As most of you know, my primary business is marketing music. Labels, artists, and others come to me when they want to get more people to shows, sell more records, and make more money.
You've probably heard a lot over the last few years about how the music business, especially major labels, are dead. I don't think so. And here's why...
Major labels own content.
Sure, distribution and how music is being delivered is a lot different these days than it was even a few years ago, but there are also new distribution methods coming into existence every day. Things like satellite radio, online downloads/streams, and other "no box" methods are helping to make releasing all the content labels and publishing companies have been storing away for the last few decades very easy...and profitable.
If you're dealing with information products in any way, the same rules apply to you.
The distribution method does matter. Printed books may die, ebooks may die, and people might stop reading all together, but if you own the content, you can always change up how it's delivered. Make it into a video, make it into a seminar, make it into a teleclass, or whatever.
Even if (insert method of delivery here) sales are going strong for you, it's still a good idea to have additional uses for the same content. Double your pleasure...or triple it. :)
And now for a lesson from the porn industry...
The music business is great for the people involved in that it spreads the wealth among people who create the content. For example, when a song is played on the radio, money, known as a performance royalty, goes to the person who wrote the song as well as the "publisher" who owns its copyright. And when a recording of that song is purchased, not only do writers and publishers make money, the person who recorded the song and the company who owns the recording also get paid...assuming everything was set up in this "standard" way.
Remember Napster? For a while, it was free. And it was also illegal. Why? Nobody got paid for the content being transferred.
When the music industry came in and tried to legitimize it, things got crazy. Music royalties are complicated, with several people contributing to and owning the song and sound recording needing to be paid for usage. And how much people get paid depends on the country the song/recording is being sold in.
So you can see the big job it would be to get a system like this going.
Anyway-- for a while, a porn company was thinking about buying Napster. And it would have worked great with porn, because everything in that business is a "work for hire," where the directors, actors, and everybody else gets paid a one-time fee for their work.
In layman's terms, you can shoot a scene once, but release it over and over again. Throw it on a compilation, chop it up and only use part of it, etc. You own it outright, so it's yours to do with as you please.
I mention this to tell you that, from a "owner" perspective, this is the best way of doing things.
Look, when you've got an opportunity for your content, you don't want to have to have other folks sign off on it. And you certainly don't want the headache of keeping up with various royalties and other payments.
It's for this reason that you almost always want to go for a "work for hire" deal, where you pay once, and own everything. Now, I say almost always, because there are some times when you'll want to split revenue. But most of the time, just pay people for their work and move on. Would you pay your house painter an ongoing royalty for helping your house's curb appeal and increasing its value?
