There are several different types of music-licensing agreements, but the two primary ones to worry about are sync and master use agreements – these agreements deal with pre-existing songs and sound recordings, not ones specifically composed for your film. She was shocked to discover that the director had licensed the songs himself and got charged five times what the fees should have been. Brooke Wentz’s company, The Rights Workshop, helps filmmakers secure the appropriate rights for any budget.īrooke recently worked on a film that got distribution at a festival and needed to expand the rights. That’s why it’s useful to have someone that knows about clearance to be the middleman. Certain songs might never be clearable just because of inner conflicts that have nothing to do with you or your movie.įilmmakers can get charged higher fees because they don’t know the numbers. Many deceased musicians’ rights are owned by their spouse or ex-spouse-or both. If the estate or the artist is not on board you will not be able to use the music. If you’re doing a music doc, make sure you can secure the rights. If you do not clear the rights for a song, you could receive a “cease and desist” letter from the rights holder which could incur fees. It might be frustrating if they are not getting back to you, but you have to keep pushing. “I said ‘Nope, I’m pretty sure that’s a George Harrison song.’” No response does not mean an approval. “I had a client who thought ‘My Sweet Lord’ was in the public domain,” Wentz explained. If you think a song is in the public domain, double check. Most filmmakers don’t know that they can offer a lower price, or if the artist likes the subject matter of the film, they might offer a better rate. The rate for a piece of music is negotiable! The only exception to this is if the song is used over beginning or end credits. If you use a song for five seconds or two minutes, it will cost you the same amount of money. The fee is the same regardless of the duration of the cue. If you don’t have enough money in your budget to pay for all the rights up front, you can clear only the film festival rights and add an option to get all media rights up to two years later. Meaning $500 for the publishers, $500 for the master. Here are Wentz’s top six secrets for music licensing: For festival rights, most songs can be cleared at around $500 per side. If one of them says no, then unfortunately you can’t use the song. Therefore, if you wanted to clear this tune you would need approval from all five of the writers and on top of that you would need approval from Katy Perry. Katy Perry’s song “California Gurls,” for instance, has five publishers. This can get tricky when there are a lot of songwriters involved. Once you’ve determined who owns the publishing and the master, you must contact them separately and ask for permission to use the song. ![]() To determine who owns the rights to songs, the websites and bmi.com are extremely helpful. You can listen to a song like “All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix, but you may not know that the writer is Bob Dylan. To use this piece of music you need permission from both entities. There is the person who wrote the song (who holds the publisher rights, aka “sync” rights) and the person who recorded it (who holds the “master” rights). ![]() ![]() The most important thing to know is that there are two rights to every song. Brooke Wentz, the music supervisor behind Kings Point, Bully and Bill Cunningham New York cleared up some of the confusion and little-known realities of music licensing during a recent Film Independent education event. What many directors don’t realize is that the process of clearing that song can be very difficult and expensive. A scene, or even an entire film, can revolve around a single piece of music. To kick off the campaign, we’re re-posting a few of our most popular blogs.įilmmakers often feel so attached to a song that it becomes a crucial and indispensable element of their story. All donations make before or on September 15 will be doubled-dollar-for-dollar up to $100,000. The BFA Programs are 8 semesters in length and can be completed in 4 years on the Traditional Track OR in as little as 2 years and 9 months on AMDA’s Accelerated Track.Film Independent is currently in the middle of a Matching Campaign to raise support for the next 30 years of filmmaker support. Designed to transform talented individuals into well-rounded artists, the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Degree Programs combine a comprehensive college education with rigorous conservatory-level artistic training.
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