Bridging The Gap in African Music with Sync Licensing – Part 3.

Over the past two weeks, we have been taking a deep dive in sync licensing. As we draw down the curtains on this series with the final part, we are going to show you how to make money off sync licensing, and how and where to pitch for placements.

SYNC LICENSING REVENUE

Sync licensing may be your one-stop shop because it gives you the freedom to decide when and how much you should be paid for your work. The upfront sync fees and the backend royalties are the two primary forms of sync licensing fees. When a copyright owner’s music is utilized in a visual media project, they may get upfront licensing fees in addition to royalties from residual use. There are upfront sync fees for different types of productions (commercials, trailers, films, etc.) and other considerations like timing, territory, and terms of license. Once a song is approved and licensed for use by video production companies, it is standard practice for copyright owners to receive up-front payments. Production houses typically need to pay upfront costs within 90 days. For instance, if your song is used in the making of a TV commercial, you may get paid $10,000 upfront fees within 90 days of the deal clearing and licensing, plus further royalties each time the production airs.

However, whenever a visual media project featuring your music airs, backend royalty payments for sync are accrued. Backend payments are typically collected by music PROs that represent musicians 9 to 12 months after the production is shown.

Other sync fees have occasionally been made available to copyright owners depending on particular demands in a “Brief” by the production house. The “Demo fee”, which is paid for custom work, is one such price (also known as spec work, which refers to music creation for sync to a particular type of specification demanded in visual media production) that can be paid without regard to whether the production house will employ the composer’s or copyright owner’s music. Demo fees are frequently paid to them; this is typically viewed as a sort of incentive for the creation of their work. This situation is somewhat reminiscent of sync advances, although sync advances are payments made to composers for the composition of unique albums for production or music libraries for production houses.

HOW AND WHERE TO PITCH YOUR SONGS FOR PLACEMENT

Due to the dearth of guidelines and resources to aid in planning and pitching, the majority of artists have probably not had a positive experience with sync licensing and understanding whether and how their catalogs can be utilized for syncing is a common problem for artists. Composers must first realize that writing songs for commercial sync potential is very different from writing songs for other purposes.

Historically, songs with emotional elements have been easier to sync than ones with literal images. A major component of sync licensing is storytelling in various forms and music with vivid literal imagery tells a story in the mind’s eye of the audience, normally painting a different story from what production companies may want to tell. In theory, two distinct stories with dissimilar themes cannot coincide if they are not in time. The majority of video productions benefit from having emotional components or themes that identify emotions like love, sadness, heartbreak, happiness, etc. One instance is the 2013 upbeat soul hit song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, which was timed to Universal Studios’ computer-animated comedy picture “Despicable Me 2,” which earned $970 million overall and is the third-highest-grossing movie of all time. The theme for the song expresses joy, an emotion, which in most cases makes it favorable for productions with a storyline revolving around “happiness”. So the first step is to define your sound with more emotive themes in your songwriting.

An important aspect of how to properly find a sync deal is to make sure you have a detailed split sheet with percentages of various composers on the project and their metadata. This data is imperative for creators to earn and receive credits due to them in the world of sync licensing. Split sheets should contain the full names of collaborators and their publishing administrators, date of completion, song title, ownership, and percentages as well as signatures of collaborators, IPI numbers, and PROs of composers, also emails/phone numbers should be attached to split sheets. Above and beyond the split sheets, the subject “metadata” is a vital component of sync licensing, Include relevant metadata information such as Song title, Artist name, ISRC (international standard recording codes), copyright ownership, mood, genre, etc.. to be considered for a licensing deal. Fortunately, Tech companies have made tagging your music with relevant metadata quite easy. Search for free online tools such as MP3Tag and Tag Editor can help you tag your music composition with accurate metadata information.

The next step of the sync licensing journey requires thorough research into finding professionals within the interactive industry who can help actualize your dream of finding a suitable sync deal. Relevant personnel includes; Music supervisors, sync agencies/agents, music libraries, and production houses. Sync licensing professionals assist with music licensing, clearance, and negotiation of sync licensing fees on behalf of the parties involved. This is a very vital step in the process that should not be overlooked for any artist or management hoping to successfully bag a sync deal. It explores the type of sync licensing institutions they are, the file format type they work easily with, and their previous body of work with production houses or video producers to aid you to identify who, where, and how to pitch your songs to them.

Artists must always ensure to have clean versions of their songs before pitching for sync licensing, currently, there are no standardized file formats for a pitch in a sync deal. While some sync agents or music supervisors may work fine with WAV( waveform audio file format), others may demand songs in AIFF (audio interchange file format). You must be prepared to provide songs in whatever file formats a sync entity demands to secure a sync licensing deal.

A key reminder for the artist is to ensure they retrieve “STEMS” from sound engineers after a recording session. In Sync licensing, STEMS refer to the sub-mixes or alternative mixes, and music supervisors may demand three versions of the song during a pitch; these versions could be a full mix, the instrumental stem, and the acapella stem(vocals). Ensuring you have all full versions of your composition can be a sure way to have your music considered for a deal.

Your decision to use a sync license as your first big leap of faith as an artist must have been enlightening. Since more independent musicians in Africa have a better understanding of the potential, relevance, success stories, and references, as well as how to get started, I sincerely believe that they will take advantage of more sync opportunities and close the sync licensing gap.

Get in touch with me @kwes_233 on Twitter for more information or if you need assistance with your Sync journey.

Written by: Allen Kwasi Adjei