Getting Your Music Licensed – ASCAP “I Create Music” Expo

ASCAP 2012 Music Licensing

Getting Your Music Licensed in Film, TV and Beyond (presented by the Guild of Music Supervisors) was the first panel I attended at the 2012 ASCAP “I Create Music” Expo held at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in Hollywood, CA on April 19th.

The panel consisted of Anna Granucci (Founder, Music Supervisor & Film Producer – Scene Tracks Music; Guild of Music Supervisors), Andrea von Foerster (Music Supervisor – Firestarter Music; Guild of Music Supervisors), Janine Scalise (Manager, Business & Legal Affairs, Music – Starz Entertainment) & JoJo Villanueva (Music Supervisor – Format Entertainment; Guild of Music Supervisors); and was moderated by Jonathan McHugh (Founder – Song Stew Entertainment; Guild of Music Supervisors).

These music supervisors sift through thousands upon thousands of submissions and spend most of their waking hours listening, scanning and jumping around and within musical works for licensing in film, TV and more.  They walk the border between the art and the business related to it, searching for the right fit for the right clip at the right price.

Submissions come from all areas of the musical spectrum including indies, majors, composers and producers.  The panel stated that they like to work with trusted sources, or connectors (e.g. – Zync Music, LipSync, The Talent House & Secret Road), and that you get only one chance to make a first impression!

The theme prevalent throughout was to make sure your work is presentable and containing all information relevant to said submission.  Points were stressed in 3 different areas—legals, files and contact guidelines:

LEGALS:

 

– have contracts with relevant parties giving permission to pitch the work (and if you are not the owner of the copyrights or masters, include contact information for how to reach these owners)
– have the splits among co-writers and co-publishers in writing along with their associated Performing Rights Organizations (PROs)
– have samples and interpolations properly licensed and notated
– have all other legal paperwork in order such as Work for Hires
-music supervisors want NO surprises when it comes time for them to clear and use submissions

 

FILES:

 

– ALL work submitted should have correctly titled and labeled metadata embedded for easy search (artist, song title, record company, songwriters and publishers along with their corresponding PROs, producers, cue sheets and contact information)
– file quality of .wav, .aiff or 320kbps .mp3 with metadata applicable per type
– have all versions of the work available upon request: instrumental, vocal and final mix

 

CONTACT:

 

– E-MAIL, DO NOT CALL! How can they listen to you when both of their ears are tuned in listening to submissions?!
– DO NOT include attachments, instead include a download link that streams AND does not expire (e.g. – Box.net)
– indicate where you, or the artist (if submitting for others) is geographically located or from
– by embedding all relevant metadata in the submission e-mails can be short and sweet, to the point and succinct!

 

RITZY TIP: Make sure and verify each field is properly labeled per guidelines and double-check to see if links sent are active and working!

Other points include that some artists forego the immediate pay day in exchange for greater exposure and more plays, from outlets such as MTV, with hopes the final result will be close to, or sometimes surpass the upfront check. Creators were also encouraged to pursue indie projects whenever possible, to pickup The Hollywood Reporter and cross reference it with IMDb; and to be creative with their work by mixing up arrangements, allowing for intros, builds and hard outs at times, hence creating diversity in an artist’s catalog.

Music Quotes…

In order of the quoted with no weight to any… enjoy…

“Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.” –Henri Frederic Amiel

“Where words fail, music speaks.” –Hans Christian Andersen

“Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try.” –Mary Kay Ash

“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” –Berthold Auerbach

“Music is a higher revelation than philosophy.” –Ludwig van Beethoven

“Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.” –Ludwig van Beethoven

“Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.” –Ludwig van Beethoven

“Life exists for the love of music or beautiful things.” –G. K. Chesterton

“Music is the art of thinking with sounds.” –Jules Combarieu

“Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.” –Confucius

“To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.” –Aaron Copland

“Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.” –Claude Debussy

“Music is an outburst of the soul.” –Frederick Delius

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. … I get most joy in life out of music.” –Albert Einstein

“You are the music while the music lasts.” –T.S. Eliot

“There is music wherever there is harmony, order, or proportion.” –Thomas C. Haliburton

“Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought.” –E. Y. Harburg

“Music is the soul of language.” –Max Heindel

“When words leave off, music begins.” –Heinrich Heine

“Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.” –Jimi Hendrix

“My goal is to be one with the music. I just dedicate my whole life to this art.” –Jimi Hendrix

“Music is a safe kind of high.” –Jimi Hendrix

“Music is my religion.” –Jimi Hendrix

“Music makes me high on stage, and that’s the truth. It’s like being almost addicted to music.” –Jimi Hendrix

“Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you’ll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you’re gonna be rewarded.” –Jimi Hendrix

“When I die, I want people to play my music, go wild and freak out and do anything they want to do.” –Jimi Hendrix

“Music expresses that which can not be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” –Victor Hugo

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” –Aldous Huxley

“Music is the universal language of mankind.” –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music.” –Marcel Marceau

“I love the development of our music, that’s what I really dig about the whole thing. How we’ve tried to develop, y’know? It grows. That’s why every day people come forward with new songs. Music goes on forever.” –Bob Marley

“My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.” –Bob Marley

“My music will go on forever. Maybe it’s a fool say that, but when me know facts me can say facts. My music will go on forever.” –Bob Marley

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.” –Abraham Maslow

“Music is the harmonious voice of creation; an echo of the invisible world.” –Giuseppe Mazzini

“Without music life would be a mistake.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

“Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul.” –Plato

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” –Plato

“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.” –Sergei Rachmaninov

“When I don’t like a piece of music, I make a point of listening to it more closely.” –Florent Schmitt

“The earth has music for those who listen.” –William Shakespeare

“I’ve never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.” –Virgil Thomson

“Music is perpetual, and only the hearing is intermittent.” –Henry David Thoreau

“The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it.” –Henry David Thoreau

“When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.” –Henry David Thoreau

“I write music with an exclamation point!” –Richard Wagner

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