It’s time for VO and music to part ways.

[damooch916]

Let’s just say it: you don’t understand the meaning of commercial rights.

No, not that garbled nonsense that fiverrian sellers “pitch” as commercial rights. I’m talking about real commercial rights.

And while we’re at it, let’s put this up on the board: you don’t understand copyright as opposed to master ownership. Plus, you haven’t the slightest clue about publishing, work for hire, hired gun, session work, the difference between BMI and the Harry Fox agency, which agencies do what or how to register and protect your work.

Each week we witness buyers ask about their “rights” to a piece of audio that they’ve purchased. Or, even scarier, some seller is here quoting fiverr terms of service as though it supersedes publishing law. Suddenly, the flood gates open and out from the depths of a foggy, red hell - sellers from every vertical are weighing in on a clients “rights,” or a sellers “ownership.” And rarely … and I mean RARELY … is any of it even close to accurate.

How can it be this messy?

Well, a few reasons actually:

1. Fiverr is attempting to broadly place various forms of publishing under one banner. Which - ya know - makes sense for a company that has the enormous task of designing widely fitting rules over not just one vertical - but all verticals. The issue, of course, is that not all publishing is made the same. Certainly not all standards are similar. And in the case of an originally written and recorded song - the whole affair is messier than your first apartment.

2. VO and music - while both being considered “audio” have vastly different rules. The standards of “work for hire” and its inclusion of “release for purpose of commercial usage” is completely different. I mean that both professionally and in the freelance realm. The rules aren’t interchangeable - which makes the opinions of some graphic designer from Toronto completely useless - when he chimes in to “educate” some young songwriter on their rights to use a master recording they purchased on fiverr by applying his knowledge of having worked with a voice over artist.

3. A lot of you aren’t nearly as professional as you’re representing to people. Listen, I get it. To a certain degree, the word “pro” has become a prerequisite “buzz term” that’s been made to appear as a crucial step in getting anyone to even view your profile. Even worse, if we held an open debate about the term “professional” we’d walk away with less clarity than when we started.

But musically speaking - there’s some absolutes that seem unilaterally accepted when networking with other professionals. A pro songwriter, for example, has received royalty payments (notably mechanical ones) that have exceeded your monthly bills on a consistent basis. A professional songwriter has pitched credible production firms and singed artists and looked at projection totals that the firm estimates after recoupable’s. A professional songwriter has had at least one publishing deal, including a retainer, and gotten legitimate cuts from the deal.

These are circumstances where you’re likely to find entertainment (music) attorneys. You’ll know them, they’re the really hairy gents hanging off the wall like a wretched insect, usually in a big watch and stroking their Rolodex while saying “it’ll only cost you your soul to have a peek at these numbers.” And here - here - is where you’re likely to really familiarize yourself with various ownership legalities.

If you’ve never been in this situation - you probably know less about the validities of ownership - and it’s fees (or lack there of) than you think you do. Many of you are simply repeating erroneous talking points that you’ve picked up from uneducated sellers, mimicking bad insights from laughably terrible threads or quoting Fiverr’s terms of service. Which, is fine in most scenarios - but again, fiverr is applying the most broad written rules in order to protect itself … it’s not actually reciting the laws, practices or standards that will survive a “master ownership” dispute in court.

I’m sure you’re extremely talented. But that doesn’t make you a publishing expert. Actually, I’m not even positive what does make someone a publishing expert. I have sat with entertainment attorneys who confused themselves so profusely - they literally had to stop and consult Google. Which is not the move - and can only make it worse (yes, I had to pay for that meeting). 

 

Meanwhile … none of that means anything in the world of VO. What makes up “social proof” of a voiceover artist’s professional credentials is well beyond my understanding. To me, if the guy can tell me about an upcoming movie in a really low voice - well, that sounds pretty damn professional. Fortunately, my standards aren’t the standard. But in every conversation involving professional VO artists, some of whom I know personally, it’s extremely clear that their protocol is different from mine. Radically different.

Which begs the question: Why are we lumped in here together?

