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If you’re a Creative:
Why is Topline different from other Production Music Companies?
Topline is not a publisher. It is a facility that simply curates and hosts music on behalf of the Copyright Owner. Each writer connected with Topline owns their music and can license it as a single writer through our web portal.
Why does this matter?
Because Topline is not a publisher, it does not own any of the copyright. We believe that the Copyright Owner should benefit from the license and performing fees. Therefore the composer/owner of the copyright will earn 100% of the performing royalties (PRS) and 60% of the license fees charged through Topline.
What does Topline take for this?
Topline will take 40% of the license fee. The Copyright Owner will then be paid the remaining 60%.
What would the subscriptions be?
The subscriptions would be directly negotiated between Topline and the writer/composer/producer. These would depend on the amount of tracks, length of time in the catalogue, and the profile each contributor would like to achieve.
Would it be exclusive?
No, it’s your work. You should own it and be free to work with whomever you believe is best representing your work. Writers are free to remove their music at any time.
What are the main advantages of this approach?
We feel that we want to facilitate and assist new composers, writers and producers, to earn their way in the business. Therefore, alongside the subscriptions, we feel that each contributor has an obligation and hopefully a creative desire to advertise, market and exploit their personal catalogue. So rather than a publisher being expected to market the catalogue taking 50% of the rights to do this (!?) we feel it will be down to the individual creatives within Topline to market themselves. Therefore we offer a considerably higher royalty rate; and we give you the tools to make this easy.
Is any of this up for discussion?
Of course. Just get in touch and we can do coffee, cake and creative chatting.
Is PRS for music involved anywhere in this?
We have had three clear choices: 1) Become a music publishing company. 2) License our own music directly. 3) Negotiate with PRS for Music so that we could create, for the very first time, a ‘Single-Writer-License-Member’ (trips off the tongue eh?) So far, so good.
After almost two years of very odd, frustrating, laborious and, at times, confusing discussions with the societies, we decided that we would license our music directly, at least in the short term.
We are however hoping that, in time, we can agree terms with PRS/MCPS for them to represent the catalogue and we can license directly through them thus creating this rather long winded but revolutionary new title.
This will mean that each writer would be able to license their own compositions directly with PRS/MCPS, via Topline, (as long as they are members of MCPS) and take advantage of the facilities that only the publishing companies could do previously. It does remove the necessity of publishers, and the admin, and places the incentive firmly into the Copyright Owners hands to market and exploit their own catalogue alongside Topline.
But for now, while we wait for the corporates to update their antiquated and incomprehensible systems, we will be licensing the music directly here.
Could I not do this on my own?
I guess you could, but as we’ve done all the work setting it up, providing easy to use templates to upload your biography, cv and musical works, it would simply be more work for you, and less time to be composing your next masterpiece. You decide!
What is ‘The Topline Invitation’ ?
Instead of accepting vast amounts of submissions, tracks, songs, instrumentals and themes from every writer on the planet, we are starting a new idea of ‘Invitation only’ whereby we invite creatives to submit material to us. We will create five very specific invitations each month. These invitations will be sent out to composers, musicians and producers to submit their own material to us. From there we will catalogue and register the music and add it to the Topline Library.
Each successful creative will also have the opportunity to have their own profile and links within Topline.
Why only Five Invitations?
You may think that five invitations every month is a little small but we want to be able to add value rather than volume. We also want to make sure that the material that makes its way to Topline is the best it can be and that we can spend the right amount of time working on and marketing the new material.
Once we have reached the allotted invitations for that month, there will be no more until the next invitation period.
The invitations will include details of new styles, genres and moods that Topline would like to add, as well as artist profiles and how each creative can market their own material within Topline.
In order to receive your Invitation, or you feel you have some music that is really worth hearing please write to [email protected]
Topline obviously reserves the right to include any submissions, but we feel that choosing the best writers, musicians and producers with some excellent and great sounding material, the ‘Topline Invitation’ will be successful both for creatives as well as the licensees.
If you’re a Licensee:
How do I Navigate and find tracks?
Once you land on the Home page, you will see a large display of categories. Starting with the Topline Collections, we have selected several tracks for you based on general titles; Country, Songs, Guitars, Drama, etc etc. If you want to listen to several tracks in any of the collections, then that’s what you can do. Then you will see Moods, Styles, Genres, Instruments, Productions and Colours. Depending on your choices, requirements, moods and anything else simply click on anything you see that may be close to your specific search. Hopefully you’ll be lucky and you can then move on to licensing the track or selection of tracks. If you can’t find what you’re looking for we can help, just let us know what you need and we can do you a special bundle or collection that matches your search. If nothing works and you can’t find anything here, before you go elsewhere, give us a try at our Bespoke-Super-Personal-service and we can discuss to the last bar, crotchet and semi-quaver what it is you want. Here’s our Get In Touch button
As you will see, we are licensing our music directly. We have been in discussions for some time with the PRS/MCPS and we hope that in time we can get them to license our music catalogue. But while we wait for them to update a seriously outdated system, we will be licensing using the easy to navigate choices at the purchase stage of the process. Check out these easy to understand options for licensing.
If you have a Blanket Agreement, we are happy for you to use this to license our music. If you decide that you want to use any of the tracks here represented by Topline and you’d like to include your Blanket Agreement, then please let us know so we have details of this and the specific cues and the production it will be part of.