21 Sep

THE BUSINESS OF COMPOSING WITH CARTER BURWELL

We're excited to share a brand-new webinar featuring the legendary composer Carter Burwell. In a 45-minute conversation with Your Music, Your Future founder Joel Beckerman, Carter talks offers priceless wisdom and industry insights for composers who are just starting their careers. Watch video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GYQ9nJYhLY&t=4s Carter is among today’s best-known

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29 Jun

Your Music Your Future buyouts campaign launches in German

The global education resource Your Music Your Future International (YMYFI) has launched in German, helping composers better understand buyouts or their rights and extending the creator-led campaign to six language versions. Buyouts have become a worldwide issue for creators, driven in part by the growth of powerful global streaming services.

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7 Feb

Are buyouts the only way forward for young composers? Think again, says Your Music Your Future/UBC/CISAC panel

What’s the best deal for a young composer licensing their music to a broadcaster or digital platform? Traditionally, royalties have been the way to build your career, but increasingly, music creators are getting asked to sign over their rights for a single lump sum payment. This was the question at

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12 Jul

“Your Music Your Future International” comes to the Cannes Film Festival

YMYF founder Joel Beckerman outlines the global CISAC-backed education campaign about buyouts Your Music Your Future International is a global education campaign, led by composers, that seeks to raise awareness about the options composers have with their remuneration. The campaign was launched in February 2021, with CISAC partnering with the successful

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23 Jun

Case Study: deciding to say no to a complete buyout

An Australian composer learned a useful lesson when offered a US contract Buyouts, while much talked about of late, are nothing new. In 2009 Australian composer Ben was asked to score a 90 min feature documentary for a major cable TV network. It was his first encounter with a buyout

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9 Jun

Your Music Your Future launched in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish

Your Music Your Future International, the global education campaign on copyright buyouts, is today being made available in four new languages, supported by CISAC’s member societies in France, Spain, Mexico, Portugal, Brazil and Finland. The new sites, in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Finnish, will take the campaign to more countries

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29 Apr

Protect your royalties and protect yourself

Royalties versus buyouts. Yawn. Can’t we just skip to the part where I get to write cool music and hear it on TV? Anything you can pay me would be great! So says every composer (myself included) when first entering into the world of writing music for TV and film. 

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7 Apr

AUTHORS ARE BEING AFFECTED BY THE CHANGE IN THE MEDIA MARKET. “THERE HAS BEEN A VISIBLE DECLINE IN AUTHOR COMPENSATION”

Henry is a Nordic composer who has been making music all his life. He is a fourth-generation musician and has performed in over 50 different countries in various line-ups. Professional composer he has been for about 15 years. Having received many kinds of offers during his career, Henry has learned

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31 Mar

Ivors Academy and Musicians’ Union launch campaign against buyouts of media composers’ copyrights

The Ivors Academy and the Musicians’ Union have launched a #ComposersAgainstBuyout campaign to stop TV and film productions as well as advertisers from completely buying out the copyrights of media composers. The campaign seeks to create awareness on the increasingly practiced imposed copyright buyouts which deprive creators of their rights.

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26 Mar

Asia Pacific international symposium highlights need for global education on copyright buyouts and issues five key recommendations

See live debate here March 26th, 2021 - Composers and songwriters across the world need to get educated on the growing practice of copyright buyouts by the producers, broadcasters and platforms using their works. Buyouts are an increasingly common way for companies to license composers’ works, requiring the creator to surrender

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15 Mar

Explaining copyright buyouts: new CISAC guidelines for creators worldwide

15th March 2021 –   A set of Guidelines from CISAC on copyright buyouts is now being made available to creators and the general public from Your Music Your Future International. The paper is an abridged version of an analysis completed for CISAC member societies in June 2020 and is based

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28 Jan

Royalties and control vs buyout and lump sum fee: a Case Study

European film and TV composer David learned the hard way in his negotiation  with a major international video streaming service David is a well-known and successful film composer who has been writing music for documentaries and movies for more than ten years. In 2020 he experienced a new kind of

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21 Jan

Simon Darlow, deputy chairman, PRS for Music, speaks on buyout contracts at the 2020 Creators Conference

The following speech was made by Simon Darlow, deputy chairman, PRS For Music, on Monday 3 February 2020 at the 2020 Creators Conference organised by European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA) in Brussels. ‘The practice referred to as a buyout is when a producer, typically in the audio-visual or video

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