1.) The licensee needs only to pay once to use the music and then the licensee can use it in perpetuity limited by the rights granted by the license.

This is applicable in “per track” and “per catalog basis”. In “per catalog basis”, the licensee can pay a blanket license fee that gives the rights to use whatever songs in the catalog.

2.) The licensee will only be working and agreeing with one supplier and that is the royalty free music provider. In the traditional music licensing methods, any interested licensees will be researching the name of the music publisher and the owner of the master recording so that the licensee can ask for a license to use. This takes a lot of time especially if the music publisher and master recording information are not provided in most audio files.

Even if the information is freely provided such as included in the CD inlay albums; the licensee will still need to ask for a license from these two persons (the music publisher and the master recording rights owner). In this case, the licensing can be very costly and time consuming. With the royalty free music licensing, the licensee needs to deal with only one provider.

3.) The cost of licensing royalty free music is very low compared to traditional music licensing. The primary reason is that the artist and music included in the royalty free music catalog are not very popular unlike in major labels which the companies are still using the traditional music publishing methods. Aside from the popularity factor, the cost of producing independent music is way below than major label projects with the use of modern digital recording methods.

One common issue with royalty free music is the public performance of the music. In most royalty free music catalog, the songwriters are either affiliated or not with public performance society like ASCAP. Supposing writer is affiliated and you are going to use royalty free music in projects that publicly performed music, are you allowed to do that?

It depends. It is because assuming the royalty free music DOEST NOT include public performing rights; then you can still publicly perform the music in your projects provided you ask license from ASCAP (if the writer is ASCAP affiliated). So you need to check the rights granted as included in the license. Most royalty free music license does not include public performing rights. It only allows you to commercially exploit the following music rights (example only):

a.) Synchronization – used in TV and film so that you can have the music along with it.
b.) Master use – the use of the song master recording.
c.) Adaptation rights – the rights to change a portion of the sound recording or the lyrics so that it can be adapted to your project.
d.) Mechanical rights – the right to duplicate a copy of the music to a limited amount of copies (this will be stated in the license how many copies are allowed).

What if the royalty free music license allows you to publicly perform the music? Then you do not need to obtain license from any public performance licensing body like ASCAP. It also implies that you do not need to pay public performance license anymore to ASCAP since you already paid that during the royalty free music licensing. Be careful with this, you will end up being double charged.

How do I know that the music has still not been represented by any public performance societies?

First, you need to check the facts. The facts are listed in the license, such as the name of the songwriter, work title etc. If the license grants public performance and that the licensing fee is very small, I won’t get bothered at all to get a blanket license from ASCAP, BMI anyway (for example if I am a broadcaster) . However if the royalty free music provider is asking me big amounts of licensing fee so that I can use the music publicly, be careful because the work might be represented by ASCAP and BMI which ask you to pay for a public performance licensing fee.

-There is no shortcut or automation in the music licensing process. Everything needs to be done on “paper” and “signed” by both parties. This is the best way in doing a musical licensing agreement. Once you have clearly documented all your work and other documents. Its time to know the steps on how you should run your music publishing business:

STEP1.) The customer will contact the music publisher to express interest in licensing some of the works or the entire work in the catalog. The customer SHOULD provide the following information to the music publisher (via email):

a.) Song titles to be licensed
b.) Name of the company
c.) Official business address and name of the official representative (this is the person that will sign the music licensing agreement on the part of the customer)
d.) How do you want to use the music? You should describe this in DETAIL so that the music publisher will know what rights are needed to cleared. For example:

“ I would like to use Song X for my independent film project. I would like to use it as a background in one of my action scenes. I would also like to reproduce a copy of my film with your music for around 1000 copies for sale. My film will be shown Worldwide and these copies will be available worldwide as well. If its ok with you, I ask for an exclusive agreement with this song. No other film producers can use this song as a theme except my project.”. The music publisher now understands that you are asking for a music license that ask permission to use the following music rights:

- Use of master sound recording
- Synchronization with your film project
- Mechanical rights – reproduction of your project into copies (1000 copies)
- Exclusive licensing agreement
- Worldwide territory scope of agreement

e.) You should state your music licensing fee budget for that project.

