Music Licensing 101

[DjfunkmasterG]

Hey all, Thought I would give you some information about Music Licensing, since I am licensing commercial songs for my next installment of Deadlands. Getting a license to use a song in a film can be a real pain in the ass, there are many different licenses, for many different uses. To do it yourself won't get you anywhere unless you have $100,000 or more in your film budget. When working on budgets like mine $6000.00 or less for the entire film, most license houses won't even talk to you which leaves you with two options... 1. Screw it and just compose your own stuff 2. Hire a professional service Since I was getting a lot of non responses I went with a professional, now this does help when it comes to trying to make headway but it is very costly. My service charges me based on work done and completed. The initial contact is $250.00, and this is money paid for them to contact the studio/rights holder and get things rolling. If the studio says no this $250.00 still has to be paid, but if they say yes, it will cost an additional $250.00 to finish the paperwork. There are 4 types of licenses: 1. Film Festival Use 2. Commercial 3. Trailer 4. Internet/Gaming I am trying to license two songs for Film Festival use on the new flick. I paid my music agent $500 to track down two songs and today I found out one of the songs the artist said no, so I am out $250 from the get go, but the other artist said yes. Now here is the break down of the song I did get. $250 for initial contact for song #1 $250 for paperwork For song #1 $250 for song license fee For song #1 Song #2 $250 for initial contact - Studio Rejected its use. Now I need to replace that song, so I requested a third song. which will cost me another $250 for initial contact. If you want to use commercial music properly make sure you have the budget and patience. Some would ask why i would do this, well it is because the film feels much bigger than a backyard indy project and would greatly benefit from these songs, but at some point you have to know when to say ok, enough is enough. Just be prepared to do that if you notice things not going your way.

[Danny]

ive either made stuff myself or used public domain music, though even that requires looking into, there was an unreleased documentary in the 70's called "martin luther king jr, eyes on the prize" wich was not released because they got a letter from the summy corpoation asking ten grand in royalty fees for using there product in the film, the song "happy birthday to you". i just gave a 20 minute presentation to the a level college students at my uni yesterday about this stuff and that little tidbit was the biggest reaction grabber, public domain can help a lot, but you gotta make damn sure it hasnt been silently bought out over the years or youll get a bill for anything between 1 and 50 grand for something as basic as a poster.

[MinionZombie]

Good info lads, and this is why I stick to my own stuff or things that Gary & Brian have been kind enough to do for me or provide me with, on projects I'm more official about.

[C5NOTLD]

ive either made stuff myself . That's really the best way to do it yourself - invest in some synths (Korg Triton with Moss board , Korg Oasys, Sequential Prophet 5 rev 3.3). If you can't get the artist (singer) to sign off on the use then the next best thing is to license the music/lyrics only from the original writers. That's usually much easier and you then you only have to re-record the song with a new singer/band. Did that once where the singer was offered $20,000 for use of their version of the song and declined but the writers were interested in signing off on the use of their lyrics/music for $10,000. That way you can still use the song but with a different singer/band.

[PJoseph]

That's a very good and detailed explanation. I'm involved often on the licensing music deals for all the shows I produce and edit - and we have sizeable budgets, but it's expensive. But what you put up there is a nice and clear - and as someone else who does this, I can say it's on the money as far as costs go - in fact, $250 per agreement with your clearance person is actually quite reasonable. Now, how much have the songs cost so far? Is it gratis for festival use? (I've never licensed for festival, only for broadcast) But if you sell your film, then you're probably going to have to pay a license fee that extends to the distributor for whatever the terms are... pJ

[DubiousComforts]

That's really the best way to do it yourself - invest in some synths (Korg Triton with Moss board , Korg Oasys, Sequential Prophet 5 rev 3.3). Most any synth or sampler can be had less expensively as a software VSTi, which also works as plug-in with multi-tracking software. Your home computer is an infinite-track virtual studio just waiting to happen.

[S&Dproductions]

i talked to a guy that samples music for beat making, he says you can legaly use 20sec of a sample free and clear.