Royalty free music

#1 Hmmm hate to ask.. but what currency is that and how much does it equal to USD?

#2 No problem with asking of course :)

19,95 is $30.77 with todays currency converter.

Feel free to ask as many questions or if you have any suggestions or other kinds of comments please do not hesitate to ask or to post.

Best,

Jaap Visser

#3 Great quality music, Jaap. I haven't heard more atmospheric and professional game music for a long time. $31 is incredibly steep for one song from my perspective though. Of course, I am not real familiar with the going rate for quality game music. If that is competitive and you are making the kind of money you want, then I wouldn't change a thing.

#4 I think it rather cheap, its Great Quality Music . Personally I would charge alot more, I'm a musician that is cheap. Its like you want him to hand it to you on a silver platter.

My question: Do you make tracks that you will not distribute or sell, except to the one who purchases it. If so what is the price range. I want a Call of duty/ Gears of War style theme.

I'm asking because I don't have the time to do this myself any more, so I could need any where from 6 to 10 tracks. I'm just checking around right now till I get the first level plus the into done on my game.

you can email me at: mbedwell6019@msn.com

#5 $30 is quite reasonable for a license to use music in your game. Steep to listen to on your ipod, but that's a different thing altogether.

#6 Hi people,

First of all thank you for your kind words and comments :)

I have been thinking about the price for a while and I think this price is the best of the 2 worlds for now. I think it can serve a community without destroying the market.
First of all it gives also smaller projects and really enthousiastic hobby, student or startup projects an option to get some quality music. I see a lot of good projects out there with a lot of potential and I think this can contribute. Due to a relative "low price" it could be that the compositions could be very popular. This makes the fact that it can loose also a certain interest for people that want a bit more exclusive music and not music that could be heard in a lot of games. I think this marketing does stabelize it for now.
I understand Kevin the fact that you can find it also expensive, but remember that if you want to special made songs for a project the price could be easily be a few thousand dollars for a composition (see also my explination below for the exclusive prices). This is not music that is like to listen to on an Ipod indeed, but requires a different licence logically (not allowed to use it in projects)

I am working on a different licening system for future projects. A few completely free songs for hobby projects and freeware (with the risk that the music could be heard a lot), medium priced songs for the project that want to spend a bit more money but don't have the money (yet I hope :P) to get an exclusive deal with a composer and a high price. The higher priced licening is still royalty free and not exclusive, but this would be highly mastered and recorded music and sound fx.

Also I work of course on exclusive base.

A very rough estimate (it depends on the project and the size etc) is as follow:

Indiegames and mods: range of $75 till $150 per completely finished minute of music. In the contract there would an extra clausule stating that IF the project gets commercially succesfull that I receive an X% of the sale untill my payment is completed to my standard fee.

The standard fee for my composing is for games that have budget in the range of $500 till $1000 per minute. This depends of course also on the size, platform etc etc

Morrie: I will send you an e-mail as well to discuss some further options and check what could be done. Maybe this answered also some questions, but never wrong to establish contact I think :)

I hope this answered a bit the questions and that it gives a bit insight in what my strategies and meanings are with this setup. Maybe I cut myself in the leg with explaining this, but I think for an open community like garagegames I hope it contributes.

Spam along with further questions if you have some. You can also drop a mail at musicproductions@jaapvisser.com

Thanks again people!

Cheers,

Jaap

#7 Yeah, I was thinking in terms of iTunes. $30 does seem pretty reasonable now. ;)

#8 I actually never thought of selling them or distributing them for just listening haha :) If you like them and want a few for your Ipod, then just contact me and I can send you a download link to the ones you like. The regular copyright rules like any other song applies then, meaning you cannot ofcourse sell them or use them for any type of projects without written permission.

If other people also like them to have it as mp3 for just listening, send a mail to musicproductions@jaapvisser.com
This offer for free songs as standard songs will only apply on the songs that are now currently available as royalty free music and this offer will last till the 1st of May. From there on I will look if I will continue with this :)

#9 Yeah, I can see your generous offer working both in your favor and not in your favor.

Case 1: An honest developer listens to your songs so much on his mp3 player that he "HAS TO HAVE THEM!" and pays for the license to use in his game.

Case 2: A not-so-honest developer listens to your songs so much on his mp3 player that he downloads a mp3 to ogg vorbis converter and steals the music for his game.

The question is: are you prepared to to take legal action against individuals who steal your music? (Not necessarily litigation.)

Another question is: would you even find out if your music was illegally used in a game?

You're a good musician, and I don't want to see you get ripped off!

#10 Yes I know the concern. It is indeed a risk that will be taken. I am of course prepared to undertake legal actions if needed. I have an official company and I my music is protected of course by copyright organisations and if spotted then I would not hesitate to undertake actions.

It can of course be very tough to spot an illegal action, however I firmly believe that people who would benefit from it deserve the good faith instead of locking everything down so that nobody benefits from it.
Beside that if somebody tries to takes advantage from it and the project would be succesfull then it would almost certainly be spotted.
I think that if you are a dev you would not take a risk for 30 dollar to loose your name and faith in a community.

Thanks for your concern Kevin :) really appreciated!

#11 In the end, the only thing that can prevent copyright infringement is vigilance and common sense. If you're developing a little free game that you don't intend to ever make any money on it, slap it on Pirate Bay and use Led Zeppelin and Beatles tunes to your hearts content and you'll likely never see the wrong end of a law suit. I mean, they probably can't find you, after all.

On the other hand, if you intend to make money on a thing, you're generally locate-able, and this is not a good idea to actually try it. Unless you are completely unsuccessful, in which case the music artist you are infringing on may never even know about it.

So, IMHO, it all kinda takes care of itself, and extreme measures to "protect" the music are unnecessary by the artist.

I know that when I started making making my game, I was making a teenage kid's room, and I went and found images on goole and slapped them onto posters in the kid's room. Over time, though, I realized that there was no way I was going to get the rights to use those images of rock bands and such, and without the rights my game would look unprofessional. So I went and correctly licensed some stock images, and music, and models, and it's a better result, anyway.