Let’s start off with four questions I get asked a lot, concerning leased beats.
What happens when I lease a beat and the song I made with it blows up?
What happens to other people that licensed that same beat?
What if I lease a beat today and the producer sells the exclusive rights tomorrow. How will that affect me?
I leased a beat and the song blew up, but some other artist has the exclusive rights.
Questions 1, 2 and 3 are probably in my top 10 of most frequently asked questions.
Question 4 is what I consider the ‘ultimate goal + worst-case scenario’ an artist could think of.
The possibility of this situation to occur is very unlikely if you handle your business the right way. Still, I’ll go into the subject, as you would probably want to know the answer to these questions.
Going forward in this article, I will address all the frequently asked questions mentioned in the list above.
“What happens when I lease a beat and the song I made blows up?”
First things first, if you’re using one of my beats, this situation is very unlikely to occur. And I’m not talking about the whole ‘blowing up’ part. 😊
When you lease a beat from my website, I’ll always follow up with you after you’ve made the purchase. I really am interested in the music you’re creating and you can expect e-mails from me looking to hear the final result of your song.
I also do this to see if there are any potential hit records out there. If something catches my attention, I’ll keep track of it and see how the song will progress after it’s released.
In other words, if a song is about to blow up, I’m well aware of it and we can start negotiating a deal.
But that’s just me… Not every (online) producer takes initiative in following up with their customers. If a producer doesn’t follow up with you after you’ve purchased a beat from their store, simply fill them in yourself!
Let them hear the song and keep him up-to-date with everything that’s going on around the release of your song.
So, “what happens when I lease a beat and it blows up?”
YOU BUY THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS AND NEGOTIATE A DEAL WITH THE PRODUCER!
You’re probably going to need one too since you’re near exhausting the terms in your non-exclusive license agreement.
Otherwise, the exploitation of the song is limited to the user-rights you get when you lease a beat. You will need the full exclusive rights to exploit it without limitations, whatsoever.
Reach out to the producer as soon as you can and make a good offer on the exclusive rights.
“What happens to the other people that licensed that same beat?”
Your song blew up, congrats! Did you buy the exclusive rights from the producer? Awesome!
“Now, what happens to the other people that have a license to that same beat?”
Short answer: Nothing…
Their licenses will still be valid until they’ve exhausted their sales limit or until the contract expires. Non-exclusive licenses are limited to a certain amount of user-rights and are only valid for several years.
“What if I lease a beat today and the producer sells the exclusive rights tomorrow. How will that affect my song’s potential?”
It won’t affect you!
An exclusive sale of a beat you’ve previously licensed non-exclusively will not affect you in any way.
The exclusive buyer is fully aware of the artists that licensed the beat before him.
In fact, this is a term in the Exclusive contract that they have to agree upon before getting the exclusive rights. This term is called a ‘Notice of Outstanding Clients’ and it protects non-exclusive licensees from getting struck by the exclusive buyer.
If you’re in this situation right now, you have nothing to worry about. Essentially, you already know your song’s potential as soon as you purchased the license.
The rights granted in the license agreement tell you exactly what you can and cannot do. Read your licenses and make sure you fully understand what the user-rights mean.
It will become a different story when you overstep the song’s potential (exhaust the user-rights). In that case, we’ll move on to the next question.
If you’re reading this to determine whether to lease a beat or buy the exclusive rights.
This might be confronting to some and I’m probably bursting a few bubbles too but please look at your current situation as an artist and ask yourself if you’re on that level that your song could actually ‘Blow Up!?’
For most artists, leasing beats would be far more beneficial.
I actually wrote an entire article covering “Why you need to lease beats instead of buying exclusive rights”.
Don’t let the ‘Dream’ trick you into spending too much money on the wrong things. Prioritize your moves and re-evaluate your latest releases.
Keep developing your craft, create new music on a regular basis and build a following with actual fans of your music.
When that ‘blow up’ is getting near, you’ll feel it. Trust me!