Business issues of letting a freind use music for film

[pantonality]

Hi All,

An old freind of mine has asked to use some of my music for a very low budget film project of his. Since the music already exists there\'s nothing I need to do, but agree. There\'s no money in it for me other than possible exposure. My question of this august group are what are the business issues that we should agree on prior to my allowing this?

I plan to retain ownership of my work. I plan to limit the use of the music to this one project. What else am I missing? Thanks for your wisdom.

Steve Chandler
http://www.mp3.com/stevechandler (\"http://www.mp3.com/stevechandler\")

[Hudson]

From what I understand, you need to draw up a sync license which allows the director to synchronize the music with the actual video, and a performance license which allows the director to publicly showcase the film with your accompanying music. There are basic license contracts you can get at the film music network site.
-Hudson

[Bruce A. Richardson]

The mere fact that question can be asked is reason enough to set up the full legal agreement. If this project should become Blair Witch, your compensation and ownership should be set up so that your share is never in question, no matter what the success of the film.

If anything, on a low-budget film, you are in better position to negotiate a piece of the back end. It may be worth nothing, but...Blair Witch. Better to trouble yourself to set it up properly than to have a sad story about how you made $200 on a hit film.

[pantonality]

Thanks for the replies. The prospects are a possibility of being shown on SciFi. Somebody not too long ago posted a link to a generic agreement. I tried searching for it to no avail. If anyone has such a document that would be very helpful.

As regards my track record in the film industry, I have none. So doing this favor for a freind with caveats in case it becomes the next Blair Witch Project makes sense to me. I do feel I need to protect my interests and for that we need an agreement. Thanks all.

Steve Chandler

[mattzen]

You are missing the liscensing fees. You own the right not only to the music but also for the master recording. You can and should liscense the music AND the recording for two seperate yet combined fees. These would be a sync liscense and a master liscense. Exposure is great, but you should be compensated for the use of your music if they have ANY sort of budget.

I \'m sure they had to pay for other services and equipment during their producvÿreg