The talented are everywhere. But sometimes the talented disappear. You’ve collaborated with them. The song has more awesome sauce on it than you could ever have done alone. You’ve been out beating the bushes and finally someone is interested in using the song in a movie or ad campaign. Or wants to put it on their album. What do you do?

If you’re smart, you ask for the contract first before you hand over the song. But, let’s assume that the contract is good, you’ve signed it, and the people ask for the stems and pieces and the hi-resolution sound file. All you have is an mp3, so now you need your collaborator (who just happens to be the producer and has all the hi-rez files) to get those to the people who are wanting to pay you money for your creativity.

Phone is shut off. Emails bounce. And, should you happen to live nearby, you drive over and find they no longer live there. You don’t know their real name (only their Producer/Artist name), so you can’t even look them up in the phone book or google them. Or, and this is sad and happened to me with one of my brilliant collaborators, they’ve had a mental breakdown and have been hospitalized.

In any case, you can kiss that song and that deal goodbye. So, what do you do? First, know these things can happen. Second, plan ahead for it and avoid most of these situations by using something I invented called MyDigitalCatalog.com.

 Confirm Clearance Rights between all collaborators before you start pitching or trying to sell your song.

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