money remains available if it reaches the payable amount, he sends us his payment instructions if needed, problem solved. My colleague's intention wasn't hurting msz here, I had a check, it's an internal ironic message to the royalty dept. that got leaked when forwarding, which explain apologies afterwards. You know why this irony between us happens? Because we get hundreds of guys who never check their papers, who don't apply for publishing then never get author rights, others who close their e-mail addresses and don't let us know, not to speak about address changes, then we have those who never read their e-mail with a little bit attention until they rant about not getting their money... on TA forums. You can imagine the mess they create on their own, then blame us for it... That's the reality of the edm business today. They all blame us but when they have to face their own mistakes, nobody shows up. The same story repeats over and over again. I could easily rant on TA about how bt screwed me with the light in things as it's my version on the album (and how he screwed many others) and I won't see any penny (I'd feed his pets with it really), how tastexperience played with my feet when he got my remix and never got back to me afterwards, how faruk disappeared when he got my remix, all of them being released on a label by a guy who simply plays with my feet too. But you know what? I don't care. at all. I move on, shut up, and do my business with trustworthy and reliable people for me. I won't get into more details of the last 4 years, because you can't believe how stinky and messy my bizz had become. enough of that. to something else now. And you guys should do the same, waste less time on here and focus a little bit more on your workflow, your paperwork and anything else that truly matters. That post exchange between morrisson and zimmerman the other day leaves me the same sore taste. Things you shouldn't talk about on forums. Now to finish things off, I had a conversation with msz this morning. He admitted himself he's not that good with paperwork. Call my colleagues the way you want, fact is that their paperwork, their business state of affairs, and their annual balance are all clean and transparent. This ranting on the label I co-own and run today isn't very clean at all and based on incorrect or incomplete information. If you line up all posts about this, you can make your conclusions for yourself. I'm in peace with ourselves, we did what we had to and even more. And nope, I'm not even mad at msz or anyone else here. and I always stand up for constructive and positive discussion.

You know everyone one on here has a more than positive opinion of you, especially the guys who have been around a while. I think the negative against the label you are associated with was an anomaly and everyone can see that fact.

However, I don't think the thing like how shady BT's, Tastexperience, etc business actions are should be kept private.

I know you think you're doing the "right thing" by keeping quiet, but that's how assholes keep in business; people they fuck toe the line by keeping quiet so others fall in to the same trap.

The scoring industry is like this but on acid and speed. Some of the stories I have heard would make your balls drop off, and only a select few in the know ever get to hear about it but every so often a newbie (or even not so newbie) who doesn't know get's burned. Had they known, it never would have happened and frankly those that do the fucking, rely on those lower down the ladder keeping their mouth shut due to the status differential.

Fuck that. Out them. It's a small community and cvunts shouldn't be allowed to proliferate.

While sensitive matters shouldn't be outed on a public forum, and especially not TA, we should not protect those who purposefully screw lesser artists just because they can, and more so get away with it due to some bullshit hierarchy.

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Originally posted by Trancelover03591 Is there any chance they ran a free promotion? I publish eBooks and I know if I run a free promotion it lists those downloads with the paid sales (with nothing differentiating them). So I have literally had thousands of downloads in a cycle and barely any royalties listed next to it. Now, I know the reason since I am the publisher and chose to run the promotion. But if I didn't tell someone I was working with and just forwarded the statement then they would wonder why they were only getting a few bucks. Just an idea.

Possibly. I was thinking that factored in somewhere, free promotions that is. Where it says "royalties: Track Downloads, Streams, etc. 01/2011 - 06/2011 15(tracks) 0,00 EUR", that is probably freebies. My other statements, older ones and newer ones, all look like this one. It can't all be freebies, when it says I earned X amount of money. Since there are no details in the statement, it's hard to know what's going on.

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Originally posted by Lolo I keep saying this, but people blame us for not paying them as much in some situations, but they don't get their author right due to no subscription to the local company. There is nothing we can do, as we MUST dissociate publishing/author rights and sales income according to the european laws. I saw someone unhappy with a 35% royalty generating less income that expected. Whatever the label is: it might be normal if your track/remix was part of a compilation with a lower street price. your contract says 35% on NET income. Example: if the compilation of 20 sold 500 bundles at 4.99. You get 500x 4.99/20 MINUS portal percentage (30%) and you effectively get 35% of that. That is normal. In this case: 6 cents.

