Inhalt:

What is Playbaker?

Playbaker is an online-marketplace for music and film. The remarkable thing about it is that the artists themselves offer their music directly without any kind of intermediary trade to their customers and music aficionados all over the world. Every musician, every musical style, every film professionial of film amateur is welcome.

Playbaker is a marketplace for direct trading of music and films between authors and users.

You will find different kinds of publications which differ basically in the performing rights ot titles offered.

In the Musicstore you will find complete albums that can be bought and obtained directly from the artist. These CDs are in most cases meant for private purposes only if not stated otherwise.

In the Poolsystem you can purchase single songs and their respective licenses, which are meant for private and public performances, too. Please note that these licences are also franchised i. e. they may be sold several times to different licensees. They are readily available for download in your account (Login).
The pool is a valuable resource for people for whom music plays an integral part in their business while at the same time keeping their running costs at a minimum.

You will find movies and clips in the Filmstore that can be purchased and obtained directly from their vendor. Those films include licenses with various rights of use addressed to users in need of footage for their projects while at the same time minimising their production expenses by acquiring designated clips.

How does the Playbaker system work?

Searching for a song starts with the Frontpage. By clicking on one of the top logos you will get to the different forms of publication. You will also get to the overview lists through the categories on the left side of the page just below the Playbaker logo. In the Overwiew you will find a listing of all available categories.
You can switch to a different store within one module of publication any time you want by clicking on one of the symbols for the other modules in the top column. If you switch, all prior selections like category or artist stay in place. Please also pay attention to the search item shown in the quick search window just below the Playbaker logo.
The Film Area is a special feature: You are leaving the Music Area, because other categories apply to the Filmstore. In order to get back to the Music Area, click on the playbakerlogo left on the top. This goes for the Music Area vice versa. You may access the home page with its selection of all stores via the playbakerlogo.
The survey lists within specific forms of publication are structured differently. In the Musicstore area click the ones on the cover or artist's picture and you will get to the detailed song page. In the Poolsystem you will get a description of the song by clicking on the song title.
In the song page you will find detailed information about the works offered. You can see the cover of films or published albums in their full size by clicking on it. By pointing on a single title with its listening sample you will get more information about details like file-size, bitrate etc..
There are two different sizes of listening examples available. One is shortened to 500 kbyte for modem, ISDN or non-streaming mp3-players. The other sample is meant for broadband connections and is edited to 60% of the song's original length. There are different ways of starting a trailer in the Film Area, depending on your choice of publication form. First via the aformentioned button, second the trailer can be started via an example picture of the clip
As a Registered Member you can buy movies, clips, albums or songs or make a bid in an auction. You will receive albums or films directly from the vendor. Single titles in the Poolsystem or in auctions can be downloaded immediately after purchase through your account (login).
In order to make a purchase click on the field in the bottom part of the song page. In the following form enter your name and password. After that you will get to the purchase area. Here you will find different forms of payment which the artist may offer. Select one and click on it to complete your purchase.
If offered we recommend PayPal as a secure form of payment by credit card.
You can e-mail a link to your friends or to yourself for reference purposes by filling in sender and receiver address in the form provided on the description page of the individual song.

Optimal search and find

There are differend ways of finding what you are looking for. Clicking on the main category on the left of the page displays a survey of all sub-categories and the works being published there, whereas clicking on the sub-categorie just shows its corresponding titles. A quick search function is placed above the categories for system-wide search of keywords or vendors. If needed, you will find more search features like categories, vendor or store via advanced search.

For keyword search, enter one or more search items with at least 4 letters separated by blanks (OR-search). Feel free to make use of even more complex search functions such as AND-search or search by wildcards, due to the common search syntax of most internet search engines. Word groups can be found by putting them in quotation marks. Put a plus sign in front of explicitly wanted terms, whereas terms you wish to eliminate should show a minus sign in front of them. Use * as wildcard for arbitrary amendment.

Why do I have to register?

In order to use the system you need a password which will be generated when registering. You will receive your password with an email. Along with your registration you will be transmitting personal data like your address f.e. Your personal data is required for sale- or purchase-transactions. None of your personal data will be accessible to the general public.
If you want to offer music, please register as composer and author. Of course you are able as registered author to acquire all tracks offered at Playbaker.
Please register as user if you are not a provider of music yourself but only want to use works offered here by the composers.

