What Would You Do? Payment

[Spring]

Hello creative people  

 

I didn't know where I should write about this topic but I'm hoping to get some replies and learn from your experience. 

What would you do if one of your clients vanished once he receives his recording without paying?

I'm composing, recording vocals, mixing and arranging for a living. This time I've been working on a song for another songwriter. After I've sent him the recording he simply download the track and disappear. poof!

 

I don't understand how can someone who creates music do such thing to another musician and waste other person's time like it was nothing. Especially when I put my heart & soul into his song.

 

Back to my question. How do you protect yourself from not being paid for a work you do for others.

Would you just move on and pray to work with honest people who appreciate your time and abilities?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Steve]

I would suggest that any future work be protected by sending only a sample of the finished track, and the full download on completion of the transaction. I'ts a sorry tale when this happens. Ithappens all the time in other businesses, so I guess it's no surprise that it will happen in this trade as well! Sorry to hear of your loss, and I hope it doesn't deter you too much.

[john]

Just as Steve says, send a sample before payment only. You can also provide a very lo-fi full track with beeps every 20 or 30 seconds. I would also suggest 3 different approaches to payment.

1) A fixed fee up front

2) 50:50 pay half up front, half on delivery. I guess other percentages could be considered

3) instalments (good for larger projects like albums)

I would also suggest an hourly rate based system for dealing with adjustments. You have to think of it as if they were hiring a studio and session musicians and writer etc. in that scenario they get what they get. If they have a list of changes to make it sound like they hear in their head, they pay.

For hourly rate work yet again you could ask them to pay an estimated time up front and they can make up the cost on delivery or you return any overspend.

I have been considering another solution to this for Songstuff, where the site acts as an intermediary. The client pats us and we hold the money until delivery. We would either take a commission based on that or mix engineers and musicians would pay a small monthly fee to use our service. If we do this we would do more thn that, for example marketing and contracts, but I haven't decided whether we will do this or not yet.

[tomcollins]

a life long dilemma , suck it up as a learning exp. and know next time you need to do another method, sad but true, but we all been there , it don't matter if we are all musicians or not , the world is full of assholes and that's life , protect yourself the best you can , always send a clip , of your work , Never all of it , but life is one long collage course, you are always learning , !!

rock on

[MikeRobinson]

And take a lesson from Judge Wopner of the original People's Court TV program (in the US):  "Get it in writing!"

 

The two of you make an agreement.  Write it down, sign your names to identical copies, each keeping one.  Better yet go get it notarized.  Say everything in it that you think might need to be said.  Or, better yet, look on the Internet for some suitable boilerplate.

 

You should be paid something up-front in case that's all you wind up getting.  And, as has been said, the buyer should not get "absolutely everything" that he's paid-for until his final payment has cleared.  All that should be spelled-out in your agreement.  The buyer should not get everything he wants until you've gotten everything you want.  And there should never be any question, e.g. in the objective opinion of "a trier of fact," exactly what it was that the two of you agreed-to.

[Spring]

I really appreciate your answers good people! I will keep on believing in people because I really don't think that it can be any other way.... But, I've learned my lesson and will try to apply your advices on my future projects.

Thank you So much!!!