I'm in the U.S. and the label is in BELGIUM, so maybe it has something to do with European laws. I haven't applied for publishing, and didn't know I needed to, if that is the case. I was paid by another Euro label, I got exactly 50% from track sales, paid in full. I think that label was from Italy, perhaps the laws are different there. I sell some "play along with" music online, and I get 50% of whatever I sale. Oh well, guess I'll have to look into this, see what I need to do to appease these territorial laws and get my fair share.

In regard to compilations, yeah I get it, you don't make much at all from those. Also, pretty sure spotify streaming pays next to nothing. My main concern is, if someone buys a single off amazon, beatport, Itunes, ect... I want the percentage stated in the contract. Why would you expect any less?

I"m starting a new label

You have to pay to play.
It seems like the logical progression.

For 200$, i will make your track available on beatport, free copy of drdrum, play by the top djs, and a certificate that says you are part of the elite club now.

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Originally posted by zodiac9 Possibly. I was thinking that factored in somewhere, free promotions that is. Where it says "royalties: Track Downloads, Streams, etc. 01/2011 - 06/2011 15(tracks) 0,00 EUR", that is probably freebies. My other statements, older ones and newer ones, all look like this one. It can't all be freebies, when it says I earned X amount of money. Since there are no details in the statement, it's hard to know what's going on. I'm in the U.S. and the label is in BELGIUM, so maybe it has something to do with European laws. I haven't applied for publishing, and didn't know I needed to, if that is the case. I was paid by another Euro label, I got exactly 50% from track sales, paid in full. I think that label was from Italy, perhaps the laws are different there. I sell some "play along with" music online, and I get 50% of whatever I sale. Oh well, guess I'll have to look into this, see what I need to do to appease these territorial laws and get my fair share. In regard to compilations, yeah I get it, you don't make much at all from those. Also, pretty sure spotify streaming pays next to nothing. My main concern is, if someone buys a single off amazon, beatport, Itunes, ect... I want the percentage stated in the contract. Why would you expect any less?

If you signed a record with Banshee Worx then my colleagues provided you 3 types of documents. A Master Agreement, a Publishing Contract, and a 23E Sabam Form. Why is that so? Because historically the mechanical manufacturers (vinyl, cd), the executive producers, the performers, the writers didn't get a share of everything. While a share on each copy sold is the only way to pay the executive producers as they wrote nothing, the writers got their author rights transparently off their local author rights company as each copy generated an amount directly payable to the author rights off each copy PRESSED, but also, writers got money off airplay, live performances (with orchestra, but considering it's light music and not classical) etc... The fact that only one person does it all is genre-specific and this is why those older rules apply. You might still have 30 people working on a track on different aspects of it, each part wanting its share of the cake.

The Italian label you're talking about didn't respect the laws of trade in this case. There are many of them who don't respect those rules inside the dance "business". You're getting a 50/50 deal on paper, but what about radio plays, what if your track gets played in a big event where author rights get paid and the tracks listed (and it happens more often than expected)? Lost? What about the trace and non-alterable evidence that you made the track (the 23E form next to publishing agreement) then? Inexistent? That means that anyone put his name on it and gets your money? I'm not saying that the label isn't any good, I'm saying that there are rules and sometimes it might be useful to follow them as they tend to protect you. By not following them people (the label as well as the artist) tend to face a sensible amount of legal issues and wouldn't have the paperwork at hand to back them up, which I think is risky.

Guys, from today, if you have questions regarding your paperwork and need neutral advice you know where to find me at least. I insist on the adjective "neutral". Regardless of where you're signing. I won't collect your information, and at least you get advice from a guy with 200+ contracts under his desk, who got screwed a few times, and who knows a little bit what to do. My skype is in the earlier posts, you can also e-mail me. I'll help as much as I can.

By the way.

The new hype among musicians.

"Don't pay us royalties, keep the money, as long as you release our stuff on vinyl".

We get this demand more and more now. We're really like

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Originally posted by DJ RANN However, I don't think the thing like how shady BT's, Tastexperience, etc business actions are should be kept private. I know you think you're doing the "right thing" by keeping quiet, but that's how assholes keep in business; people they fuck toe the line by keeping quiet so others fall in to the same trap.

Oh no worries, I'll keep my more crusty stories for now, but one day will come, yet I'll do it as a true gent from a more neutral and positive point of view.