What about protection of my personal data or titles?

None of your personal data will be accessible to the public nor will it be rervealed to third parties. Contacting an author is only possible with the Playbaker form that you will find on the pages with the title description. In password-protected areas (Login as member) address data of license partners is only accessible if a license contract has been concluded.

Titles will be stored at Playbaker in a secure non-public area. Protection of titles from unauthorized access is ensured through several security methods with state-of-the-art technology.
In connection with this please refer to Playbaker's Declaration of data protection.

Why do I have to use a Playbaker-form to contact the artist?

That is for your own good, because we do not want you to get more of those nasty spam-mails. If we would make our members' email-addresses visible, these email-addresses would easily be tracked down by searchbots. Sorry, but your convenience and privacy is definitely more important to us than any spam-mailer's questionable business.
You may send an email to an author by clicking on the member's name on the title description site, then enter your text.

How do my works get published at Playbaker?

After having registered as an author, you may publish songs in your account (login).
After having logged in you will find the following menu:

| Purchased | Publications | Music - New | Film - New | Contracts | Account | Sale preferences | Password | Log out |

You will find a wide range of settings here, from basic pricing of a CD or starting price of an exclusive auction to contents of your licence contract. Note that an expressive song description is of utter importance in order to attract a buyer`s interest. Please use English language for your descriptions if possible.
If you want to publish an album or film you can also display its cover. It should be in a square format if possible and in GIF-, JPG- or PNG-format.
Music can only be published as mp3-file. For publishing films a trailer in WMV-, MOV-, MPG- or MP4-format should be provided. Due to user-friendliness and short loading times a small file size (f. e. 320x240 with high compression) should be chosen. If you would like to present your film-clips with additional pictures (snapshots of the clip), these should be prepared as well.
Finally select the corresponding data file from your hard drive. The title will now be automatically transferred to Playbaker and stored there. Two edited sound samples will then be created automatically by the Playbaker system. One sample is going to be shortened to the first 500 kbyte, to be used with modem, ISDN or any other software without streaming function. Considering a rate of 128 kbps, this size will allow a playtime of approx. 30 sec. A second sound sample with 60% (max. 3 MB) of the song’s length will be available for broadband connections. Entire songs will not be accessible to the public, film examples will not be shortened.
If you publish a CD or DVD, you can also transfer additional titles to offer an even wider range of samples to our visitors. For that purpose you will get a new form after each successful transfer to choose additional data from your hard drive. You can also add further samples at any time later on. In the area "Publications" you can see a complete list of all your published titles. By clicking on it you will get to the different forms.
Please note that there might occur some latencies while transferring a title to Playbaker. That does not mean that there is an error, it is just that huge files need their time until they are completely transferred, depending on file size and internet connection. In any case wait until the success message is displayed.

Can a member of a Performing Rights Organisation publish music on Playbaker?

Yes, as long as you do not violate any legal interests by offering your musical material here on your own.
If you intend to offer individual songs in the pool system or as an exclusive auction and those are already registered with a Performing Rights Organisation, it is not possible to do so - sorry.

How does the ranking system work?

In order to make your choice easier and to provide a constant artistic level, a dynamic ranking system has become integrated. In doing so we assume that frequently purchased titles reflect a high quality. Concurrently users are voting for a title by purchasing it.
The order of a title in the listings as well as its price depends on the number of sales within the last 30 days. The minimal standing price is defined by the offerer. The price goes up in steps that are determined by the offerer, according to the number of sales within the calculation time-frame. Does the number of sales decrease within this time-frame, the price goes down at the same ratio. or example: The offerer decided to start the auction on a price of € 5.00 for his title and have it increased by € 0.10 with each sale made. Now let us assume the title got sold only once after a couple of days, then the price would be at € 5.10. If it makes another sale a week later, the price goes up to € 5.20 in the ranking system. At the same time it goes up in the ranking, the order in the title listings also changes in its favour.
If there should be no other sale for the following 30 days, the price goes down again to € 5.10. Should there be no sale within the next week, the price will go down by another € 0.10 and the title will be offered at its minimum base price .
The main criteria for the ranking in the title lists is the number of sales within the last 30 days. Subsequently follow those titles that have been newly brought into the system. That way new releases get a bonus of 30 days as well. As things develop the position of a title in the ranking system is based on the ratio of number of total sales to its publication period.

