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ROYALTY FREE MUSIC - LICENSING & COPYRIGHT

MUSIC LICENSING DEFINITIONS

ROYALTY FREE: Purchasing royalty free music means that once you have paid the one-time fee, you can use that music as many times as you want for as long as you want without ever having to pay additional money to the licensor. There are many applications for which music must be licensed, and the traditional payment structure (in which a royalty is charged for each usage) is cumbersome and costly. Royalty-free music libraries solve this problem by offering music that can be purchased for a one-time fee and then be used by the purchaser as many times as needed.

For example: If a piece of royalty-free music is purchased to be used on a website, it does not matter if one visitor or 100,000 visitors come to the webpage - the purchase fee is exactly the same. Another example: If a piece of royalty-free music is purchased for use on a TV show, there is only the one-time fee, it doesn’t matter if the show is presented 5 times or 1,000 times. The TV show producer will never have to pay any additional fee for the music. This saves time and considerable expense.

Royalty free music does not mean that anyone gives up their copyrights or their rights to administer a song. For instance, if we license a song to you for a film project which goes on TV and then DVD, we can still collect public performance royalties for the TV performance since these are paid by the broadcaster, not by you. You only acquire the right to use the song in your production. The music is offered on a royalty free basis but is not copyright free. The music composer and the publisher remain the copyright owners.

STOCK MUSIC: Stock music is music that is produced for the specific purpose of licensing at fairly affordable rates. This music is rarely if ever released in record stores under an artist name. Licenses for Stock Music are generally non-exclusive, which means lower prices for the buyer. The Internet has drastically changed the way in which music is browsed; with today's digital delivery methods, music may be searched and acquired online within minutes.

Generally, Royalty Free Licensing is available from a Stock Music library such as Premiumbeat.com. But Stock Music can also be charged on a Rights Managed license basis for a specific, one-time use at a rate determined by a combination of factors: duration, purpose, territory, etc.

We hope this short article helps you understand the basics of music licensing. We will be happy to answer any question if you want further information.

Patrick Curley, attorney at law
Legal advisor for www.premiumbeat.com
Royalty Free Music Library

info@premiumbeat.com

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