Musicians are constantly answering “rights” questions regarding voiceover and vice versa. Not only does this not help us - it runs the risk of placing people in financial harm. Our standards aren’t the same. Our laws aren’t the same. We aren’t the same.

Just look at our conduct. 

As a musician, it’s totally acceptable - even expected - to show up to a zoom client consultancy call with sunglasses in doors, drunk, possibly fornicating, puffing a cigarette and yelling “that would make a great song,” after every five statements. None of that would fly in the VO realm (which really sucks for you and I take no pleasure in holding it above your stuffy heads).

Maybe we make interesting “bedfellows” - but let’s be honest, no one should be that confused while in bed. Especially in a scenario where your performance is being judged. 

Possibly the time has come to part company.  In our own environments - buyers and sellers would receive advice from people who, at least, purport to be professionals in the correct field. Sure, it will probably still be bad advice - but at least it would be from the correct hemisphere.

And - supposing that this idea doesn’t fall on deaf ears and immediately get filed in the “junk that’s too long to read” category - I’m openly accepting any defectors to join us in the swamp fire that would surely be an exclusive musician hangout. Think about it: you VO folks are one harmonica solo away from the life of your dreams. As a musician you’ll enjoy many perks that VO doesn’t provide you. Perks like:

Blaming a drug binge when you tell your client off - only to have the client “completely understand.”

Looking like you raided your grandmother’s jewelry and having people compliment your “uniqueness.”

Sleeping until 1pm and calling it your “process.”

Making something entirely different than what your client wanted and calling it “a think piece.”

Making lewd comments at your client and being called “untamable.”

Drinking at 3 pm because you got a “late start.”

Blaming your “creative process” for all the physical intimacy that you “can’t control.” 

And that’s just the drummers.

 

The rules of our respective fields are tricky enough. We do each other no favors by trying to articulate them for the other. And no one does us any favors by not being in our industry and “helping.” These fields aren’t as cut and dry as many others. The less clutter, the better. Maybe it’s time to part ways? 

So let’s sit the kids down and tell them. Let’s divide the belongings and figure out who bought what. Let’s leave while only remembering the good times. And let’s be our best selves in this weird circumstance of “goodbye.”

But I’m keeping the house.  

 

 

[newsmike]

14 hours ago, damooch916 said:

Meanwhile … none of that means anything in the world of VO. What makes up “social proof” of a voiceover artist’s professional credentials is well beyond my understanding. To me, if the guy can tell me about an upcoming movie in a really low voice - well, that sounds pretty damn professional. Fortunately, my standards aren’t the standard. But in every conversation involving professional VO artists, some of whom I know personally, it’s extremely clear that their protocol is different from mine. Radically different.

 

I agree that they are different beasts as far as copyright and probably every other legal aspect as well and support the separation of the verticals.

As to quality and validity both verticals suffer from the problem of self described "professionals" who clearly are not. Mixed among the vetted PRO VO sellers are (sometimes on page 1) people who have the following 2 qualifications,  first they have a microphone built into their laptop and second, once played a tree in a 4th grade play. This applies to the musicians as well. There are PRO sellers here who have legitimate credentials, and then plenty of people who can't hum a tune who create a gig on a lark clogging up your vertical. Pareto's rule applies to music and VO here in Fiverr as al least 80% are complete amateurs with no business selling music or VO services in any way. Then the remaining 20% contains a lot of mid level DJ's and cover band guys who play weddings and have never been booked for a real, honest to God professional gig anywhere. But this is a Fiverr problem for every vertical.     

To your other point, there are clearly things that make up the "social proof" of professionalism you describe among VO artists. Among them, having an IMBD profile with a legitimate narration credit for a film currently streaming on Netflix and Prime Video:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7343526/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm

Or being credited as narrator in a video viewed over 30 million times on National Geographic's YT feed.

 

 

 

[damooch916]

6 hours ago, newsmike said:

To your other point, there are clearly things that make up the "social proof" of professionalism you describe among VO artists.

This is where things turn awkward for musician types.

