Music licensed for film/TV/commercials  generates income for the songwriter (called sync rights), and for the owner of the actual recording (master rights).   If you own your recordings and you have written the songs on the recordings, you will get the income for both sync and master usage.  Nice.

A downside to be aware of when thinking about licensing your music, and that is how will your music be used?  What scene will be using your song?  In what context will it be used?  Are you okay if your sensitive ballad is used ironically during a slasher scene in a B movie or worse, perhaps running in the background while an ad spokesman pitches a hemorrhoid cream.   If at all possible you want to maintain control over how your music is used.  Hopefully you can sign off on each licensing usage, approving of the scene, length of usage, fee, etc.

Some artists use brokerage houses that will represent your music to interested parties on your behalf.  They may be seeking “pre-cleared” music, which means to represent you they require pre-approval to license your music at a fixed price and for any kind of usage.  Find out from them the scope of usages they pursue before you sign up so you know how your music may be used. Of course take a look at the money they are offering you after all expenses are removed too. How much do they take for their own fee? Are they paid by the end music licensor (film/tv/ad co.) or are they getting their fee from a percentage of your income? In general try to avoid retitling, whereby whoever licenses your music re-registers your song with a new title for that specific licensing usage and in turn takes a piece of the performance rights income that would normally go directly to the songwriter. There are differing views about this, see some here.

There is a simple way to  greatly improve the chances of getting your music licensed.  Remove the vocal tracks from your mixes. The need for instrumental music is much greater than the need for vocals.   Sometimes vocals can get in the way of dialogue in a scene or the lyrical content may stray from the mood that the instrumental is providing.   Whenever you are in the studio, before you master your tracks save a vocal free mix of each song.  Whenever you submit a track for licensing, let the interested party know that an instrumental version of the song also exists.

I was speaking at a recent NARM event and some artists asked about how to get in touch with music supervisors and others seeking to license music.   Info on that below along with some other sites you might find interesting:

Music Brokerage House (they represent pre-cleared music for licensing uses):  Sir Groovy

Music Supervisor Directory: Music Supervisor Guide

Interesting Music Supervision and Licensing: Rock River

The Future of Music Licensing and Evaluation?: Pandora’s Tim Westergren

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