Music Licensing: Indie Musicians vs. Commercial Production Music

Posted under production music by admin

In much the same way as buyout music libraries have functioned to provide easily-accessible solutions to music synchronization for video, telephony, web, etc…the emergence of the independent musician has begun to change the way commercial music use “gets done”. The traditional record labels and the music industry have begun to become completely unhinged…their power is diminishing (both for good and for bad), and this, combined with the accessibility of the internet and the ongoing explosion in technology (especially MP3 technology) has made music, even good music, ubiquitous.

Because indie musicians control their own creations (freeing those creations from the traditional publishing agreements), commercial enterprises of various types have begun to look at how this music can be incorporated in various ways. These days, you’re as likely as not to hear the intro for a tune from a local singer-songwriter playing as “bumper music” on the Martha Stewart show as you are a song from a major pop artist. Why? Because the rights to that song can be acquired much more cheaply….and money is a factor for everyone, isn’t it? It certainly is in a competitive field like media production!

This is why we’ve observed more and more unknown artists like Dirty Vegas and Hem seeing their music utilized by major advertising entities such as Volkswagen, Liberty Mutual, Apple Computers, etc. It’s much cheaper for Apple to approach someone an indie artist than it is for them to use a song by U2…which they still might do, of course, if they are promoting a U2-branded iPod. Otherwise, however, they’re more likely to dip into the indie world.

An Emerging Market

There are even companies that do nothing but plug these songs to exactly these kinds of producers, and for some indie musicians, it’s become a nice secondary (or “first-ondary”) source of income. Pump Audio is one example, but there are many others, including single individuals who are well-connected in both the worlds of music and production.

So, commercial music, in the form of production music libraries…(whether needledrop or royalty-free music/buyout music) now has some competition…even among those who are choosing to obey the law. These days, producers of various types of media are directly connecting with recording artists through their web sites, seeking to license their music for various purposes. Many artists are including music licensing rates on their sites.

Rates for such uses are usually affected by a variety of factors including:

• for-profit vs not-for-profit
• length of use
• what region or size of audience will be affected
• access to a single song, entire album, the artist’s body of work