[HELP PLEASE] What to price your beats
Hey everyone! I have produced some beats and there is this guy who wants to buy one.
Since it’s my very first beat I’m selling exclusively to him and to him only, I do not have ANY idea what to price.
Can you guys help me? All help is appreciated!
id much rather give a beat away for free and collect on royalties than have a barrier to entry on my music.
How would i collect on royalties? I’m new to this 
lol idk. i dont sell beats… but just my 2cents… id rather have people hear my music for free and then get paid off a succesful song than charge 25-50-100$ a beat, and no one want to pay for it cause the next guy is producing just as good, if not better beats and giving them out for free.
the music business has changed a bit where giving music out for free and earning $$ off the splash that it causes is way more successful than charging $$ for songs/beats in the first place.
so lets say this guy uses ur beat for a song… what are the situations?
im not a master in this area of knowledge, so i could be wrong, but thats what I’ve known/heard. Diplo (Boss of Mad Decent label) talked about how his company almost folded because no one was buying their music. then he said fk it and put out everything for free and shit went viral and now look at him.
Thanks for the help man! I know what you mean. I just need to know how do i collect the royalties? Does he sign anything? is it a percentage of the sales he makes or is it just him saying produced by Anton Sherar and that’s that?
I can sort of speak on this as this is how I got started making and selling hip-hop beats…
Get your music copyrighted, register your act, and have a few template contracts drawn up.
^^^ This is really the only way to protect yourself, and your intellectual property. It’s a lot easier to have a binding document than to have a verbal or “hand-shake” in terms of getting your due money.
I’ve been burned soo many times from shady deals that weren’t properly presided over. I also made some really good coin from people that were trustworthy and stood by their word. I’ve also had 2 albums of some of my best beats turn to skeletons sitting on a shelf because I couldn’t re-sell them and were bound to a company who decided not to put out the material.
All these are things you should think about when having your documents drafted. Example, after how long of inactivity do the rights of the track revert back to you.
Hope this helps.
Thank you so much! I have been thinking about getting my music copyrighted, but I honestly have no idea.
Can you tell me how you got yours? Would really help!
Thank you two both of you!
Different countries different rules. the States have ASCAP, in Canada we have CMPA. You’ll have to do some research to find which one is applicable to you.
http://www.ncb.dk/index.html Do you think this would be the one for Denmark?
You need to get some proper intellectual property advice on this, as it involves things such as royalties, licensing, and copyrights. Get a good book on the subject and read it. Don’t rush into anything, you don’t just “sell” rights to beats overnight. That’s a great way for things to go pear shaped. You need proper advice on the matter.
Again, thank you man! I will read more into it. Thank you!
The guy will buy your track, but will not give you credit for it, right?
EDIT: I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s doing. You can’t copyright it, it will be his property once he buys it off you. The song won’t belong to you anymore and he does not have to give you credit for it. No one will ever know you produced it.
I am gonna tell him that he should give me credit for producing the beat. And i think that he will go for that. I trust him.
lol… trust…
youve got alot to learn kid.
There is apparently a Danish performance rights organisation called KODA (KODA.dk).
You must make the person sign a contract.
Definitely make sure that you are credited and don’t make a deal that isn’t financially responsible.
Haha okay maybe trust wasn’t the right word 
Thank you for looking into it for me! I will make sure that he signs a contract. Thank you people!!!
I’m going to come right out and say what the main issue you need to understand is, and that’s the difference between “selling” him the track, and “licensing” him the track. I won’t go any further into it because I don’t want to be in a position where it looks like I’m giving advice, but that’s what you need to research.
I produced and sold hip-hop beats for 10 years. You want to give buyers two options: licensing rights and exclusive rights.
With option 1, licensing, I would charge $50 and allow them to use the beat for up to 1000 profitable releases. Any more than that, and they would need to buy another license. You retain full rights in this instance.
With option 2, exclusive, I would charge $500 and they would be able to use the beat for unlimited profitable releases. I’m also selling my rights to the beat, but keeping production credits, and I also specify royalty percentages, and other things along those lines.
Sounds like a nice template to have. Thank you!
Though won’t $500 be a lot for selling my very first beat? What do you suggest? I can link the soundcloud to the beat if you want
I actually thought it was a little low. But you’re giving away your rights to something you created, and plus, this’ll allow you to gauge how serious this guy’s plans are. For the ordinary Joe Schmo, $50 for 1000 releases is usually good enough.