Music licensing is the licensed use of copyrighted music. Music licensing is intended to ensure that the owners of copyrights on musical works are compensated for certain uses of their work. A purchaser has limited rights to use the work without a separate agreement.
Definitions The following words and phrases appear in discussion of music licensing: license the right, granted by the copyright holder or his/her agent, for the broadcast, recreation, or performance of a copyrighted work. Types of licensing contracts can include: 1) a flat fee for a defined period of usage, or 2) royalty payments determined by the number of copies of the work sold or the total revenues acquired as a result of its distribution. In addition to a basic fee, most music licensing agreements require additional payments to the copyright owner when the work in which it is included (movie, play) is financially successful above a certain threshold. licensor the owner of the licensed work licensee the person or entity to whom the work is licensed performance the public performance of a musical piece, whether live or recorded, performed by the original artist or someone else, whether the performance keeps to the original version or is adapted or changed in some manner. Playing a music CD (or tape, etc.) in public is "performing" the work. broadcast playing live or recorded works, including radio, television, webcasting, podcasting, etc., to several listeners in a setting such as a bar or bookstore. (Using that definition and the previous one leads to phrases like 'live broadcast performance'.) performing rights organization large companies that hold performance rights for copyrighted musical works. The best-known are American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI), Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC), and La Asociación de Compositores y Editores de Música Latinoamericana (The Association of Composers and Publishers of Latin American Music, ACEMLA), In the United Kingdom, the PRS for Music, and Phonographic Performance Limited for licensing recordings and music videos. The companies license public performance on a nonexclusive basis of the music they own or hold under contract using a complex weighting formula to distribute the fees to the respective rights holders. The license may be a blanket license, but individual licenses may be negotiated.
Rights organizations sample radio and television broadcasts, offer blanket licenses to broadcasters, and investigate complaints to detect and prevent unauthorized performances.For a discussion of the history of the origin and practices of ASCAP, see Jeff Lunden, Collecting Money for Songwriters, A 100-Year Tug of War, NPR (Feb. 13, 2014); https://www.npr.org/2014/02/13/275920416/collecting-money-for-songwriters-a-100-year-tug-of-war; Retrieved Jan. 5, 2015. A less flattering view of the practices of such organizations can be found in Harvey Reid, ASCAP & BMI – Protectors of Artists or Shadowy Thieves? http://www.woodpecker.com/writing/essays/royalty-politics.html; Retrieved Jan. 5, 2015.
In the U.S., ASCAP and BMI hire field agents to monitor public performances. The field agents may act as agents for the organization, negotiating a fee for a blanket license, but individuals may negotiate directly with the organization. The fee may be presented on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, but in case of disagreement, the fee may be appealed to the Federal District Court in the Southern District of New York.
pre-cleared music music that is covered under a prior agreement allowing distribution and legal use under specific circumstances. The license may be for use in film, video, television (commercials and programs), Internet, events in live venues, video games and multimedia productions. copyright literally, 'the right to copy.' The owner of a copyright has five exclusive rights: reproduction (copying), preparing derivative works (adaptation), distributing copies to the public, performing the work publicly, and displaying the work in public. Prior to 1886, no effective international law of copyright existed. The first major international copyright law conventions were the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works created in 1886. In the U.S., for works created in 1977 and after the work is protected by copyright when it is "fixed in any tangible medium of expression," without the need to register it with the US Copyright Office.17 U.S.C. §102(a) A work must be registered, however, before a copyright owner may bring suit for infringement.17 U.S.C. § 411(a) royalty free music generally speaking, with royalty free music, the copyright owner has either waived their right to collect royalties, or have waived their right to collect additional royalties in exchange for an upfront payment. synchronization licensing the licensing of musical works to be synchronized with moving pictures as background in a motion picture, television program, video, DVD, etc. master use licensing the licensing of the recording of a musical work to be performed as a soundtrack, bumper, lead-in or background to a motion picture. publisher for the purposes of copyright, a publisher is the owner of the copyrighted work. It is now standard practice for songwriters of even the slightest prominence to form a publishing company as a separate legal entity to hold the rights to their work. Continued use of the, now somewhat anachronistic, term "publisher" reflects the state of media at the time of the Berne Convention, when all music distribution was done on paper as sheet music or player piano rolls.
Broadcasting Broadcasting, in the context of music licensing, means the playback of recorded or live music for groups of people beyond what might be normally expected in a social setting. Legal claims are filed frequently against bookstores, bars, and live music venues that broadcast music without first obtaining a performance license.
