From the course: Learning Music Licensing

The players and gatekeepers in licensing

From the course: Learning Music Licensing

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The players and gatekeepers in licensing

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- [Instructor] So who are the players in the music licensing space? There are multiple people and companies involved in licensing music, but let's start with four, music supervisors, record labels, publishers, and let's face it, the songwriters, the most important player in this whole process. If there weren't incredibly talented musicians writing songs that move us, then we wouldn't even have a music business. Then, there's the music supervisor, the person who identifies which song or cue to be used in a spot is called the music supervisor. These are the people who will decide what song fits the bill, from the smallest DIY band or composer to the biggest band and composer in the world. There are music supervision companies that are hired on a project-by-project basis. And there are also full-time music supervisors at TV networks, film trailer houses, branding agencies, video game publishers, and movie studios. If you already have some of these people in your network, then you're ahead of the game, but the vast majority of people do not already know music supervisors. And supervisors are getting harder to know with every passing year, as they're more and more inundated with music. I put record labels on the list because sometimes they hold the rights to your song if you're in a record deal. But please understand that, in this course, we're talking about how to get your songs licensed within media. This is a different focus than getting your band signed to a record deal, as an example Atlantic Records, Columbia Records, Capitol Records. Sometimes those two objectives will align, but oftentimes they will not. This is not a course on how to get your band signed to a label. It's about how to make you money and build a resume of solid film, TV, and video game placements for your music. And finally, publishers are key players in the licensing space because, in many cases, they own a portion of or an entire composition. Examples of some of the biggest publishers are Warner/Chappell, Kobalt, Sony BMG, Universal, and Wixen. There are mid-sized and very small publishers as well. Some publishers own a wide variety of songs, while others focus on certain niche genres, such as songs from marching bands or bluegrass only.

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