Music Licensing

Music Licensing For Dummies, Smarties, and The Rest of Us., Chicago Now

Music Licensing Libraries

Music Industry Salaries (PDF) by the Berklee Career Development Center

From emusician:

You should always ask to receive 100 percent of the writer’s share of performance royalties associated with licensing your work. (The writer’s share is typically 50 percent of the total performance royalties earned; the remaining 50 percent is the publisher’s share, which the production-music company typically receives.) The contract should specify that you’ll be paid your performance royalties directly by whichever performing rights organization (PRO) you belong to (BMI, ASCAP, or SESAC in the U.S.).

Make sure the contract states that you’ll get paid royalties quarterly (four times per year) and grants you audit rights.

The majority of revenue is earned from synchronization fees. A sync fee is money paid by a producer for the right to synchronize music to, for example, a motion picture for theatrical release, a video in a commercial TV ad, or images and animation in a videogame.