Recently I've had a few artists inquire about purchasing instrumentals from me. When I tell them that I lease tracks out for a certain amount, they generally then ask me what the price is for exclusive rights. They tend to feel my price range is a tad bit high for a 'lease'. However, understand there are more than one way to 'lease' or 'rent' out music.
So let me start by giving a little background on the basic 3 (as I have come to learn them) types of ways instrumentals can be sold.
1. The INEXCLUSIVE lease: This basically covers any "free download" instrumental or beat that anyone has gotten from the internet or from someone. It also includes the lower price tracks you will mainly come across (unless stated elsewhere in a contract between the artist and producer. But with the free or low price, what is the use of a contract right?...better do some research). A producer is free to lease these tracks to as many artists as possible. Why? Because he still owns the copyrights, licenses, and registrations to his work.
So that brings us to the next 2, which ill discuss in comparison...
An exclusive lease vs an exclusive sale:
The difference betweens the 2 is very minute, yet it is the difference between a $100 price tag and a $5,000 price tag.
The reason that I want to get into this is because as a producer I feel the word exclusive means one thing to me, and something else to an artist.
I generally sell my instrumentals under an EXCLUSIVE lease. Give the artist free reign of the track for a certain time period (generally 2-3 years). In that time span, I cannot lease the track to anyone else. However, the ARTIST cannot sell the instrumental either. Some artists feel that if they exclusively purchase a track, if they are approached by a label and the label wants to sign them, buy the song, and push it for them, that they have the right to do so. This is not the case at all. Without ownership of any copyrights, licenses, and registrations, you cannot TRANSFER OWNERSHIP of the instrumental. This is where the difference of exclusive sales and exclusive leases differ. If you actually PURCHASE a beat EXCLUSIVELY then you should have ownership not only of a tracked out beat, but also of any ownership of all copyrights and licenses to use. This technically cuts out the producer (based on the contract of course) from having any say so of where his track ends up....which is why these sales are extremely higher than exclusive leases. Its not much different than renting a home. As a tenant, u generally cannot rent the home out to someone else right? If u want to do so you must purchase the home instead of renting it.
Don't let yourself get caught up in the jargon of business if you dont know the definitions. If your song blows up and you don't have things in order, you can find yourself rapping a hit song for free down the line. .
Just a little clarification for everyone. Hit me up with any comments, discussion, or questions. If you're looking for some instrumentals or if you're in the SC/GA area and are looking for mixing and recording time, check out www.POMPEYPRODUCTIONS.com and contact me at POMPEYPRODUCTIONS@gmail.com.
God bless.
Yep yep!