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Originally posted by Lolo By the way. The new hype among musicians. "Don't pay us royalties, keep the money, as long as you release our stuff on vinyl". We get this demand more and more now. We're really like

most people would rather have a record than like the $35 labels pay out for a digital release

it means more and those people aren't doing it for money anyway

also a record means labels are actually serving a purpose, at least there is something real and tangible to gain from signing with them

that's what they told us indeed.

then we found a partner for vinyl.

the day we did a vinyl or 2 we saw many coming back to us, yet it's nothing to do with the golden years in terms of sales.

Also keep in mind that our main labels have turned completely into underground house and techno music, vinyl friendly genres. Don't expect anything trancy on those.

(For those who didn't follow up, I switched and am now active under the umbrella of our partner label J00F)

Bonzai are awesome! Never had any problem with them, always reply fast to emails etc.
Have about 100 euro in cash i could take from them at anytime, but i probably never will.

wow this thread is crazyness. to the op: i would be raging so hard if armada never paid out for ASOT year mix sales. that's just absolute bullshit because he/they make a good amount of sales across all formats on that (i own the one you're on btw).

i've dealt with smaller, one guy in a bedroom type labels, and ive never had a response like the one msz got. i'm glad to see mr. airwave rushing to the scene to fix it though.

L4C just start your own label already. with your level of awesomeness you'd be the next major in like a month brah

So where does this whole business go from here, its broken. What is the future, or will it only get worse? Im not talking about live performances or DJing. How does the situation improve?

it doesn't. honestly, i think niche music is always going to remain just that and anyone who strictly produces said music is going to fail at making a living unless they're in the top tier of said niche.

i don't think it's possible for a trance/prog producer to make a living strictly from productions, no matter how much fixing into the model goes in. there's only x amount of people willing to even listen to the stuff and unless a major is pushing your work to the masses and you're at the tippy top of your specialty genre it's just not feasible

Yea if all keep living inside the same box ofcourse it never will. The system is set-up for failure. Its too bad I know nothing about business, seriously contemplating going back to school.

i havent worked with many labels but out of the the ones i have spellbinding recordings have been brilliant and ive received good money from 2 tracks in perticular with detailed description of sales etc, defo one label i recomend to new artist if they have some good tracks, a bigger label i have worked with i havent even seen a penny even tho the track charted similar to the others :P

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Originally posted by Excess it doesn't. honestly, i think niche music is always going to remain just that and anyone who strictly produces said music is going to fail at making a living unless they're in the top tier of said niche. i don't think it's possible for a trance/prog producer to make a living strictly from productions, no matter how much fixing into the model goes in. there's only x amount of people willing to even listen to the stuff and unless a major is pushing your work to the masses and you're at the tippy top of your specialty genre it's just not feasible

It's not just the niche genres being affected the same problems exist all across the board, and its bigger than the music industry. All the time you hear people say the money is in the live show but even that is getting harder. The economy is shit, people don't have the money to go out, clubs are suffering, so they book acts that are willing to play for free (or even pay to play!). No real talent in the clubs, audience doesn't get an education, people with real influence all throw money at the tried and true "safe" acts because the audience doesn't give a shit or know any better. No one is taking chances


regarding the live show:

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Not a bad article, but I gotta say, as a musician, I don't think things are looking up for local musicians. Everyone thinks that the only way musicians make money is by touring and I've been there and we make squat. You have to tour and tour and tour and tour for a return and then you can get something for the time. We sell music in itunes and all the other places and get chickenfeed from them. It is silly to get paid so little for all the so called help we get from the modern major players. I sometimes hear, "you guys are really popular on edonkey" and stuff like that, but it doesn't translate into $$$ either. we sell cds and are on bandcamp too. The mindset of many though is not to pay for music. Musicians just make it anyway, it is weird. We have to have sidejobs though and the Louis CK model only works for top artists like Radiohead and it is hard to get discovered...[...]...the system for musicians is screwed, I just hope that people support their local scene and pay the local working musicians the $5 for the albums we sell if they like them. Merch is also a key ingredient of small artist sales too. We always have to use the cash from all these sales to funnel into the cost of pressing the physical cds, but even that is becoming a waste of time but some people want the item, so we make it still. anyway, just sayin' I guess...

and that's from a touring band, not a bedroom producer. Even bands don't hope to make anything just selling records so you REALLY shouldn't cause you're a niche of a niche of a niche. I get this sense that most of the quality productions coming out are being made by people in various stages of naive hope and disillusion. Like it's just this ongoing cycle of people giving it a shot then giving up and thats where all the good tunes are coming form, like a revolving door. Little short bursts of inspiration from naive producers who get paid fuckall and that keeps the labels alive just a little longer till the next schmuck comes along. Music isn't free to make. It takes real time and real money and a lot of energy to deliver something people will remember and realistically if that means you have to starve yourself in the meantime well guess what you'd be crazy to keep doing it


