The Sound Library Puzzle: While still more comfortable with CDs, some clients are asking for broadcast-quality sounds online, and these canned music and effects companies are worried about cost and security

Post, Feb, 2002 by Edmond M. Rosenthal

It appears to be inevitable that all sound libraries will soon be uploading broadcast quality music and effects. But in many quarters, there's a distinct lack of enthusiasm about this prospect. Cost, security and practicality are all at issue.

Discussing the security aspect, Gene Michael Ort, owner/producer at Gene Michael Productions (www.gmpmusic.com) in Buchanan, Mich., asserts, "With the declining respect for intellectual property [brought about by the Internet], it's like giving a 12-year-old the keys to a Corvette."

"Performance rights on the Internet is the biggest issue we are facing," adds Ron Goldberg, VP of sales and marketing at Manhattan Production Music in NYC (see sidebar on this page). "Web sites need to be treated just like television. A lot of Web people don't understand the legalities of their use of music."

The solution to sound theft by any party, according to Joe Saba, co-president of VideoHelper (www.videohelper.com) in Manhattan, is digital watermarking, which would allow a monitoring system that, as in other media, would result in consistent pickup throughout the industry for royalty purposes. He observes, "There's still no industry standard for it. We're still waiting for ASCAP and BMI to make up their minds."

CDS ARE STILL STRONG

Many sound libraries are not certain that many of their clients are ready to audition via streaming audio and then download broadcast quality. For example, Mitch Coodley, president of Metro Music Productions (www.metromusicinc.com) in NYC, holds, "Most of our clients still want CDs in their hands. As much as people are interested in working on the Web, it's still more time consuming than using a CD player and a listing.

"A producer who's only looking for one song will most likely use the Web, especially if they're working with tight criteria. It's easier for them to look at a database than searching through a disc. This is also true of commercial producers who are only looking for one song. Of course, many of our most popular pieces are borderline in category. And then, databases are cumbersome when you're looking through large quantities of music."

Although Westar Music Library (www.soundideas.com) in Richmond Hill, Ontario, is already uploading broadcast quality, CEO Brian Nimens, who is also the CEO of sound effects publisher Sound Ideas, states, "Nobody is getting rich yet with online sales. This is for the future. And it's a heavy investment to have what's needed to do a good job - T-1 lines, servers and software."

Joe Saba at VideoHelper points to the fallacy in thinking that full Internet service is more cost effective than mailing a disc. "Hosting and management costs more than make up for any savings," he holds, "and you still have to produce discs, because people want it both ways." He adds that the scattergun approach of searching through a disc is still often preferable to specifying a category on a Web site. "You can go to a genre like Kid Rock and it turns out to be Frank Sinatra on steroids. Search engine people often aren't up with contemporary music."

"We'd like to be able to upload broadcast quality music," says Ort of Gene Michael Productions, "but it's cost prohibitive and maybe only 10 percent of production companies have connections that are fast enough. Although we sell a lot of music for commercials, we also do a lot with longform, which makes the file size very large, and the average production company can't download a 40 MB or 50 MB file. Just to have the line in the building costs about $8,000, and Web site development cost is more than $40,000."

OPTIMISM

Most positive about uploading broadcast quality is Tom Valentino, president of Valentino Music (www.tvmusic.com) in Elmsford, N.Y. His operation has been doing it for more than six months and he comments, "It's more effective than MP3 or Real Audio downloads because it's immediate and the quality is high enough for ultimate use by the client. It saves the time of downloading the music, auditioning and then ordering a CD."

He also points out: "We've solved the piracy issue because the streaming audio permits a degraded quality for auditioning purposes before a full quality audio is uploaded. Our customers order over the Internet by filling out an order form. Then we either e-mail it, send a CD burn or send an MP3 file."

Like others who provide broadcast quality over the Internet, Valentino outsources Web site maintenance. In this case, it is done by Web designer Robert Puff of Musicprep.com in Seattle.

This approach makes sense to Mitch Coodley of Metro Music, who soon expects to go to his current Web host for site upgrading to broadcast quality.

Meanwhile, Westar is using two outside companies -- LA's Sounddogs and NYC's Sonomic.com -- who handle online sales on a single track or single effect basis. Sonomic is involved only with sound effects and generally works with the musician community, providing samplings that musicians use in creating their own music. Sounddogs handles both music and effects, primarily for the motion picture industry.