Commissioning a Composition / Legal Contract
Mark Nicholls
buy a song he has written & commission him to write a complete set in
the same style.
This is not altruism on my part but a 'speculative investment',
(having great confidence in his talent) & I want to ensure the
transfer of ownership of 'all rights' to these songs is made legally
correctly. Could anyone advise if there is a standard format for such
a contract? What exactly do 'all rights' consist of?
If anyone can help or point me in the right direction I'd be grateful
- I imagine this must be quite a routine matter & rather than consult
a lawyer I'd prefer to pay my friend more!
I'm in the UK.
Regards
Mark Nicholls
Dr.Matt
Mark Nicholls <amarkn...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>A young friend of mine is starting off as a composer, & I wish to a
>buy a song he has written & commission him to write a complete set in
>the same style.
>
>This is not altruism on my part but a 'speculative investment',
>(having great confidence in his talent) & I want to ensure the
>transfer of ownership of 'all rights' to these songs is made legally
>correctly. Could anyone advise if there is a standard format for such
>a contract? What exactly do 'all rights' consist of?
"All Rights" involve right of publication, right of public performance,
right of use in dramas, right to make derived works, etc.
It is not usually in the interest of a composer's career to sell
all rights to a work of art-music. For a work of filmscore or
a jingle, works-for-hire are quite common, and the composer usually
just retains the right to present copies of the work as part of her
or his professional portfolio.
If you really want to make a speculative investment, you want your
friend to succeed, so you really just want to publish the music in
recorded form and leave the rest of the rights to the composer, and
encourage the composer to immediately join the Performance Rights
Society.
You may wish to ask your question of these people, as their answers
may be nuanced to the particular situations under British law and
business practice. PRS, like the American groups ASCAP and BMI, may
already have standard contracts you can use. Since their livelyhood
comes from ensuring the maximum possible exposure of their music,
such standard contracts are likely to be mutually beneficial.
Usually, with a commission, you can insist that mention of the
commission appear on every printed copy of the score (to the extent
that the composer can ensure this), and you reserve the exclusive
right to give/produce the public first performance of the piece, with
a time limit of a couple years. You may also reserve the right to
issue the premiere recording of the work. Usually, however, such
exclusive rights are time-limited so that the commissioning person
cannot subsequently completely censor a piece of music by delaying its
premiere indefinitely.
>If anyone can help or point me in the right direction I'd be grateful
>- I imagine this must be quite a routine matter & rather than consult
>a lawyer I'd prefer to pay my friend more!
>
>I'm in the UK.
>
>Regards
>
>Mark Nicholls
--
Matthew H. Fields http://www-personal.umich.edu/~fields