I get a lot of the same questions from clients that I coach for How To License Your Music Premium.  Although I get a wide variety of questions from a wide range of musicians, there are certain questions that come up over and over.  In today’s post I thought I’d address a few of the common questions I get from artists that are starting out in the licensing game.

Here they are…

How Many Tracks Do I Need To Start?  I get this one a lot.  Although there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to licensing, there are some generalizations that can be made.  I literally started with one, finished track that I was able to license, when I started back in 2002.  However, this is certainly less than ideal and I would recommend having at least a small body of work completed when you start pitching your tracks.  How many?  The answer to how many tracks you need to start with varies, depending on who you’re talking to.  I would suggest having at least 5 to 10 tracks, in the “can”, and ideally even more.

Different companies have different protocols in terms of how many tracks they require from the artists they sign.  There are companies that will sign just one song and shop that, if the song is something they really need.  However, it’s ideal to have more tracks ready to go, so that if you pique someone’s interest in your material and they ask what else you have, you can get back to them with more tracks. 

You don’t want to be in a position where someone is actually interested in working with you, but it falls through because you simply don’t have enough material.  Although some companies don’t have a minimum number of tracks required in order to work with artists, some companies do require that you have x number of songs or x minutes of music ready to go, before they’ll work with you.

In the long run, you want to work towards having a large, diverse body of work.  The more tracks you have, the more potential licensing opportunities you’ll be a good fit for.  To sum up, in the beginning I would start with at least 5 solid tracks, and ideally more.

Register Your Titles With Your PRO

Before you start pitching your tracks, be sure to register them with your PRO (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, etc).  I still get a lot of questions about this, which sort of surprises me, because it’s pretty basic.  But, if you’re just starting out, you might not be aware of how this works, so I’ll cover it here. 

In order to get paid performance royalties when your music airs on Television, you need to register your songs with your Performing Rights Organization.  This could be done, hypothetically, after you sign with a library or publisher, but it’s a good idea to do this before you start pitching your music, just to make sure all your ducks are in a row. 

When music is used on television, TV shows are required to submit what’s called a “cue sheet” to the different PROs.  Cue Sheets list all the music used in a particular episode of a TV show along with the artist name for each track.  These cue sheets are then cross referenced with all the titles register in each PRO, and a performance royalty is paid based on how each track was used.   If your songs are not registered with your PRO when they cross reference the cue sheet containing your title, you won’t get paid.  I’m assuming you want to get paid, so be sure to register all your titles.

One Caveat:  One caveat to registering your titles and something you should be aware of, is that some publishers will actually register titles on your behalf, if they are keeping the publishing royalty, as a part of their agreement with you.  In this case, they would need to either create an alternate title for your tracks they are registering, in order to avoid a duplicate entry, or you would need to delete your registration and allow them to register the titles for you.  Only one of you can register the title, if it’s the exact same song name. 

I know this sounds a little confusing, but a simple way to avoid any issues with registering your titles, is to simply ask, every time you sign with a new publisher/library how they want to handle registering titles.  If you don’t do this, and they attempt to register titles you’ve already registered, you’ll get a notice from your PRO that there has been a duplicate registration and you’ll have to manually go into your member dashboard and fix the issue.  Just ask each time you work with someone new and you’ll avoid any problems.

Copyright Your Songs

Technically speaking, the moment you write a song, you own the “copyright”, which literally means the right to copy or distribute your music.  However, in order to document that you’ve actually written a particular song, in the event that you need to prove a song is yours in a legal context, it’s a good idea to register your songs with The Library Of Congress (In The USA), before you start widely pitching your music.  That way, in the event that someone actually uses your music without your permission, you’ll have the ability to demonstrate, in a court of law, that you are the composer.  Fortunately, I don’t think this happens all that often, but I have heard of a few instances of this happening over the years.  There are a few shady characters out there, so better safe than sorry.

Here’s a good breakdown on how to copyright your tracks that explains the different forms and costs:

https://diymusician.cdbaby.com/musician-tips/how-to-copyright-your-music/

Formats And Instrumentals

When it comes to actually pitching your tracks, it’s good to have both wav and mp3 files of all your tracks ready to go.  For the most part, these two formats will cover the majority of your submissions.  I rarely get asked for a specific type of wav or a specific size mp3, although occasionally that does happen.  But for the most part, just having both wav and mp3s of all your tracks will cover the majority of situations you’ll encounter.

It’s also a really good idea to have an instrumental version of all your vocal tracks ready to go as well, when you start pitching your material.  At this point, it’s pretty much universal that if you sign a vocal track to a library that they’ll also request an instrumental version as well.  Make sure you have these available prior to pitching your tracks, so if someone requests them you’ll be able to deliver right away.

Those are a few key things to make sure you have in order before you get started. Be sure to check out all our free and premium resources at https://www.htlympremium.com/ for more in depth information.

-Aaron

 

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