Traditional Licensing​

 

Traditionally you needed to research who owns the rights, contact each label and publisher and then negotiate with them, but that:

• isn’t scalable from the music industry’s point of view because they are set up to do big deals for music in adverts, films and more;

• is a complex process for teams who are inexperienced in intellectual property licensing

• Will be time consuming and expensive when most teams are on a quick turnaround with a limited budget.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This can be even more complicated if a song has many writers on the work.

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Let's take a look at Travis Scott 'Sicko Mode':

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As you can see, here we have the recording artist who performs the song, which in this case is Travis Scott, and then the songwriters - the people who write the lyrics and melodies. In this example there are 30 writers, some of whom own less than 1%(**) of the music! - its the most extreme case we’ve found so far, but the AVERAGE hit song now has 9 writers, each who need to give permission before you license their song.

 

Each writer will probably be represented by a different music publisher, and that could also be different in different countries, which can also change over time.

 

In order to license any of the rights previously mentioned, then you need permission from every single one of these writers, PLUS the record label representing the recording artist and would need to contact and negotiate with each and every one of them.