photo by BL1961

Welcome back to our series on making money with production music libraries. If you’re a music composer looking to find placements in television, film, video games, and other places, submitting your music to production music libraries is a great place to start. In this installment, we will look at the process of evaluating online production music libraries, and submitting your music.

For those songwriters and composers who are new here, check out the other articles in this series and be sure to sign up for free email updates or the RSS feed to keep up!

1. Introduction / What are production music libraries
2. Produce tracks that sell
3. Copyright your music
4. Register with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO)
5. Submit your songs to production music libraries
6. Leverage your music placements to gain future music for picture work

Find Online Production Music Libraries

Through just a bit of Googling or Twitter search, you will quickly find a ton of online production music libraries. Some of the terms that generate lots of results are, “Production Music Library“, “Stock Music Library“, and “Royalty Free Music Library“.

Included at the end of this article is a list of production music libraries that openly encourage music submissions. This could be a good starting point for finding the right set of libraries to shoot for.

Differences Among Music Libraries

Online music libraries tend to fall into one of three categories:

1) Those that act as the Publisher

These production music libraries will generally control 100% publisher’s share of performance royalties. You, the composer, will still retain 100% writer’s share. In addition, each library varies in the way they split licensing fees (if any) with the composer. A song that is licensed through this type of music library cannot be licensed through another library under the same song title.

While this option may seem to offer the least financial benefit to the composer, these libraries do offer the potential for lots of placements, which can generate a sizable amount of performance royalties over time. Remember, your tracks can be licensed over and over on a non-exclusive basis, which makes them a continuous money-maker over the long-term.

One example of this type of music library is Freeplay Music.

2) Those that act as the Administrative Agent

These production music libraries allow you the flexibility to submit and license your music through other libraries in addition to theirs. Here’s how these types of music libraries generally work: Upon accepting your submitted music, they will rename your songs. Then they will register your renamed songs with their PRO, and handle all collections and distributions of performance royalties. This renaming and PRO registration process is for the purposes of this library only. You are free to submit your songs (under your own titles) to other music libraries.

An example of this type of music library is Pump Audio. Through their system, Pump Audio takes 50% of the publisher’s share of performance royalties. You, the composer retains 100% of the writer’s share (150% total for you). In addition, all licensing fee’s are split 50/50 between you and Pump Audio.

Pump Audio is a great place to submit music to since they are among the most popular services out there. Aside from the large amount of TV placements they can deliver, their service also drives the music section of Getty Images.

3) Micro-payment sites

These music libraries stay out of the publishing game altogether. You are free to submit your music for their library as well as others. Your music is posted on their site for relatively small licensing fees (usually only a couple bucks per download). They offer you a percentage of the licensing fees collected through downloads of your music. Your cut is usually fairly small so it requires a long period of time to really accumulate a decent amount of cash from licensing. Of course, you still retain 200% of the performance royalties should your music end up on a TV show, radio spot, or other royalty-generating exposure.

An example of this type of music library is Audio Jungle. They offer the composer 25% of the download fee, which ranges from $1 to $10. Not much, but give it time. They also offer you the option to become an “exclusive” composer, which means you agree not to offer your music anywhere else besides Audio Jungle. Exclusive composers get 40% – 70% of sales, depending on volume.

Research / Contact / Submit

As you can see, it takes a bit of digging through the fine print on these websites to figure out which category of music library they are.  Some offer extensive FAQ’s while others simply offer an email address.  Find out as much as you can, then use the provided contact form or email address to get in touch.

Follow the instructions they provide for submitting music.  This usually involves mailing in a CD, but it may be as simple as uploading your tracks through the website.  Each library has a different system, and some have more advanced websites than others.  Sometimes this info may be a bit hard to find.  If the website doesn’t have a dedicated page for composers, the info is usually located in the “Help”, “FAQ”, or “Contact” sections.

List of Production Music Libraries

Here’s a list of production music libraries to get you started on your search.  Some of these have generated nice sums of money for my music, others just seem to show potential (although I have not personally used them for my music).  Dig in:

• Freeplay Music
• Pump Audio
• Audio Jungle
• Stock Music (stockmusic.net)
• Beat Suite
• Proud Music Library
• Ditty Base
• Gratis Music Library
• Sound Image
• Fresh Music
• Premium Beat
• S3MX
• Oak Stock Music
• 615 Music
• Production Music Library
• APM Music

photo by woodleywonderworks

We’re moving right along in our series on making money with production music libraries.  Now that you have produced your music for picture tracks and registered your music copyrights, the next step is to register your tracks with your performing rights organization.  Why is this step important?  It’s how you get paid.  This installment will show you how it works.

If you’re new to this article series, this is where we’re at:

1. Introduction / What are production music libraries?
2. Producing tracks that sell
3. Copyrighting your music
4. Registering with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO)
5. Submitting your songs to production music libraries
6. Leveraging your music placements to gain future music for picture work

Subscribe to free email updates or the RSS feed to keep up!

