Let’s discuss our thoughts on music licensing, the past, the present, the future.
The Past
From what I’ve read the performance royalties you could earn as a composer 30 years ago were much higher than today. I also read that the sync fees have been getting increasingly lower in average (except possibly high end movie trailers).
The Present
Right now there is a much higher need for music than ever. Not for TV broadcasts, but online video such as YouTube. I guess this is the reason why micro stock music libraries have become so successful the last decade. So it’s a game of quantity, not quality. At least that is how I feel.
The Future
I can see a lot of things happening that are actually good for composers. Such as music for live streams, virtual reality games, more games in general etc. I can actually see that performance royalties might get less and less important, and direct sync fees will take over. What do you think?
What are your thoughts on music licensing going forward? What should we as composers focus on to increase our chances of success?
Interesting thoughts Mikael. Although there may be more opportunities for music licencing companies still pay musicians peanuts. Until this attitude changes it will remain only a select few who can make a comfortable living from library/media music.
All you need to do is look at the royalty split on some of these licensing sites and if you put what Spotify and the ilk pay per stream, it doesn’t add up to much.
Problem with direct sync fees is that a good chunk of them are once and done, no future royalties for repeats and replays.
Sorry to sound so negative but it’s the way I am feeling at the moment.
I think main problem is that there is “battle” now in the entire industry between those who want to keep the “royalty”-system, and those who favor the ease of use of the direct sync without any future royalties model. I also think is is unfair they they can buy a track then use it on any other project they do.
The buyers of course favor pay once use forever, or even better for them is the membership model where they can use any track from a catalogue for a monthly fee.
But what about us, the composers? What favors them does not favor us, so somehow a new balance need to fix this issue. As you say, the peanut payments for music does not work for composers.
I never got any good royalties only some few bucks, to get really good money you should do music for big projects like famous bands/ artists, big films and TV programs.
I vote for You Tube now it’s the only reasonable way to promote yourself, your music and your experience with knowledge so you won’t be depending on any labels and audiojungles. And it’s great opportunity to get in touch with your idols cuz I already heard so many stories when some musicians / composers and producers first created their you tube channels then just started to upload their music videos where they play any music instruments or sing, or their tutorials and step by step by growing their audience some of famous people got in touch with them cuz they liked the music video, or tutorials. I also want to create my You Tube channel in the nearest future and start doing my tutorials and upload my music and so on. Because I believe it’s a great chance to be heard and seen by good people especially if you can share your knowledge and experience, and I have so much to tell to the world. Just creating my portfolio now so my You Tube videos can be based on some good experience.
