Free At Last

Situation A (for free): Film Auteur asks you to score a beautiful little film for “credit,” no money. You trust her and work hard and long without a contract. The project grows beyond everyone’s expectation, and the finished film in fact goes on to win awards. Now that it’s being sold on DVD, FA demands you sign a work-for-hire agreement and release ownership and copyright of the music. You protest, saying you were actually never “hired” — in other words, paid — and therefore you own the masters. However, in FA’s mind, dammit, too bad Scotty. You did the work for free, the nice big credit you got was your payment, and now you’re holding the project up when you should be acting grateful. Ouch! An ugly battle ensues and bridges are burned.

Situation B (for spec): Talented Songwriter wants to collaborate with you to do demos. You sign a simple agreement that says you split everything 50/50, and you spend months co-writing and producing songs. You work your ass off, yet in the end you have nothing to show for it but a bunch of demos. More months pass, and you and TS drift apart as other projects distract you both. Neither of you can really know who owns the demos, things are good and it’s not a big deal.

In both cases, you’ve worked hard, made no money, given tons of creative input, and heard lots of promises. In Situation B there is still a grey area, but because you have a written agreement with a great split, it’s a textbook spec deal. In A, however, while there is still lots of trust and success, the original deal is fatally flawed, and you will pay for it. You provided a score for the film for nothing, but you did not give up ownership of your music without getting paid. Folks, this deconstruction of the simple phrase for free is not just semantics, as FA would have you believe; you are not being difficult. FA’s understanding of the deal is so grossly imbalanced, it’s ludicrous. Saying you would write music for free doesn’t mean she owns the music, and once again, we confront the prickly issue of music-as-product, versus music-as-service, a distinction too subtle for FA’s simple mind. I sold the service of music for credit; the product of music carries a higher price.

Reality check: It really doesn’t matter anymore, Film Auteur will never call again, no matter what, and will do everything possible to withhold any money that may come due. But lo! Talented Songwriter ends up re-recording a few of your collaborations on their record.

These things happen everyday, and both happened to me. B’s deal eventually pays you a bunch of $1.79 royalty checks. You smile because you are actually getting compensation, which is honestly more than you ex-spec-ted.