See … there’s the obvious professional benchmarks. You’ve written a hit song. You’re in a charted touring band. You’re a credited studio musician having played on many hit records.

But then there’s the underbelly of that. The side guys who play on the beach circuit with “falling stars.” The career “target” writers who have album credits and commercial themes. The regionally famous and well paid.

Then things get crazy.

The cover musician who used to play for Marvin Gaye but currently works at a gas station. The owner of a small record label that used to be mega famous. The karaoke DJ that used to front bands opening for major stars.

And none of this is to say anything about our musicians who are over 67 that come from a world that was entirely different. These guys could be regionally famous, award winning writers with legitimate hits on the “jukebox” charts (before regional charts were dismantled) and be syndicated television stars - all within a defined area - while being anonymous to the rest of the world.

There’s such a convoluted aspect to “music” and professionalism. The work-a-day, family man is rarely discussed, but for years that was the beating heart of popular music. Tin Pan, corporate, suit and tie, clock in, hard working business people invented and solidified the structure of popular music. It was a career - and a career, more than anything else, defined where you stood professionally.

All the above mentioned examples are true people that I’ve known. A lot of them are scenarios I’ve been in and all of them represent someone that had enough credentials to teach me something.

I began my road career at four - coming from a regionally famous musician family back when that meant something astonishing. In that time, I’ve watched the term “professional” mean some truly wild things. Careers were defined by our ability to stage and execute a functional and enticing Vegas main room show. Fair ground circuits were for up and coming bands with label interest. Agents booked you solid and didn’t engage in “guess work.” Song plugging was a vetted sport. Radio play was a relevant, more even field that pitted your area talent against national talent. And no one - no one - dared to call themselves a professional songwriter if they hadn’t had at least one publishing deal. My first pub deal was at 13 and it was like handing me a membership to the most elite club on earth.

Really it wasn’t. It was more like a small publishing firm, buying up young talent and paying retainers to sandbag you. But it certainly defined you and there was no question that you could write.

The question of what defines a professional has plagued pop music and writers since removing the old guard and the rise of the marketing term “teenager.” It’s an uneasy question with almost unimaginably silly answers.

I am in - and have been in - most of the preconditioned scenarios that at some point defined a “professional songwriter.” Still, in my heart - there’s this romantic lineage between what I do and what the tin pan guys did. I work for a living. I wake up early, tear into the material and arrive at the results that I intended.

In my forty’s - currently in a 30 plus years career in music - I don’t overly glamorize the intangible aspects of art. I don’t lionize the muse at the expense of the grit. I literally heroize the thought of earned, worked for, knuckled up, bust ass hard work and the years it requires to knowingly utilize truly cultivated mechanics. I honor paying your way, feeding your family and grinding every note for the clothes I put on my children’s back. There will always be a definition that lives inside of me, of what professionalism in music means: it’s paying your way - and your family’s way -exclusively from music. And while that definition doesn’t play as well as saying “I have 100’s of album cuts, songs in Amazon films and a theme song on CBS,” it still matters more to me than anything else. I’m in the 2% of people that sit down to write music and pay all their bills solely on that alone. And that’s my personal benchmark.

Maybe there’s an evolution in your profession that makes this relatable. All these weird twists and rephrased meanings that redefine professionalism. If so, maybe you have your favorite eras and definitions. Maybe you have your own standards that define your success - standards that get passed down and shared - and that can only be achieved by having “been there,” or taught by people that were. There’s a deeply genealogical aspect to music that’s missing. You can hear it in the hollow playing and the fear of space. It’s imitation - not application. Maybe you and your contemporaries have something just like that. Something deeply human that you miss and you carry it with you like the last members of a waning tribe.

That’s me. And there’s not many like me left.

So we’re fortunate Mike. We have the professional credentials to fit the criteria of a fiverr. Or an organization. Or the exclusive membership programs. And if you’re really fortunate - you have those personalized credentials that not a lot of people relate to. But you know what they mean - and it puts you at eye level with the people you deeply respected. Even if they weren’t around to see it.

Which is most certainly the case for me.

