Just wonder something about authoring groups

[DeferredGalaxy3]

I was thinking about creating my own authoring group for quite some time. It might be a bit until I actually get an XBox 360, but I was wondering a if I could get a few questions answered.

-I know Account linking has been screwy, lately, but will I be able to link my account at all? (It seems a little complicated to me nowadays.)
-How do I approach to artists I want to author for? How do I explain it in a way that they understand this is legit?
-How does Harmonix pay Authoring Groups? (If this is in the docs, show me. :P )
-How's the best way to pay artists? (In other words, how often?)

If I have any more questions, I'll just post them. I just want to contribute a little bit more to the RBN community.

[ThatAuthoringGroup]

Account linking is still broken. It's been over six months and this is the MAIN thing to keep RBN viable. Without Account linking no new testers or authors (the very thing RBN needs to keep going) can't join the process. There are more and more creators and testers who are letting their accounts lapse, getting out of authoring/testing etc. There really is only a handful of us left at this point (compared to the start). As more leave and new ones aren't able to join up to help keep songs moving, well there's going to come a tipping point where there's just not enough outside authors (a song needs at least six none affiliated reviews to pass) to get songs approved? Well that will not be a good day.

Now I don't want to sound like a negative nancy (or Negative Noble I guess), BUT if the one thing that keeps the RBN moving (authors and testers) has been broken for this long and there's no eta in sight for a fix...

Let's put it this way a good selling song now is about 500-1000 (1000 is rare now), so it just might be that these low sales don't make it financially feasible for HMX to put a lot of money into a fix (I honestly don't know if this is it, but time and manpower and resources aren't cheap, and RBN songs aren't pulling in a ton of cash any more).

I'd just wait to see if account linking ever gets fixed before lining up any artists or talents. You can't do a thing with any songs you get (you won't be able to link your account so you won't be able to upload anything, or test or review) until it gets fixed.

BUT hopefully I'm wrong in my doom and gloom and it eventually will get fixed.

So to answer your other questions in case it does get fixed and you can link in the future :

Approaching artists and labels (most of the times it will be labels), is a lot more simpler than you might think. JUST be sure you know who holds the rights. If an artist is all for it, but a label holds the rights and doesn't want to do it....it ain't gonna happen.

So say you have an artist or song in mind. Go to wiki. Find the album the song was on, this will let you know if it was on a label or not. If the album or song was released through a major label like Sony, Universal, Warner, EMI, Roadrunner (there's more but those are the majors), just stop there. You can't crack that nut so save yourself the trouble. If it was released on a smaller label or self released or the artist isn't signed then you've got a shot.

From there find the artists website, facebook (or even myspace), and scour around for contact info. email, phone, or if they have a manager listed use that.

Then make contact, pitch them what you'd like to do and hope for the best. As for explaining that it's legit give them examples of songs and artists that have been released into the game (link them youtube vids of RBN artists to show them, but make it clear that this isn't your work, just examples of what the songs will look like in game, etc.).

There's another thing you sign up for when you sign up for XNA. It gets bank info, etc, and they pay out about six weeks after the end of every quarter. So you get paid 4 times a year. It goes directly into your bank account. Harmonix will send you a check (again about six weeks after the end of every quarter) for any sales on the PS3.

As for paying artists you can only pay them when Harmonix pays you so we pay them four times a year. I use paypal, checks (and you'll have to set up a doing business as (DBA) to get a bank account to cash your authoring groups checks at a bank just FYI), and bank transfers. Just depends on what the artist wants.

If you have any other questions I'll try to answer them. Despite my doom and gloom I DO hope that account linking gets fixed soon as we definitely need some new blood (authors and testers) as the herd is getting thin as is

[HMXLachesis]

-I know Account linking has been screwy, lately, but will I be able to link my account at all? (It seems a little complicated to me nowadays.)

Account linking is completely down at the moment - we can't even set up your account by hand. We're working with Microsoft to get this restored, but it's been a long and slow process.

I'd just wait to see if account linking ever gets fixed before lining up any artists or talents. You can't do a thing with any songs you get (you won't be able to link your account so you won't be able to upload anything, or test or review) until it gets fixed.

I'm going to rephrase this to "wait until account linking gets fixed", but it's still good advice. If you successfully line up artists and labels, but you can't set up an account to get their music into the game, then your artists and labels will get frustrated. It's a bad situation.

In the meantime, your best bet would be to familiarize yourself with REAPER and the RBN authoring standards so that you can hit the ground running once account linking is restored.

[DeferredGalaxy3]

Yay. Account Linking is back up! Now things won't be doom and gloom, anymore!

[ThatAuthoringGroup]

Yay!