What kind of works can I offer at Playbaker?

There is no limitation whatsoever for your music or films. Nevertheless it stands to reason that we will immediately remove from our website any works with lyrics that are deemed to be harmful or insulting to others people's personal, political or religious beliefs.

As an author, what should I specify in the title descripition?

Of course your title description shall arouse one's curiosity to listen to your track or watch your film. Besides, the search results gain from extensive and expressive description, too. Be it specifications concerning content, reviews, press, comparisons with other artists, equipment - all your keywords will be tracked down by our search routine. If you should publish an album without its complete coverage of songs it will make sense to add a track list as well. When offering a film, you should specify how and in which format a user will receive the filmclips.
Supplementary provisions concerning your contract or additional information regarding methods of payment can be specified here as well.
Besides, all titles will be listed in international search engines like f. e. Froogle as well, where your descriptions show up, too. English descriptions are preferred here.
You may add further specifications or make changes subsequently via a form by clicking on the corresponding song in the title survey of your account (Login).
Please write your description without any HTML-specifications. Do not use any scripts. The same goes for WWW-addresses as hyperlinks: They are only displayed as plain text data.
Avoid long successional separators or hyphens in your descriptions.Titles with your descriptions appear also on partner websites as well as search engines, where there is often not as much space for display available as at Playbaker, hence discturbing effects may emerge as these symbols won't be made up properly. There are also quite a few Playbaker users with notebooks or smaller screen resolutions who will have to scroll horizontally in order to read your descriptions. We do recommend an optical structuring of not more than 5 - 20 characters of the kind of .......... or ----------- or ********** etc.

What kind of data formats are supported?

Playbaker does support mp3-data files for musical works due to its streaming abilities and common dissemination. WMV-, MOV, MPG or MP4-format should be used for film trailers. If your titles should be of any other data format, you will not be able to upload them to Playbaker. Nevertheless don't hesitate to contact us if you should insist on having another data format supported.

Please make sure that your file names do meet internet conventions, otherwise your files might be rejected by our server. File names should not be longer than 256 characters. Permitted special characters are underscore "_" and hyphen "-". Do not use inflected vowels like "ü" or "Ÿ" also no font specific characters for european languages like f. e. "Ç" und "ß" or punctuation marks like dot, exclamation mark, question mark, asterisk "*", equal sign "=", brackets etc. Do avoid spaces as well.

What's the maximum size of a transferred file?

Any title up to a size of 25 MB should get transferred without any problem. Files bigger than 25 MB will not be uploaded due to our server's security settings. Should your title have more than 25 MB, please consider editing it suitably or encoding it at a smaller bit-rate. If a smaller bit-rate should be insufficient for a licensee's project, you may send the licensee his title on CD. If this should be the case, please specify so in the Title description.

What's the meaning of these symbols and above the license contracts?

Playbaker provides model license contracts to the authors which should meet the requirements for a majority of license agreements. These model contracts can be modified by the licensors so that they no longer correspond with the original contracts. The symbol points this out.
Please read licenses always carefully to avoid misunderstandings.

What does "Verified" in my account survey mean?

One benefit of Playbaker is the ability to download a title right away after its license is sold. But the actual granting of rights of use according to the license contract does not take place until its verification by the licensor. Usually this happens via an email to the licensee after the licensor's receipt of invoiced amount. After being verified, the title will be marked correspondingly in the survey.

How can I rate another user and what does the rating figure tell me?

Ratings are possible after a license agreement has been concluded. You will find the form for the member's feedback in your account after you have logged in. Please click on the member's name in the list survey, where you will also find the contracting party's address data.
Every rating is expressed by a number: Zero (0) stands for a neutral rating, one (1) for a positive rating and minus one (-1) for a negative rating. The average value correlates with the rating figure.

I would like to link to Playbaker.

You do not need our permission to put a link to Playbaker on your homepage. Authors offering their titles at Playbaker should always put a link to Playbaker on their websites, because the wider the name is spread, the more interest is attracted: A link to Playbaker is also an advertisement for your own musical work.
You may integrate the following HTML-code in your site

<a href="http://www.playbaker.com/" title="Playbaker - the online marketplace for royalty-free music" target="_top">Playbaker</a>

or you may publish the following banner on your website: