How much should an unknown musician and composer be paid for a 1 to 2 minute song?

Question by Pepper Dawg: How much should an unknown musician and composer be paid for a 1 to 2 minute song?
Hello, I, on behalf of my company, am trying to write up a contract for an unknown musician/composer we are hiring to compose and perform the music for our 1 to 2 minute art piece. It’s basically a tiny film score. There’s a lot of online info and contracts but I don’t know how to break down the royalties and things like that. We are providing the recording studio. He and his partner are unknown and unsigned. Is the payment a one time thing, or do they get royalties for each copy of the video we sell. It is going to be sold digitally and on DVD. We are also playing it on Youtube and other online sites. Is there a fee for that? I’m just trying to cut a fair deal for the musician based on his experience and the amount of work. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Best answer:

Answer by Bob
Depends if he is willing to sell it outright or wishes to retain ownership by copyright and lease or grant you rights to it’s use for a fee or royalty. If he believes the piece is suspected to be heard by thousands or millions he may just ask for a small cut of the proceeds per play. Or he may say $ 200 or $ 10,000 depending what he values the piece at, and it’s suspected earning capability. If you are fair give him a fair portion of the production budget, if their is any, for his work as a performance, and grant him per sale royalties for items sold $ .?? a copy or commercial play as the writer for the work to create the piece. This would be fair. The royalty thing needs to be done through socan-ascap, socan-bmi in Canada or the equivalent society for collecting and distributing royalties in your country.

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