The Great Remix Competition Swindle

Welcome to Acapellas.info !! This site is a subscription based online magazine which intends to inform remixers, producers & mash up artists, of the latest trends, pitfalls, and newsworthy information pertaining to the remix community in general. Please note that all views given on this website are the authors opinions only, and more than likely should be taken with a very large pinch of salt !!! For My first post, I would like to present my take on: The Great Remix Competition Swindle ! So here goes: It`s been a while since I got on the old soapbox, but when something is on my chest and nagging the hell out of me, that usually is enough of an excuse to put thoughts down in print.. And, you know, this is something I think many of you should at least be aware of if nothing else ! As some of you may have noticed, we`ve really cut back recently on the amount of remix competitions that we are featuring on A4A.. There is a reason for this that I`ll get to shortly. Yes, I`ll grab the stems from them and give everyone access to them, but in my heart of hearts, I cant give these competitions a genuine plug because of some of the rules tied into certain competitions, which, I personally dont feel are anywhere near fair at the moment, and so now, whether it`s my business or not, I`m urging everyone to read the rules and conditions attached to remix competitions very thoroughly. More and more, I keep seeing this phrase crop up in comp rules: "Entrants assign away and transfer any and all rights in the remixes". And this one: "Participant hereby grants to sponsor an irrevocable, fully-paid, perpetual world-wide license to reproduce, edit, adapt, copyright, publish, transfer, distribute, perform, display and use any or all of the entries, without compensation to you or any third party." Now, if your working two weeks solid on a mix, and by some miracle, you win, guys, you are not really going to be paid very much.. ever ! So be wary of these statements. Ok, the prize may be $X dollars or so, but is it really worth the time and effort.. You have to ask yourself.. Unless you seek the fame of it all lol.. And this one takes the biscuit.. and the one that inspired this post tbh: Prize: Winner get a release on Million Faces - Nice to be released on 1103Musik. Rules: All EDM styles are accepted. Open who are 18 years of age or older who are not presently signed to any record label or publisher under any exclusive agreements. The winner receives no payment or commission for their track. So basically you are expected to do another remix "on spec" which lets face it, we all hate doing, and at the end of it, you aren`t even going to get paid for your efforts !! In my humble opinion, that stinks. How do record labels like that ever expect to get any decent remixes in? My advice to our guys, or indeed anybody, would be to give comps like this a very wide berth, and let them go get their own remixes done elsewhere.. which they would have to pay for wouldnn`t they? After all, now, there are so many comps to choose from.. I guess if the rules suck, our rules to our selves should be F*ck it. Here`s an example of some rules and regs from the recent Garbage remix competiton: And I quote: Rules: "Entrants must be aged 18 or older. Participant hereby grants to sponsor an irrevocable, fully-paid, perpetual world-wide license to reproduce, edit, adapt, copyright, publish, transfer, distribute, perform, display and use any or all of the entries, without compensation to you or any third party". Prize: The grand prize winner will have their remix released on Garbage’s new imprint, Stunvolume and receive a Line 6 James Tyler JTV-69 Guitar, as used by Garbage on tour and a Sounds to Sample Elements Library. Beatport community pick will receive $50 of Beatport credits. So Garbage basically want you to remix their already doomed and under-par version, make them a hit version and give you a guitar for your troubles? Next.. This is a good one too: Prize: Remixes on the forthcoming Unicorn Domination Remix CD, plus other prizes yet to be announced. Rules: All masters recorded by remixer hereunder, from the inception of the recording thereof and all reproductions derived therefrom, together with the performances embodied thereon, shall be the property of Unicorn Domination. These guys are not quite sure what the prizes are as yet, but they seem to have all the legal jargon pretty much nailed.. Then there was a recent Tangerine Dream competition with rules I found quite interesting: Prize: One winner will be picked by Jerome Froese himself who will receive their winning remix physically released by Moonpop Music, a 4 week online Pro producer or DJ course at Point Blank Music School and a goodie bag containing loads of albums by LOOM, Jerome Froese and Johannes Schmoelling. Rules: Remixers may add new lyrics under the condition that all intellectual rights to that new lyric is given, 100%, to Moonpop Music. No remixer will receive any intellectual property rights to any of the Moonpop Songs, and will not receive financial compensation of any kind. My translation of that is you`ll win crappy prizes you dont really want, in exchange for possibly an original vocal/song wrote by your good self, which you wont get any royalties for it whatsoever, and probably you wont even get a thank you. So what do you think?? Please leave a comment below: