If you use Royalty Free Music you know how great it is as a producer of content. If you are making a new show, finding a jingle for marketing purposes, or need great music for retail, royalty free music is a very simple and affordable licensing format. It provides flexibility, virtually endless usage, and is easy on the budget. In a market that provides convenience, quality, and diversity using royalty free music is kind of a no-brainer. But what about the other side of the industry? Who are the people composing the music? And how do they play into the royalty free music model?
Composers
While the general population may look down on the career of a musician, there’s a lot more opportunity than one may expect. Becoming a world-famous rock star is not the only option as a musician in the modern world. Custom composition is a highly valued and needed entity in the digital world of media. If you think about the content you consume every day, a large portion of it has music attached to it. It’s one of the best ways to solidify an idea in an audience’s mind. So having access to music is very important in the world of marketing, producing, and creativity. And because stockmusic.net is here to provide you with high-quality royalty free music, our composers are very important and greatly valued to us. They are the true artists that make it happen! But what’s in it for them? How do they get paid? And what legal and rights issues are involved in selling music as royalty free?
Performance Rights
Composers own the performance rights to the music they create. But if they want to get their music heard, there is a bit of negotiation that has to happen. Luckily, most composers (especially if you are selling your music through sites like stockmusic.net) belong to Performance Rights Organizations or PROs. Through PROs, a company or individual can pay fees to be able to use a song a musician owns the rights to. So when a composer signs to a royalty free music company, they are letting the company sell the music for them with options for licensing based on usage. Public performance is the most tricky as there are strict rules about what exactly a public performance is. If you are using royalty free music in a restaurant, private events, or on-hold systems, they are considered a public performance. So if you are considering using royalty free music at a venue or for usage similar to those, make sure you are getting the right license. But there are other ways you can use royalty free music. If you are a media producer, you would use royalty free music with a different license, often referred to as a blanket license. In this situation, the end product must not be a strictly music-only product. So if you are combining with other media elements for a new piece of content, that is not considered a public performance and becomes a new piece of media. In this case, the license is an agreement between the royalty free music seller and the customer.
Getting Paid
One of the best benefits of selling your music on a royalty free platform is the potential audience you will gain. Even if your music is purchased and used to create a new piece of media through the blanket license method, your music has the potential to be heard by thousands. Who knows, your music could be in the next big Super Bowl commercial! Or the next popular app could feature a theme that you created! Producers are constantly coming to royalty free music sites to find an affordable way to make their media awesome. And you could be the composer who delivers high-quality, unique music to them. But besides gaining a wide audience and getting your music out there, you also want to get paid. When a producer uses your music for public performance, you get a cut of it. Producers fill out what’s called a cue sheet that contains details of how the music was used, including information about the composer, publisher, and track specifics. The broadcaster then gives the cue sheets to your PRO who then pays your royalties. So while a platform may be selling royalty free music, as a composer, you can still get paid your royalties. If you are a composer looking to sell your music as royalty free, make sure you sign with a PRO so you can get paid!
So as you can see, royalty free music is beneficial to both the musician and the media producer. As a customer, it’s a great way to find new, awesome music while staying within budget. And as a musician, you are able to get your music out there while still getting paid. It looks like a win-win to us!
If you are a composer looking to sell your music at stockmusic.net, submit here at our Artist Portal.
