The Importance of Work For Hire

You’ve written a great song. You have a strong melody, lyrics, the musical structure is set and you have a vision for the production. The next step is finding the right team of musicians, engineers and producers to help you bring your vision to life.

As an independent artist you come across a lot of decisions that can make or break your career in the industry of songwriting and pitching your songs to film and tv. Decisions such as: What should I invest in my recording? What if there is someone out there wanting to do this recording for free and split the profits from the recording? These are decisions I myself had to face as a young independent artist.

Lessons Learned As An Independent Artist

Having spent over 15 years in the music industry, I have some experience myself that I’d like to share and lessons I’ve learned along the way. Today the main topic of focus is on the importance of doing your recordings on a Work For Hire Basis. In the moment, it might be appealing to have someone offer to do a royalty share on recordings or a 50/50 split. The reality is, you might not know where your career will take you and the opportunities that lie ahead. Being stuck in these wishy washy contracts can be defeating to you and your songs.

Record Your Songs On A Work For Hire Contract

My experience: a 24 year old songwriter with albums upon albums worth of material and producers offering to record me for free. Beautiful studios, great musicians, such a fun experience. The drawback, I didn’t end up owning 100% of the copyright to the final recordings. Flash forward to me now, 36 years old with catalogs of material of some of my best songs that I am not in 100% control of. I had the opportunity to have my songs pitched and placed in a film with major stars. The drawback? The producer that originally recorded my material wouldn’t sign the contract to release the material to these opportunities. I had locked myself into a 50/50 split contract and the brutal truth was I didn’t even own the rights to MY OWN RECORDINGS.

What ended up happening in the end? I re-tracked the production from the ground up with StudioPros 12 years later knowing that :

A. I would own 100% of the copyright to the material I recorded.

B. I could release this song finally to a film and have it placed in the film.

Don’t make the same mistakes that I made. Make sure that any contract you get into with your precious songs is clear. Make sure you own 100% of the copyright to the material that you record. Your future self with an opportunity will thank you.

Read StudioPros Work For Hire Contract:
https://studiopros.com/terms-of-use.php

Get Your Songs Professionally Produced With StudioPros

Do you have a song that you’d like to get professionally produced? Contact an available StudioPros producer today at: 1-310-928-7776 or via email: info@studiopros.com and get started on bringing your vision to life today.

Posted on: July 9th, 2019