I'm planning to use a published music track in a game. The track is from a non-main-stream 1996 album. I contacted the record label and asked if they would be interested - they said yes, and asked me to make an offer. First question: should the offer be for a royalty percentage, or a one-time payment? What's a reasonable royalty percentage for using a single track as the background music for a game? What's a reasonable one-time payment? How do these amounts vary depending on: * how much the game costs. * expected game sales. * target platform of game (pc or console). Anything else to know about regarding this kind of deal? Thanks, John

> First question: should the offer be for a royalty
> percentage, or a one-time payment?

It doesn't have to be cash. Cash is always welcomed and a one-time fee solves many issues (one being free of any 3rd party accounting firm snopping into your financials every month).

There are non-cash options, though. You could offer a splash screen with company logos, a link to their web from your own web site or your partners' web site, etc. If you sell your game in a box, then you could include marketing materials from that record label, coupons for saving $$ on their downloads, free songs, etc. If you plan to have a kiosk in a trade show (or your game be shown in a partner's kiosk), then signage and brochures can be accomodated, etc.

Hope this helps.

-cb

It depends. I wrote something on this a while back that may be useful, but it really depends on your negotiating position. Traditionally I think most per-track deals in video games are done on a flat fee basis, but there are many ways to structure payment (installment, front end flat fee, partial front end, partial royalty). Also keep in mind that the record label typically only owns the copyright to the sound recording-- you'll still need to contact the publisher to get rights to use the underlying composition (sync license).

Best of luck!