STEP2.) The music publisher will review your application for a music license. If the music publisher has some questions, he/she will be sending an email. This will initate a series of correspondence between the customer and the music publisher. The objective of this communication is to make sure all terms are agreed upon before drafting an agreement.

STEP3.) Once everything is clear between the music publisher and the customer; the music publisher will be drafting an agreement comprising the terms agreed. This is still a draft and will be sent to the customer for review.

STEP4.) The customer will then review the agreement if everything agreed during the correspondence email has been included in the agreement clearly. If everything is now OK. The customer will sign the agreement and send the copy to the music publisher for final approval.

STEP5.) The music publisher will then sign the agreement and will send a copy to the customer. The music publisher will keep a copy of the approved agreement for documentation and record keeping purposes. In addition, the music publisher will send an invoice to the customer. This invoice will include the advance payment if agreed between both parties.

STEP6.) The customer will pay to the music publisher the advance payment as stated in the invoice.

STEP7.) The music publisher will then send all the songs as well as the recordings needed by the customer in his/her project. TIPS:

There are actually two aspects you should be focusing on the delivery. These are the:

a.) Audio Format.
b.) Method of delivery

Lets start with the tradional method. This is delivery using CD. The following should be the specifications of your audio format and the delivery:

a.) If you are delivering less than 15 songs to your customer. Then send use the CD audio wav format of your masters. These should be in 16bit/44.1Khz resolution. This is also the end/complete format of most audio mastering houses.

b.) If less than 15 songs to be delivered, burn all 16bit/44.1Khz audio wav files as an audio CD then make sure to select the best blank CD available. Burn it at the lowest rate as possible like 1x , 2x , or 4x. For details, you can read this tutorial on best CD burner/writer & media for burning audio mastering CD.

c.) If you are delivering more than 15 songs, then using audio wav format might not be economical for you since one audio CD can only hold at most 15 songs. This time, the best format will be a 320 kbps MP3 version of all of your music (Constant bit rate encoded). This bit rate is the highest quality MP3 bit rate. To prepare this, you will need to make a 320kbps master out of your recordings. You can get this from your mastering engineer or label. Or some recording softwares have the functionality of creating a 320kbps MP3 from 16bit/44.1Khz masters. You can use the LAME encoder for best results. You can read this tutorial on how to do this in Adobe Audition or Audacity:

How to add a lame encoder in Adobe Audition?:

Free Lame MP3 Encoder for Audacity in Ubuntu:

Since the average file size of 320Kbps for a 3 minute music is around 9MB and the capacity of a CD is around 650MB. Conservatively, there are around 650MB/9MB =72 mastered MP3 music that can fit in one CD.

Important: Do not forget to list tracks in the CD case, especially the exact titles of those tracks that are licensed by your customer. Make sure it contains the same order as the one of the MP3 CD. Take advantage of the MP3 ID3 tagging system so you can embed the track title, artist and everything in the MP3 file.

d.) Be careful about the shipment. Because this is physical CD, you are going to send this to your client either by Express mail or DHL. In this case, one must be careful during shipment to avoid damage to the CD. Make sure you communicate this with your courier and to your client.

The second method is delivery online. In this case, you will not need to worry about burning those tracks in CD since the entire delivery will just be downloaded by your client. To do this:

a.) Prepare an Mp3 version out of your entire master recordings. The most recommended resolution is still 320Kbps MP3 (constant bit rate). Use the MP3 ID3 tagging system. In this way, do not forget to add track titles, track artist and all important licensing information to be embedded in the MP3 file.

Make sure the track title is present in both the filename and in the ID3 tag system of the Mp3 file.

b.) Put all of your Mp3 tracks inside a folder.
c.) Zip the folder into one package. The end result is a .zip file that contains all of your MP3 tracks.
d.) Upload the zip file to your website folder. The uploading can take some time depending on the size of the zip file.
e.) Send the download link to your customer.
f.) Your customer will then download the zip package from his/her computer. This can take time. For example at 23 MP3 tracks at 320Kbps bit rate will have a total file size of 185MB. So if your customer has a very slow connection, the downloading can take a very long time.

