Let’s value our composers before it’s too late! This is a bit of a rant, in respect of certain big businesses that are damaging the independent music industry in my opinion. Not only that, many music producers are going along with this by allowing their music to be licensed for pennies/cents. Some big music licensing […]
The Cost of Singing Happy Birthday
Due to music licensing, it usually costs money to use or perform a musical work that someone owns the copyright on. The exception to this is when a piece of music is in the public domain. This is basically when the copyright expires (copyright rules differ for different parts of the world so I won’t get […]
What is a Fair Royalty-free Music License Fee?
It’s a tricky question of judgment and fairness with no definitive answer. Getting the right balance and charging the right royalty-free music license fee can be difficult. Make it too low, you upset composers, but make it too high, you upset clients. It is competitive out there so the temptation is to create a low […]
PRS Background Music vs. Royalty Free Music
Can I avoid PRS / PPL fees by playing royalty free music in my venue? It is often an assumption that any royalty-free music can be played in public as background music, avoiding the cost of PRS / PPL fees. As with many things related to music licensing, there is a little more to it. […]
Royalty Free Music Infographic Download
Some of the most common questions we get asked by our clients are, What can our music be used for? What type of license do they need and are there any restrictions? For this reason, we have created this handy infographic that you can download or view online. The aim is to help you easily understand […]
[VIDEO Tutorial] Professional Music Buyers Guide
We published a series of posts last year ‘Professional Music Buyers Guide‘ that looked at the various aspects of music royalties, the different types of music libraries and how these can affect use of music. Following on from this we have created a video tutorial bringing all these posts together. You can watch this below. […]
Professional Music Buyers Guide: Round-up
For those of you that may have missed our recent Professional Music Buyers Guide series, we’ve created a round-up so you can catch up on them from one place. If you’re a media professional that licenses music for your productions then this guide is for you. If there are any areas of music licensing that […]
Professional Music Buyers Guide: Working with Clients
Should I license music on behalf of my client or let my client license it directly? Ideally, let your client license the music directly. This way they are the license holder and you are using the music in their production as instructed. This limits your liability as the client has licensed the music directly. It […]
Professional Music Buyers Guide: Understanding Music Libraries
There are numerous music libraries that sell music licenses on behalf of composers, each with their own proprietary license agreements and procedures. Let’s look at the different types: Royalty Free Music (Staffed with A&R) These businesses have staff that carefully listen to and select royalty free music for their catalogue. It is fair to say […]
Professional Music Buyers Guide: Introduction
There is a lot of information out there about what royalty free music is, but with the abundance of music libraries and the varying license agreements it’s no wonder that many professional music buyers are not fully aware of what licenses they are buying and do not always understand how certain aspects may affect them […]
