Royalty Free Music Blog – My Story & Your Questions?

I am going to start a blog about royalty free music for video, movies, adverts, Internet and games, using music & sound, and licensing.

Because I think after almost 10 years of composing (royalty free) music for film and advertising, it is time to share my knowledge and experience.

But first you probably want to know who I am and why you should listen to me.

My Story & Royalty Free Music

I am Wouter Siteur, a royalty free film composer from the Netherlands.

For years, I was a member of Buma/Stemra, the Dutch performance rights organisation or PRO. You probably know the PRO in your own country, to name a few: ASCAP, BMI and SESAC in the US, Socan in Canada, Apra/Amcos in Australia, PRS in the UK, SACEM in France, GEMA in Germany and Sabam in Belgium.

But I decided to quit my Buma/Stemra membership. Why?

The first reason is that organisations like Buma/Stemra are not flexible. When you are a member, you transfer all your rights and they control who can do what with your music and what they have to pay. And that’s something I want to control myself. For instance, I want to be able to give away some of my music away as free royalty free music. As a member of Buma/Stemra, this is not possible.

The second reason I quit my membership is that organisations like Buma/Stemra are too bureaucratic and slow to deal properly with new markets and technologies, like games, mobile phones and the Internet. This leads to strange situations. One example: Buma/Stemra has sent invoices to people who used my music on the Internet without sending me a penny from this money! I think that’s not fair, not for you and not for me.

The problem is that the copyright system was created in a time that the music world was very simple: big record companies recorded artists, people bought records and there were only a few radio and television stations. No low-cost film camera’s, no mobiles, no internet, no youtube, no royalty free music. But the world has changed a lot during the last decade and the copyright system has not. Or at least not as much.

So I quit my Buma/Stemra membership and can make real royalty free music now.

Please Help Me – What Do You Want To Learn?

For this new blog, I am planning to write articles about:

royalty free music & background music

finding the right library music / production music

music licensing & royalties

the power of sound and music

the process of finding the right library music

interesting articles, websites, books, music, videos, …

…

To make this blog really worth while to read, I would like to ask you a favour. Please let me know what you want to learn .

You would really help me (and other visitors of this website) by answering this question in the comment box below. You can also contact me by email or phone.