Greetings

I would like to know if GOG can disclose the share that goes to musician/composer when we purchase a "[this game] soundtrack" DLC product please ?

Thanks a lot

GOG most likely don't know. My guess is that the deal is solely between GOG and the publisher (and no, GOG does not tell how much their part is, the standard seems to be 30% to the store, but the deal may differ for each product), while anything to the creators (artist/developer/other) would be from the publisher's share of the GOG-pub deal.

*The "publisher", with self-published titles, would of course be the developer studio themselves.

I'd have to second Maighstir's opinion about that. It's commonly known that Steam and GOG generally take a 30% cut from product sales with the remainder going to the publisher. How the publisher splits up the money between developers, musicians, artists and whatnot would most likely be very private internal business information that the employees themselves are not even privy to. Also, as is often the case employment wages, contract negotiations and other such financial related matters are often protected by non-disclosure agreements as part of employment contracts or subcontracting contracts and other deals, so the likelihood of finding out such information for a particular game is extremely unlikely.

Somewhat irrelevant aince it has nothing to do with GOG, but take a look at this article's infographic:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/03/how-much-musicians-make-spotify-itunes-youtube

didnt mean to be offensive, and of course i didnt ask to disclose GOG own share.

Just wanted to get a vague idea wether or not I would best support the artist by getting a soundtrack here or on artist's page on bandcamp (didnt know for bandcamp, before your infography article... now i know. 15%) or on artist's direct website/personal store when it exists (but in this latest scenario, the answer is obvious)

your article also confirmed something i feared: publishers use to take half the pie for themselves, even in a digital era when they are not a mandatory middleman anymore afaic...

Question, what makes you think that the musician/composer gets a share? Quite a few of the musicians/composers are paid a lump sum for the music with no royalties, and it may be a better choice if they are not sure how many units the game/DLC will sell. They may also sign a contract that allows them to also sell the music in the store(s) of their choosing, with their own cuts being negotiated.

So, the share for any given soundtrack sold can be any number between 0% and 100%, with specifics depending on the contract the musician signed. In GOG's case, said cut should be taken care by the publisher, not GOG.

For sales made through GOG's store, GOG most likely take a cut (which, for games -as has been mentioned- is usually around 30%, "DLC" may very well have a different "base" cut). Those "between 0% and 100%" would be from what's left after GOG have taken their cut.

ok ok, i got it, i deeply apologize :(
sorry for ever daring to ask such a question

also, i am obviously at fault for thinking through my own country's perspective of art/cultural copyright, as it seems it very different from anglo-saxon copyright system and standards...

(here, authors, composers and the like retain some permanent rights regardless they are published or not)

also i should realise it's stupid and useless of me to bother about how to support artists when i can simply give it all to publishers and trust them to do it right... but i'm afraid i am the kind of person who like stupid and useless things :)
Also my question was rather polite and hypothetical, worded as "i would like to know IF...", first correct answer would then be "NO they cant" and also "it is not done on their side anyway"

and such answers would have been all i would need, tbh

France is rather different for this.

And for others to better understand this, a wee bit of explanation (you don't have to agree with it anyway ;) )

France is protecting its culture, radio-stations and similar are bound by law to transmit (IIRC) 60% French songs only. Yes this means you will not only hear the international superstars, but also quite a bit of local French groups. It is up to the station to decide which sings they play there.

Hence the local groups do profit better from the broadcasting unlike a lot of local groups in other countries: not famous, no money (in short).

And I think that is what Djaron had in mind when asking his question, please correct me if I was wrong ;)

And sometimes I do agree with the French government, sometimes it would be good to support more local groups instead of just the big names.

I suspect Bandcamp can't be worse than buying the soundtrack on GOG (and similar stores). I'd go with that every time if I could afford it.
I trust them more than game publishers in general.

No need to apologize, and apologies from myself if the answer came as too aggressive. Long day, and tomorrow looks as if it will be even longer.

Composers and musicians are no different from any other content creator. They can have a ton of different contracts defining how they get paid and/or what rights they retain. Owning the rights to a content doesn't automatically mean you get a share of any sales, and getting a cut doesn't say anything about the rights (other than the fact that you probably have a right to distribute said content).

Let's say an advertising firm hires me to write a jingle for an ad. I'm an unknown, so will I be paid for each time the ad is played? Probably not. If on the other hand though I'm a household name, it is quite likely that I'll be getting a cut each time the ad is played. In both cases, I retain the rights to the music, so it cannot be used for another purpose.

So, all in all, there is no set way for a content creator to get their money for their content, it all depends on whatever contract they've signed with the one that asked for the content to be created. In other words, a mess ;)

so, if i understand right, if a musician is hired by contract for delivering/making music for a project, he is just one employee like any others, and whatever works he performs during his contract is the property of the company who hired him, right ?
in theory, the contracter would not even have any legal obligation to mention his name anywhere as he was just part of the "manpower" of the company ?

correct me if i got it wrong, though ?

anyway, in this case, i now understand better how usa/anglosaxon copyright works... it's just quite different from in my country (where an artist can be commissionned for a job/work but cant be stripped out of some unalterable rights regarding the art he made...)

anyway, regarding my initial question, i figured out that, depending on the publisher, artist will get 0% to 70% of GOG's DLC price entirely at publisher's discretion (given the typical GOG share is 30%) while on bandcamp for example he would get 85% (as bandcamp share is 15%) and he would get barely 23% on itunes/amazon...
An interesting fact whenever you may hold a personal grudge against the publisher/dev of a given game and that has nothing to do with artist not at fault about it... (who said League of Geek ?)

So the decision i have to make if i want some music sold separatly on GOG (means when OST is not already included in the base goodies of the initial game) is "do i want to support GOG and artist at same time, though artist may get maybe nothing" or "do i want to make sure artist will get a better share; even if it means not supporting GOG by the same time"...

I asked that also because i try to maintain a GOGmix of games which music are not even available on GOG (base goodies or soundtrack DLC), and on this case there is no real choice or question to ask (can't get it here, so, best thing is to get it directly from artist at best rate possible for him)... Of course i can't "advertise" or tell out in gog forum or gogmix to ever get catalog-available soundtracks "elsewhere" instead of here (it would be against GOG tos i guess) but i still can note such information down for my private use at least...

Correct, if this was part of their contract the right remind with the employer. And some contracts with independent musicians do the same thing. It is not longer their property.

as mentioned above, depends on the contract, but once you signed the line, end of story.
And France for this better protecting the creators right ;)