John SeayAt this point, you should have a fairly solid understanding of the differences between the roles of songwriters and artists, and the various revenue opportunities that are available for both. If some of the terminology and differences between organizations is getting a little confusing, don’t worry; remember that in our final segment, we will provide a flow chart that will help you visualize some of the information and make it easier to follow and understand. But before we get there we still have a couple more terms and potential revenue sources that need to be explained. Let’s take a look at digital distribution and licensing companies.
Part Five: Digital Distribution & Licensing Companies
Digital Distribution Company
Also called “digital aggregators,” these are the companies who help you get your music on Amazon, Spotify, iTunes, and dozens of other services. If you are self-releasing your own music, then you will probably go through a digital aggregator such as CD Baby, Tunecore, Catapult, DistroKid, etc. For these services, you typically pay an upfront fee (something in the tens of dollars range per album) and then they collect payments from the aforementioned services, take out their fee (typically around 9%) and then pay you the rest. If you’re a bigger artist or label, you may seek out a partnership with a digital distributor such as the Orchard, which will take a larger fee, something like 15%, in exchange for distributing your songs. Some of these digital aggregators now also offer publishing admin services, as discussed in Part Three.
Licensing (or Placement) Company
These are companies who work with you on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis to get your songs used in television and films, video games, commercials, etc. You should pretty much never pay anyone for this service, absent from really compelling reasons, and after consulting with an attorney. Licensing companies typically take between 30% and 50% of your master use and synchronization money, and some may take a percentage of your backend PRO royalties. Note that there are also so-called music library sites, like Marmoset, Soundstripe, Music Bed, etc. These companies issue cheap licenses, typically for smaller businesses and uses, like wedding photographers, people in charge of presentations at small companies and churches, indie film makers, etc. These are great sites to throw up your instrumentals or other toss-away tracks, assuming you have the right to do so. You won’t make $40,000 per sync, but you may get a few hundred bucks here and there. These sites are free to join.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Seay is the founder and principal of The Seay Firm, an entertainment and intellectual property law firm based in Atlanta at the Goat Farm Arts Center. As an artist himself, John has over a decade of experience as a musician, tour manager, and writer. In addition to his work at The Seay Firm, John is also Of Counsel in the entertainment and media practice group in the Nashville office of Loeb & Loeb, one of the largest and most comprehensive entertainment and media practice groups in the world. Before founding The Seay Firm, John worked for Turner Broadcasting. In 2016, John was recognized as a Georgia Super Lawyers Rising Star in Entertainment & Sports Law, a designation only awarded to 2.5% of attorneys in Georgia. John is on the Board of Directors of #weloveatl and serves as a volunteer attorney at Georgia Lawyers for the Arts. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law. John works exclusively with artists and arts-related businesses. You can read more about his practice via the links below.
More Info
Web: theseayfirm
Twitter: @TheSeayFirmLLC