Audio Recording

In film making, variety of elements are needed, the screenplay, actors/actresses, crew and most importantly the music. Big film makers; those with lots of budget can afford to pay high licensing fees to use popular music/songs. These production companies can have its 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 legally use the song or music to be used on their film project.

If you are an independent movie/film producer that wants to use copyrighted 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.

2. Right to use the sound recording/master recording rights – these are called “master recording rights”, the owner is typically the recording producer. Some independent music publishers are also recording producers and they also hold the rights of the sound recording.

A good example is an indie artist/producer that writes and produces original work. The artists wrote the song and then using his/her home studio, the master recording of that song was created. To make sure the artist original work would be protected; the artist obtains both the copyright of the song and the master recording.

The indie artist can then license this work to any interested parties such as movie/film and TV producers. Take note that in a situation like this, the artist functions both as a music publisher and a master recording rights owner.

If you plan to use the song but create your own master recording for the use in the projects; then you do not need to acquire sound recording rights. You simply need to ask permission from the music publisher to cover the song. Once granted; you start making your own master recording of that song and use it in your film.
The licensing fee depends on the music publisher and the budget of the film producer. It can be as low as $5 to as high as thousands of dollars for very popular songs.

Normally in a film production where music needs to be synchronized with the film visual images, then the sync and use of master recording rights are only required (which 95% of the indie film producers should need to be cleared). But these are not the only rights which you might need to acquire for your film project.

3. Mechanical rights – after completing your film project. You might need to burn it to several copies of DVD which you might sell to movie shops or even distribute it to other people. The reproduction of recorded medium (DVD, film strips, CDs, video cassette) requires you to acquire mechanical rights from the music publisher of the song/ music. If you do not plan to replicate your work to a number of copies, you do not need to acquire these rights in order to use certain music for your project.

In most cases (such as in Hollywood film projects), they are released and duplicated to several copies (DVDS, VCD, film strips), so they should need to acquire mechanical rights.Bear in mind that independent film makers do not distribute their movies to the public. They are provided to movie distributors. Thus the film makers are not the one to obtain mechanical rights but the only the distributors. The distributors would do the actual work of replicating the movies to several copies and have it available for sale.

If the music publisher is Harry Fox affiliated, then you need to arrange and get permission from them. Otherwise if they are not affiliated you need to contact directly the music publisher. The licensing fee depends on the number of copies to be sold or distributed. For example, the distributor would be paying high mechanical licensing fees if thousands or millions of copies would be distributed. Permanent digital downloads are also included in mechanical rights licensing.

4. Performance rights – once the project has been released to the public (like shown in theaters), the music will be publicly performed along with the movie. Thus, any commercial use should pay performance royalties. However as an independent film maker, you are not responsible for this but only those commercial venues that publicly show your film. In this case, movie theaters, cable channels and television stations which might be releasing or using your film project will be the one to pay performance royalties not you.