wafuradio wrote: Hello all,
I have a song that I did for Nickelodeon TV show as a work for hire. I retained 100% of the writers portion and they have 100% of the publishers. I found a company that might be interested in re-recording and putting it out on one of their kid labels. This company was asking about getting a piece of the publishing. Now, I do not want to give any of mine away, so i called Viacom and asked them to give away some of their's instead; the response was:

"The best we can agree to do for you is to waive our right of first use and provide to the licensee a reduced rate of 75% of stat when and if they want to use it on an album. That's the best they are willing to do."

Does anyone know exactly what this means? I think they are saying is "no you can't have our publishing, but we would license the song to the company for a reduced fee." I have no clue what waiving the right of first use means.

thanks.

Viacom are stating that they have the right to release the your piece of music first. This is something that will be in the contract you signed.

Has the TV show you recorded the piece for been aired?

Stat refers to statutory rate which is about 5-6 cents per song I believe.

o2x, thanks.

the tv show airs weekly.

i will take a look a the original contract. i did not realize that they had the "right to release first"... not a big deal now i guess, if they are willing to waive that...