What Does a Performing Rights Organization Do?

The function of a performing rights organization, or PRO, is to track, collect, and distribute performance royalties to music composers.  When your song is played on television, radio, at a restaurant, public event, or even music on hold for telephone systems, it generates performance royalties.

The broadcasting company, restaurant, or company who uses your music pays blanket license fees to the PROs.  The PRO’s then distribute these funds as royalties to the composers and publishers of the music.

For television productions, a cue-sheet is filed by the producer of the television show.  The cue sheet lists who the composer and publisher are for every music track in the program.  This is how royalties are correctly distributed to the appropriate parties.

Which Performing Rights Organization Should You Join?

The three major performing rights organizations in the United States are BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC.  Here is a complete list of all performing rights organizations around the world.

A composer can only be a member of one performing rights organization.  It’s worth taking the time to read up on each of your options because you can only make this decision once.  That said, there isn’t a clear favorite or one that pays out more royalties than the others – although this is a point of widespread debate.

Since SESAC is much harder to be accepted to, the decision is most often between BMI and ASCAP.  Generally speaking, each are similar in the way they function.  Both are free to join as a composer.  There are minor differences in the scheduling of royalty payments, which may have an impact on your decision.  Both websites offer a tremendous amount of information and FAQ’s covering all the ins and outs.

How Do I Register My Music?

Each PRO has their own web-based system for managing your music catalog.  However the main points you need to know about are the same.

Registering a song to your catalog of works involves defining the title, length, names of collaborating composers (one or several), name of publishing company (if any) and other minor details about the work.

For each song, you will also define the percentage shares of royalty distribution.  Each song holds 200% royalty shares.  100% is considered the writer’s share.  100% goes to the publisher of the song.  If there is no publisher, then the writer(s) receive the complete 200% share of royalty earnings.

Receiving and reading your royalty statements and earnings will be covered in an upcoming article in this series.  For now, you should focus on producing lots of great and useful music and read up on the options available to you regarding your performing rights organization.

photo by Craig-Photography

The next step in the series on making money with production music libraries is copyrighting your compositions.  Securing your work with proper music copyrights is an important part of building your music for picture catalog.  This article will offer a simple explanation of music copyrights, and show you how to register your copyright.

Stay up on this article series by subscribing to free email updates or the RSS feed! The series covers:

1. Introduction / What are production music libraries?
2. Producing tracks that sell
3. Copyrighting your music
4. Registering with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO)
5. Submitting your songs to production music libraries
6. Leveraging your music placements to gain future music for picture work

What is Music Copyright?

From Wikipedia:

“Copyright gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation; after which time the work is said to enter the public domain.  Copyright has been internationally standardized, lasting between fifty to a hundred years from the author’s death, or a shorter period for anonymous or corporate authorship.”

Why Register Copyrights?

Legally, as the author and creator a musical work, you automatically own the copyright to your music as soon as you write and record the song.  However, you should still take the necessary steps to officially register your copyright.  This will offer you additional protection should anyone attempt to steal and use your music without your permission.

From the US copyright.gov FAQ:

Registration is recommended for a number of reasons. Many choose to register their works because they wish to have the facts of their copyright on the public record and have a certificate of registration. Registered works may be eligible for statutory damages and attorney’s fees in successful litigation. Finally, if registration occurs within 5 years of publication, it is considered prima facie evidence in a court of law. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration” and Circular 38b, Highlights of Copyright Amendments Contained in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), on non-U.S. works.

Sounds complicated, I know.  But since registering your copyrights is a cheap and easy process, you’re clearly much better off protecting yourself than putting your potentially lucrative work at risk of being stolen.

How to Register Music Copyrights

You can easily register your music online by going to www.copyright.gov.  It’s a complete online system, which guides you through the process of registering your works with the United States library of congress.  You can find detailed documentation and FAQs covering all the information you need in regards to copyrights, procedures, and the online system.

Start by registering for an account at the electronic copyright office at copyright.gov.  Once logged in, you can proceed with your online registration of works.  It’s a three step process:

1. Application
2. Payment
3. Works submission

All three steps can be completed online.  This is the easiest and cheapest way to do it.

The cost is $35 for online registration ($45 for paper registration).  You can register multiple songs together as a collection in a single registration.  That’s right, you can register 20 songs all at once for $35.

A copy of your music is held on file at the library of congress.  You can submit your music online without the hassle of mailing the CD.  The online registration system allows you to upload a variety of audio formats including .mp3, .aiff, and .wav.

When your registration process is complete, you will receive a certificate of copyright registration in the mail.  Generally the process is completed within five months.  But don’t worry about waiting that long to get your music out there.  Your registration is effective from time you submit your application.

Then what?

Once you complete your online copyright registration, the next step is to register with a performing rights organization (PRO) so that you can collect your performance royalties when your music is played in broadcast.  The next article in this series will cover everything you need to know about performing rights organizations.