The Future of Music Licensing

The Future of Music Licensing

Music licensing has been going through some big changes in the last few years. The number of people and businesses creating and consuming digital content has never been bigger. The offer is huge. The demand even more. A whole new market of independent content creators has emerged, with the need for an adapted music licensing solution to score their audiovisual creations. In this article, we discuss how this need changed the music licensing industry.  

Traditional Copyright Licensing

Music licensing is traditionally a complicated and expensive privilege reserved for the entertainment industry and the more affluent large businesses. They pay exorbitant fees and royalties to license popular music by famous artists. Fees that are far out of reach of any small-scale business or personal budget. 

But things changed in the last 10 years. With the rise of the internet, social media, and the lower cost of prosumer recording and content development tools, came a booming demand for music for personal or small business use. People needed music for their wedding videos, indie films, vlogs, and other small-scale projects. A first step in the right direction was made with sync licensing:

Sync Licensing

A sync license is a type of music license that allows the licensee to synchronize the music composition with their own audiovisual creation (video, podcasts, social media posts, company videos, websites, computer games, ads, …). As opposed to more traditional licensing models that are still valid for music by well-known artists, sync licensing is usually royalty-free. This means that the licensee pays a one-time fee for the rights to use the song. Royalties are ongoing payments owed to the rights owner per reproduction of the song. 

Sync licensing was the first adaptation to the new music licensing market needs. But sync licenses could still mount up to thousands of dollars, well beyond the budget of the common content creator. A huge opportunity rose for independent musicians to create revenue by licensing their music at lower prices with a new type of license.

The Future Lies in Micro Sync Licensing

To cater to the needs of a huge market of vloggers, indie filmmakers, professional videographers, and small-time entrepreneurs, online music marketplaces like Artlist.io started issuing micro sync licenses. With a micro sync license, content creators can download as many compositions as they need for a low monthly or annual subscription fee, granting a license that is valid worldwide, on any platform, and forever. This low-cost subscription model is made possible with the use of independently created music, by unknown but high-quality musicians. It proved to be so popular that thousands of video assets are now created every day using micro sync licensing. It is safe to assume that the future of music licensing will stick with micro sync licensing for the time being.