If you are a singer/songwriter, artist, or producer, there is no other strong asset that can guarantee you long term success except your hit songs.
You have read stories of successful songwriters making a good living out of their hit songs. And even a single hit song can really have a big impact on the songwriter financial lives. The problem is that hit songs do not come naturally and is rare to find. Only a small percentage of released singles could actually become long term hits.
Below are some of the proven techniques for producing hit songs that are observed from the songwriting legends like Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney, as well as many others. If you like to produce hit songs, then you should try the following tips below.
In film making, variety of elements are needed, the screenplay, actors/actresses, crew and the most important- the music. Big film makers with lots of budget can afford to pay high licensing fees to use popular music/songs. These production companies can have their own dedicated licensing departments to arrange agreements with music publishers.
It can be a different scenario for independent film makers or small movie production companies. It is because they do not have its own lawyers or experts in music licensing working for them all the time. It is essential for them to know the music rights for film. Knowing these rights can be helpful for them to get permission to use copyrighted music on their film project.
If you are an independent movie/film producer that wants to legally music in your project; then make sure you know the rights that you need to be cleared before you can start working in your project.
What are the important music rights for film?
1. Right to synchronization – these are popularly called “sync” rights. These are the rights for music to be used and synchronized together with film visual images. In layman’s term; this is synonymous with the film “sound track”. The licensing fee for sync depends on the music publisher and the licensee budget. It can be as low as $5 to as high as thousands of dollars for popular hit songs.
Naturally, if you use music or songs that belong to the public domain then you will not need to get permission(read: When does music fall into the public domain?). However things are very different if the music is copyrighted. Always remember that to ask permission to use copyrighted music is the same as asking for a music license to use them.
This is where a lot of confusion can take place. Bear in mind that the process would depend on the music copyright owner. Some copyright owners are not strict with their requirements in terms of asking permission. Typically in most processes, you will be required to apply for a music license and pay some fee. While in some situations, it does not require you to apply for license or pay at all. This post would cover all these aspects in detail, so that you will know what to do regardless of any differences between the processes.
Step1.) Find the music publisher of the copyrighted music
You need to know the music publisher of the song. Music publisher administers copyrighted music. This is where you need to obtain permission to use music. In most cases, this is not available so you need to do some research. You can start with the artist or the songwriter of the song. You will know the artist or songwriter by examining the ID3 tags information of the MP3 file (or CD in-lay for CD album).