The music broadcast in grocery stores and elevators is a service purchased from one of many organizations that offer it (the largest is Muzak). Part of the fee paid for the service is used to cover licensing costs. Except in very narrowly defined circumstances, noted below under the "small business exception" in 17 USC 110, a business, restaurant, or store that plays radio broadcasts or shows television programs in the premises does not pay a licensing fee.
Radio stations pay fees to licensing bodies for nonexclusive rights to broadcast music. Radio stations and businesses typically pay a flat rate once a year, called a blanket license, which can vary based on the size of the audience, value of the advertising revenues, and amount and nature of music usage. As part of the license contract a radio station may conduct periodic audits of the music being played, with the audit results submitted to the licensing bulk.
Broadcasting pre-recorded music at live events at outlets larger than stores or restaurants, such as stadiums, arenas, or parks, is covered under United States Copyright Law through a "blanket license" that obtained from one of the performing rights organization (PRO), such as BMI or ASCAP. These are compulsory licenses that are held by the PROs, and typically offered based on a per-attendee cost per song, paid to the PRO, which then distributes the royalties to the artists.
In 2012, both BMI and ASCAP introduced a new type of blanket license for political-based events such as campaign rallies called a "Political Entities License". While similar to the blanket license for broadcast of pre-recorded music at large public events, it gives the artists the ability to disallow the use of their music for specific political functions.
Home media
Licensing issues are encountered when TV shows or films using copyrighted music are released on both DVD and streaming formats.
When a song is cleared for usage on a TV show, historically to save money, the clearance typically applies only to TV airings of the show in question. Thus, when the show is considered for DVD distribution to the home video market, the rights to the song must be renegotiated in order for the song in question to be included on the DVD. Most producers/production companies now include the rights for DVDs or "all media now known or hereafter devised," which assures production companies of the right to re-release without incurring additional licensing fees.
If the process of clearing the rights to the song is prohibitively expensive for the home video distributor, or clearance is rejected by the copyright holders of the original song, the affected song is either replaced with a similar one (such as a rerecording or a generic soundalike), or the footage containing the copyrighted song is edited out. In a few cases, TV shows, with extensive use of copyrighted music whose cost of "after-market" licensing is high, are withheld from release on DVD; notable examples include The Wonder Years, Murphy Brown, Happy Days, WKRP in Cincinnati, Third Watch (beyond its first two seasons), Cold Case, Popular and MTV's Daria, some of which were eventually released after long delays. - The "What's The Hold-up?" FAQ , TVShowsOnDVD.com Sony Pictures Home Entertainment cancelled the planned October 2007 DVD release, TVShowsOnDVD.com of Dark Skies for that reason, but it was finally released on January 18, 2011 (4 years later) through Shout! Factory.Dark Skies - Press Release Includes Final Details, Bonus Material for 'The Declassified Complete Series' , TVShowsOnDVD.com
Live performance
Live public performances of musical works are typically licensed in the United States, as "public performances" is one of the six "exclusive rights" listed in 17 USC 106. In the U.S., the owner of a bar, cafe, or restaurant who wants to have live music played in their establishment, commonly obtains a blanket license from ASCAP & BMI to play copyright music listed in their catalogues. Because ASCAP, BMI, Pro Music Rights, and SESAC have non-overlapping collections, a license from one entity does not provide a license to play music from the other entities.
The Association for Concert Bands (ACB) offers a blanket license to community bands that covers both ASCAP and BMI lists. At the end of the year, a community band completes a spreadsheet showing how often each song was played during the year, which the ACB submits to the rights organizations.
Public performances of works in the context of dramatic works are separately licensed; these licenses are called "grand rights".
Performance Licensing In general, someone who plans to perform a piece of music publicly will obtain a "public performance" license from the rightsholder (often the music publisher). Purchasing a copy of the sheet music does not itself usually provide public performance rights.
Developing one's own arrangement of the music is considered a derivative work, which would ordinarily require a separate license. The derivative work is itself copyrighted, but if the original work is under copyright, then permission of both the composition's rightsholder and of the arrangement's rightsholder is needed before performance, distribution, or recording is planned. An arrangement of a traditional song or piece of music will be protected by copyright even if the original piece is in the public domain. For instance, ASCAP has over 40 arrangements of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" under license, and nearly 80 versions of Row, Row, Row Your Boat.Harvey Reid, op. cit.