Music Licensing Fees

Woebot

Well-known member
If you're working for an advertising agency you have to pay huge amounts of money to get the music you want to endorse your product. Quite rightly. You can even go to the point of commisioning a known musician to write the score for you. For instance when i was working for a bloke called Ge**rd De Th**e a long time ago he had The Aph** Tw** do music for that one where the athlete (i think Carl Lewis) runs across the water.

On the other hand if you're unlucky enough to have your music chosen to be played on BBC1, BBC2 or ITV (the main terrestrial TV channels in the UK who exclusively have this deal) you'll only recieve $14 for them to have the usage rights. So just imagine you're quite a cool little electronica outfit, labouring to build a fanbase and then Jamie Oliver comes along, sticks your tune in his cookery programme whereupon all his mainstream audience go "ooh thats pretty" before completely forgetting about it, utterly ignorant as to it's provenance.

You get an insulting $14 buy-out fee (no exaggeration, it's 8 UK pounds stirling) and you're carefully built audience suddenly think you're deeply naff AND, AND, they leapt to the conclusion that you've gone out of your way to sell it to the TV producers (euch!) AND they assume you're rolling in money.

If you ask me that's a pretty shit scenario. If you ever hear a bit of good music on any of those channels, just remember how shafted the artists are!
 

soul_pill

Well-known member
Yes, and also your music can be used for any idents and links or "in-house" programme adverts for free (on any channel - worldwide). As I discovered when my music was used on mtv idents frequently, & on an advert for "victoria's secret" a documentary about "Posh" Spice on uk itv. Which I didn't like.
 

grimly fiendish

Well-known member
that's scandalous. say, for sake of argument, the BBC came across one of my long-lost compositions and said (ahem): "right, we'll have that for Match of the Day." surely:

• they'd have to find me or my representative to get permission ... and a decent-quality version of the music to edit

and then surely my representative or i could say:

• no, piss off?

so ... if an artist ends up with their music being used on something with which they don't want to be associated, doesn't that mean their label/management/whoever has f***ed them over?

and what about polyphonic copyright?

even so, none of this negates the fact that eight quid is an insult.

my mind is boggling at this. eight quid! wow. that's appalling. does anyone know what this agreement is called and where i could find a copy online?
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
That's a bloody disgrace.

I've got a couple of mates who work in music at the BBC. I'll have to pick their brains about this.

And you'd have thought, if it's only 8 pounds a track, they could afford more than a Moby album and bloody Toploader.
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
I was under the impression the production company paid commercial rates to PRS for mechanicals and to the publisher for publishing.

IIRC the $14 fee is a flat "volume" rate for broadcast PRS, paid per transmission and is seperate from the publishing... there's been quite a lot of change in this area in the last few years and it's been a while since I negotiated one, and never for broadcast, but I am given to believe that Zero7 has done quite well out of Gardners World. I'll ask around.
 

mms

sometimes
WOEBOT said:
If you're working for an advertising agency you have to pay huge amounts of money to get the music you want to endorse your product. Quite rightly. You can even go to the point of commisioning a known musician to write the score for you. For instance when i was working for a bloke called Ge**rd De Th**e a long time ago he had The Aph** Tw** do music for that one where the athlete (i think Carl Lewis) runs across the water.

On the other hand if you're unlucky enough to have your music chosen to be played on BBC1, BBC2 or ITV (the main terrestrial TV channels in the UK who exclusively have this deal) you'll only recieve $14 for them to have the usage rights. So just imagine you're quite a cool little electronica outfit, labouring to build a fanbase and then Jamie Oliver comes along, sticks your tune in his cookery programme whereupon all his mainstream audience go "ooh thats pretty" before completely forgetting about it, utterly ignorant as to it's provenance.

You get an insulting $14 buy-out fee (no exaggeration, it's 8 UK pounds stirling) and you're carefully built audience suddenly think you're deeply naff AND, AND, they leapt to the conclusion that you've gone out of your way to sell it to the TV producers (euch!) AND they assume you're rolling in money.

If you ask me that's a pretty shit scenario. If you ever hear a bit of good music on any of those channels, just remember how shafted the artists are!


hhhm not strictly true, i think this only happens if your label or publishers have a standard blanket agreement, but then if that happens the chances of getting your music or a labels music on tv channells is much higher.
if you have none of this then a higher fee is still negotiable.
the blanket thing works out overall tho if the music is generally suitable
 
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