Advantages of online delivery:
1.) Low cost since you do not need to pay for a courier.
2.) Safe, since the downloading link is entirely private. Sending through courier can have some risk pertaining to the loss of property and damage.

1.) Ending the free music licensing scheme for both personal and commercial use.
2.) Setting new music licensing rates for different and most common applications.
3.) In the business changes I proposed in this page a few months ago. I decided to stay with ASCAP as my performance right society for now. Things have been difficult and complicated with changing performing right societies.

Below are the music licensing rates to be implemented in this website:

1.) Ad campaign – $50. This is the use of music for advertisements whether in radio, TV and other media. The good thing with this is that I plan it to be global, this means that the licensee will be able to use a song in my catalog for global usage. Ad campaign can be very expensive in some music licensing companies, so I make it as affordable as possible, to accommodate small and medium size enterprises/businesses to use my music in their projects.

This fee is the upfront licensing fee for the use of music. It does not include performance right payments in case the music will be played publicly.

I still have not written a complete music licensing agreement as of now, so you will be able to read it in the coming days.

2.) Film and Television – $25 – this is the use of my music in film and television. Bear in mind that this single fee covers both the sync and master sound recording use. This is also an upfront payment and does not include performance payments.

Bear in mind that all performance royalties generated by the use of my music will be collected by ASCAP. So if your TV station and film company are affiliated with them. ASCAP will be paying me some share of the surveyed performance of my work.

I decided to make the licensing rates for film and television as affordable as possible so that it will be affordable for independent film makers and producers.

3.) Videography- $15 – this is the use of my music in videos. A typical example are videographers creating a video for wedding. Corporate video should also fall into this category.

4.) Others – $10 – this is for other uses not specified above. For example if you are planning to use my music in your website, then this fall into this category. Other examples not listed above and fall into “others category” are as follows:

Discussion:

The reality is that it varies in budget and licensing cost. For example, in the data provided above ; you can expect to spend around 30,000 dollars in a single song alone if you need the music for a high end or global ad campaign. Or on the other hand, it will went down as low as $20 for simply leasing for any commercial projects.

What does this imply to music licensee?

It implies that on the average, you can expect:

1.) Advertisement campaigns to cost a lot (as low as $25,000 to $30,000). Also you will noticed that licensee will be paying this high amount to the performing right societies of the music publisher or the songwriter. Or if the songwriter/publisher is not affiliated with any societies, you may directly pay to the publisher for the entire amount.

2.) To spend around $500 at most to use music in independent films. More than that, it can be considered costly based on the sample data. What is surprising it that if you are film producer and needs low cost licensing for using music. You can find music as low as $50 for film usage.

3.) To have a reasonable cost range if you are licensing music for background and compilation video. Based on the data provided, background music can be as high as $500 to as low as $250 dollars. For example in YouLicense.com, the overall licensing fee can range starting from $20 to $150. These are reasonable price range for licensing indie music projects.

What you should take note?

There are still a lot of factors that you should take note when licensing music. Since the license fee can either be an up-front payment or a continuous payment, you need to ensure or confirm this in the licensing agreement:

1.) Check if you still need to pay for performance royalties. You can read this in the agreement. The tricky thing though is that in standard TV and film industry, a producer is required to include the music in the cue sheets. Big TV and radio companies are licensed by ASCAP to pay performance royalties. The same thing will happen in radio based projects.

2.) If you are using music for film and TV. The licensing fee information alone can be confusing as you still need to know if:

a.) The license fee already covers the sync rights.
b.) Or the performance rights.
c.) Or even the master recording.

2.) Or even you can save more, what if you are licensing the music for some non-profit use or academic use?

3.) Check the duration of usage and territory. Are you allowed to re-use the song for the entire life of its copyright? Or even use the song in all countries?