(And this completes my “honest and clear” talk for 2023. Join us next time when we ask: Crust … are the bread companies just messing with us or what?) 

Edited April 24, 2023 by damooch916
You can dance, every dance with the guy who gives you the eye and let him hold you tight …

[newsmike]

6 hours ago, damooch916 said:

Tin Pan, corporate, suit and tie, clock in, hard working business people invented and solidified the structure of popular music. It was a career - and a career, more than anything else, defined where you stood professionally.

Yep. Nelson Riddle, Quincy Jones, The Gershwin's, Johnny Mercer, Burt & Hal, even Fats Waller and his cohorts, plus every guy who ever went in or out of the Brill building. I could see you fitting in there, except they'd tell you to put a shirt on. 😀

[damooch916]

14 hours ago, newsmike said:

I could see you fitting in there, except they'd tell you to put a shirt on. 

Keeping within the theme of this fairly confessional, weirdly non-satirical tone that I’ve struck, I’ll tell you something about this shameful muscle shirt schtick … it’s sort of the window into who I am as a person. It exposes who I really am and misaligns with who I “think” I am.

Also, it exposes my chest - but that’s not the point. 

See … on paper, the muscle shirt thing and I don’t jive at all.

I’m not a fan of gaudy. Needy, pseudo artistic, cry-for-help, performative, attention demanding is something I’m nearly intolerant to. I’ve thrown more than a few people - out of more than a few locations - for drawing unnecessary attention to themselves in desperate displays. These actions have awarded me: free dinners at local restaurants, free coffee at more than one Starbucks and several (let’s call them) propositions.

I don’t care for excessiveness. I hate a movie that needs two twists because they couldn’t satisfy a plot in only one. I hate when bands add five more live members to exceed the sound that worked perfectly fine prior to. I believe that most shows could do in six episodes what they usually fail to do in twelve. And I usually subscribe to the idea that “double albums” are what happens when a band can no longer be told “no.”

And nothing that I just said ... Nothing … aligns with me, the person.

I’m the epitome of excessive! I’m a case study in workaholism. I’m a first rate perfectionist. I live totally inside the “all” and give no notice to the “nothing.” My existence has been financed by immoderate obsessions and I’ve never “liked” a single thing without owning any less than ten books on the topic.

Here is a real list of things that I’ve done to earn my badge of excessiveness:

I once purchased or rented every “in print” work on John “Doc” Holliday to better theorize on the death of Johnny Ringo. I was 12.

 

I once learned Elton John’s entire 1970’s catalogue - but only the string arrangements - in chronological order and I’m even referring to his hideous disco record.

I once wrote out - in long hand - Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing: On the campaign trail ‘72” as a tribute to his having typed out the entirety of “Gatsby” to “get the rhythm.” Our reasons were the same.

 

I once rehearsed a band every week for one year only to fire them after one show.

 

And these are only the publicly acceptable stories. After a lifetime in music, excessiveness is easy and rather accessible.

And yet - none of that really speaks to the values, morals, traditions or standards that I keep - all of which I’m excessive regarding and none of which fit the “excessive” personality type.

I’m the weird mix you get when you stuff academic pursuits, an alpha male psyche, an artistic upbringing, Americana values, scholastic emphasis, competitive principles and a lifetime of entertaining into a blender. 

Basically - I’m a Beatles guy, talking like an Elvis guy, dressed like a professional wrestler.

The muscle shirts are my shrine to the excess of a “bodybuilding lifestyle” wrapped in my disdain for “peacocking” where unnecessary, that inadvertently becomes a “performative” piece about “anti-performance.”

Somewhere in there, I just described myself perfectly. 

 

[smashradio]

I'm not entering this beast of a discussion aiming to write more than two lines. I usually do. This time, I won't. 

I will only say that I agree with Mooch and Mike. Unfortunately, this platform is packed to the brim with amateurs, and it's reflected in the advice given at times. 

We should part as friends. I have little business telling a musician what to do (even though I probably have done so, at some point). 

That was four lines. Damn it! 

Edited April 28, 2023 by smashradio