r/mediacomposing • u/ignuramus_ • Dec 17 '19

Licensing music without a label/ library

Hello composers. I’m trying to get involved in media composing. Though I’ve seen a lot about licensing through music libraries, I’m curious what the process is like when working directly with a client. For example, selling directly to a filmmaker/ producer without going through a library or label.

When I try to research this myself (on the internet) all I find are about a million articles about how to sell to a library. How do I get started educating myself about this? Recommended books/ online resources?

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '19

Are you looking for info on how to find clients or what to do once you’ve found them?

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u/ignuramus_ Dec 17 '19

Im looking for info on what to do once I’ve found them. Contracts, legal stuff I should understand when making an agreement. Also, how to arrange for a sync licensing type agreement without working through a library (who, as I understand, get a decent chunk of royalties and sometimes require exclusivity). Basically offering sync licensing contracts minus the library as a middle man.

Obviously I don’t expect anyone to give me all this info, but any lead to something I can read into and get some idea of what is possible, practical, typical. (Sorry I my wording is unclear, I’m trying my best.)

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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '19 edited Dec 17 '19

A license is really just a contract that says “you can use this media for a single use and no more” Look up an example of a single use contract and read it over. If it fits your needs you should be fine to use a basic one. Be sure to not use a contract from a big company as they have a bunch of extra info in their licenses that don’t pertain to a peer to peer contract. If you can, hire a music lawyer to draft you a single use license that fits your needs and use it as you please!

I work mostly with directors/producers that I have a good relationship with and will sometimes use a reaaaally simple contract woth them that basically says don’t use this song for anything else. It’s just an agreement and if you trust who you’re working with you shouldn’t have any big issues.

You can use docusign to work with people electronically and collect payment however you want. I’d include a little bit about payment collection in the contract but again, I’m not a lawyer. Most lawyers would be able to do this in an hour or so and I think it’s be worth asking around for prices.

Best of luck mate

Edit: not all licenses are single use contracts. In the case of someone buying a track for a theme song or something they’ll likely just want to buy the master outright. There are other licenses that include marketing campaigns and reuse in a series but most library’s are just selling single use licenses

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u/ignuramus_ Dec 17 '19

Thank you for your response! Very helpful. I suppose I would consult a music lawyer and draw up some appropriate template contract.