People are always going to steal your shit because they can and don't care or they just foster their own sense of entitlement to free shit by lying to themselves like "oh im just screwing the label by downloading this, the artist doesnt get anything anyway" or "bands make all of their money off touring so it doesn't matter" which is creating this massive karmic debt that everyone has to pay but it is what it is, that's where the technology has brought us so embrace it and move on


Keep it fun and get a job where you still have time to work on music and just hammer away at a live show. It's more fun to play out anyway, and fuckin nothing ruins good music quicker than putting pressure on making money from it. You'll second-guess yourself over and over and water it down till you end up with a homogenized piece of shit where a good song used to be.

Anyway I think a lot of bright musicians are just biding their time waiting for this thing to figure itself out. I mean there is like nothing sustainable about the world right now, have fun and make some good tunes in the meantime before shit gets REALLY bad

Well, you're right but it's not about no money being around.

Go to any starbucks at any given time - they're always rammed and their shit is badly overpriced but somehow people can still manage $5 a day for a single cup of coffee.

I own a business here in LA and it's doing nicely. I have to work damn hard for every penny but we're doing OK. I know tons of bsuiness owners. Sure it's not 2005 where you were turning people away from too much business, but still, at least in the big cities around the world, people are still making money and getting paid.

In the 90's when vinyl was booming in the UK, it was slap bang in the mdst of the worst recession for decades. People were losing their jobs and houses following the boom of the 80's yet EDM and vinyl sales in that recession were absolutely thriving.

It's what you touched on; people expect not to have to pay for it, and it's a difficult mindset to fix, but some don't really want it fixed.

I actually think Armin is a lot to blame at least when it comes to trance - I've got a conspiracy theory that he has manipulated the market: His team put ou the ASOT torrent/download packages in both split track and mix format with a cue list as he doesn't give a shit if the tracks from other producers (or even his own) are downloaded as a torrent for free as he makes all his money from giant ASOT gigs. He's happy to give the music all away for free just to market himself and make money on the touring and merchandise. Even for other producers, they now have to go through him to get exposure. He, and others at the top are probably happy to have the status quo where it is, as they are making tons by being at the top of the pile. It's fucked.

I've said this before, and while not wanting to turn this in to a piracy thread again (which none of us need) the situation needs a few simple remedies:

1, Carrot and Stick when it comes to changes the economics - STICK: make it really difficult as a process to pirate music (shut down the offending sites, flood the sites you can't shut with bullshit downloads/virii/trackers/DDS attacks etc, while simultaneously making legit downloads very cheap and incredibly easy.

The satellite industry did a couple of years ago and it really was a masterclass. Piracy is reserved now for a few ardent and incredibly persistent hackers who are super techy and have to jump through so many hoops it's basically not worth it. They made a few high profile busts on the coders who were trying to crack the new encryption and all the coders just walked away as it's not worth going to jail for 15 years to give people you don't even know free TV.

2, CARROT: make distribution fair, easy and simple. artists get a good chunk, and it's super easy for consumers to get legit downloads. With the satellite industry, all the occasional and regular pirates just gave up and bought the now cheaper subscriptions to netflix/sat/cable etc.

There will always be money in the top part any industry (and those that have it will do everything to keep it that way) but there's no good reason currently that the industry gives so little to everyone else.

there will also always be money in touring as people will pay for an experience, but both producers and smaller labels need to wake up and stop letting themselves get fucked because if you expect to get shafted, then you will.

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Originally posted by MSZ Yea if all keep living inside the same box ofcourse it never will. The system is set-up for failure. Its too bad I know nothing about business, seriously contemplating going back to school.

Knowing about business is not really the point, instead just consider your own human nature. Millions of good authors don;t make a dime, you don't give any daily thought to this, so why should the public give any eneregy or thought to our productions?

Unless one of us makes something exceptional, then we deserve nothing. Being honest here, we all pretty much make fairly derivative okish music, nothing more, although a couple of guys here have the potential.

Peronsally I'm reall cool with this. I deserve nothing. It irratates me when people expect adulation.

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Originally posted by DJ RANN 1, Carrot and Stick when it comes to changes the economics -

I'd be up for setting up a sales platform - Amazon and Beatport are damned terrible when it comes to doing a search and just browing and navigating.

I just don't get how the developers of sites like this are soooooooo think and unintuative, it drives me up the wall.

streaming.

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