First phase:

1.) The official song title, this is also known as the work title.
2.) Last date updated- when was the last time you have updated any information pertaining to that song.
3.) Does the songwriting process completed?
4.) Does it have a complete broadcast quality recorded version?
5.) Does the mixing process completed?
6.) Does mastering process already done?
7.) What is the version of the recording? Is it a multi-track, live or an acoustic version?

Below is the sample screenshot how you will organize the above information using an Excel spreadsheet:

The above table clearly tracks your progress; for example it says that you still have some work to do on the red items and the following songs have this following recorded versions, etc.

Second phase:

This phase is just the continuation of columns in the Excel spreadsheet which is not shown in the previous screenshot. The following are the information you need to organize:

8.) Does the sound recording work have been registered to the copyright office? If yes, what is the copyright registration number? This is optional if you are the owner of the sound recording copyright, otherwise put N/A.
9.) Does the song (lyrics and music) been registered to the copyright office?
10.) Does the work been registered to a performance right society like ASCAP?
11.) Does the work been officially published for licensing? If yes, where?
12.) What is the estimated song rating? This is important in knowing the quality songs in your catalog. This may change from time to time as you have more information pertaining to the popularity of that song (from customer feedbacks, download data, etc).

Below is the screenshot of the Excel spreadsheet for the second phase:

So using the organizing tips above, you will know those songs in your music catalog which are not copyrighted yet or registered in the performance right societies. Also under “catalog”, you will notice a “link”. It is actually a link pointing to the published catalog URL. For example for the song “Dream”, this is actual URL http://www.musicforlicense.net/dream/. This page contains the official lyrics of the song as well other music production related information.

Third phase:

Finally, the following are the last remaining information that you need to organize:

13.) Single copyright registration number released? This is particularly helpful if you manage to release the song as a “single” and you need to apply a copyright registration number to it. This is useful if the song manages to be released in large scale as a single.

14.) The artist performing the recorded version. At first, the original artist is listed, in the coming years; you might add cover artist which you have grant permission to record the song.

15.) Notable licensee – these are your clients for that song. These are your customers.

16.) Date licensed – when was the song licensed?

17.) Licensing plan – if you have any licensing plan, you can include it (for example “free music licensing plan” or “paid licensing plan”, you can even put the licensing fee if you like).

18.) Work to do– this summarizes the entire work to be done in that song. For example if it says “refer to red items”, it means that you have job to do for those red items.

Below is the sample screenshot of third phase:

Unluckily most of the sound recording copyright owners do not know the importance of ISRC. It is because of the lack of information and awareness.

This short post should tell you all about ISRC codes.

First Question: What is an ISRC Code?

Answer: It is a 12 character code excluding hyphen (CC-ORG-YY-NNNNN).

Where:
CC- is the country code (US for United States for example).
ORG – uniquely identifies the registrant. This is the registrant unique code.
YY – is the registration year of a specific track to ISRC. Take note this is different from copyright registration year or year the track has been commercially released.
NNNNN – a unique number of digits identifying the sound recording. In the entire ISRC catalog worldwide, no sound recording should have the same ISRC.

Other important facts:
1.) A same song can have different ISRC codes assign to it if it has more than one recorded versions released. For example, if a specific artist releases the acoustic and studio version of a specific song, then each of these recorded versions should have different ISRC assigned to it even though they are the same song.

2.) Even the same recording or remastered version should have different ISRC codes assigned to it. For example, if a song from Led zeppelin mastered and released in the 70’s will be remastered today. Even though you are talking about the same recording (same instruments, mixing, artists, etc) but since it is digitally remastered again for a different album, it should have different ISRC.

A substantial alteration in the sound recording prompts you to assign a different ISRC code to it.

3.) Even a different studio remix for a single song should have different ISRC codes.

The purpose of ISRC is used in tracking sound recording and uniquely identifying the songs and creators for the purpose of royalty payments.

ISRC code is embedded on every song MP3 or audio CD discs. This is done either by a mastering engineer during the final stage of CD audio production. Or if you are an independent artist creating your own recordings, you can embed it in your recordings as well including MP3.

