Photo courtesy of woody1778a
March 9th, 2010 – If you’re an independent artist, one of the best ways to make a living from your music is to license your music for use in films, TV, or video games. Of course, it’s not as simple as putting your music out there and having the money roll in; you need to work with a company that has connections to businesses that need music like yours.
Finding a good company to represent you is a daunting task for many indie artists not used to thinking of that specific revenue stream. Indie Music Tech has a great list of licensing companies you can contact to partner with. Licensing companies only make money when you make money, and contracts are generally non-exclusive meaning you still own all the rights to your songs. This means that you can also shop the same songs to multiple licensing companies.
Normally, licensing companies charge the same percentage as publishing companies. This means that they will take 50% of the publisher’s share. You will get 100% of the writer’s share (that you share with your co-writers if you have any), and then you get 50% of the publishers share which equals 75% of the total revenue gained from the song.
I must stress that I’m not a lawyer, but these numbers seem to be pretty standard. Of course, before you enter into any license agreement (actually any contract at all), consult your lawyer.
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