IMPORTANT: If you are planning to earn money from your created sound recordings, one of the most important things you should do is to add your ISRC code to all of those released recordings. Of course, before you have the right to add those ISRC codes, make sure you thoroughly own the sound recording copyright of that specific work or else you are not authorized.

Second Question: How to get ISRC codes?

The easiest thing is to apply online here: https://usisrc.org/ , there is a single fee for the application and it will gives you right to issue ISRC codes to a maximum of 100,000 recordings. Now that is lot, and of course I can see it is more than enough for you.

This guide has been written for an indie songwriter who has not enough financial and technical capability to start a music publishing company of his/her own.

I know, there are million of songwriters in the whole world waiting for their music to be “published”. The only way to do this is to start your own music publishing company. No matter how small, it is your own publishing and that is something you can be proud of. And if you kept writing through years, your catalog will grow so as your audience. And of course, good news will happen to things that are done as truthfully as seriously as possible.

Starting a business is an entrepreneurial activity; it means that failure and trouble is part of the process. You will need a strong heart, commitment, knowledge and passion to keep your business going. If you do not have, I recommend not to have your own publishing and have yourself employed either to other music publishing companies, I know there are tons out there.

OK let’s start with the flow. For details, I recommend you will start searching Google for detailed answers. Of course, this post cannot cover everything but at least I give you the process which is very important.

This process assumes you will be marketing your songs in the internet because it is way lot cheaper than doing the traditional way and it gives a better exposure of your catalog.

Step1. The first thing in your plan should be examining if your catalog is worth starting a business. If you have just 5 songs, of course it is not. And if you are starting a website out of it as well as start copyrighting songs, it is more expensive to do that. I recommend you have least 20 songs to start a music publishing company. So that your potential clients can choose a lot of songs, as well as the cost of copyright is low (you can copyright the entire 20 songs as one application).

Step2. Your master recordings should have ISRC and registered to Nielsen BDS. This is for royalty tracking purposes.

Step3. Copyright your 1st set of catalog to US copyright, file Form PA and SR, if you also own the sound recording copyright.

Start4. Start registering your business. Think of a business name. I use my own name in my music publishing business. But you can use another name example “XYZABC Music”

You should register your business with your government agencies. You can either start sole proprietorship since you most likely do not have partners or incorporators at this stage.

Step5. Start a bank account using your business name.

Step6. Register your songs to performing right societies like ASCAP, BMI or any societies which your country has. Register yourself as both publisher and a writer. Remember to use your music publishing business name (the one you’re registered with your government) as the publisher name in the performing right societies you are affiliated with.

You can however use your original name as the writer name.

Step7. Start a website and register a domain name that matches your business name. For example www.xyzabcmusic.com

1.) You are planning to cover song written by another songwriter and sell it on a CD or any mechanical forms of recording (vinyl, cassette tape).

2.) You are a movie producer and you plan to incorporate the song in the movie and sell it on a CD, DVD, Blue ray, etc.

3.) You have mp3 songs in your computer and you plan to burn it on a CD and sell it to your friends or any of your customers.

4.) You are a recording label and you are releasing an album with songs written by someone else.

All of those 4 items above, you need to ask permission from the music publisher and if the request is granted, the music publisher will issue you mechanical license.

Aside from getting the license, you also need to pay associated mechanical license fee (depending on the terms agreed).

The mechanical license fee is mandated by law. and some computational information here about the cost involved.

Some of the confusing aspects of mechanical licensing are WHERE to get this license. Typically:

1.) If the songwriter is not affiliated with any music publisher or any mechanical licensing organization.

The songwriter can execute mechanical license agreement. The songwriter needs an entertainment lawyer to do this right.

2.) If the songwriter is affiliated with a music publisher, and the music publisher is NOT affiliated with any mechanical licensing association, then the music publisher can execute mechanical licensing agreement.

3.) If the music publisher representing the songwriter is affiliated with a mechanical licensing association, then you need to contact the said association for a complete mechanical licensing agreement package (depends on your use and application).

The only mechanical licensing association I know that represents music publishers and songwriters is Harry Fox Agency.