Sunday, July 24, 2011

Royalty Free Music Defined

By Raynold Oscar


When music is used in media situations, such on websites, in movies, or in television programs, whoever owns the many different rights to the music has to provide their permission for their music to be used. Usually, the licensing and payment to do this can be very expensive and is normally done each time that the music is used. Royalty free music can simplify this process by offering a simple licensing structure, which provides the media producer with the right to use the music as many times as he/she wants an any way he/she wants without the need to buy any additional licenses.

Royalty free licensing is sometimes known as copyrights for music. When a media producer has a desire to include a piece music in their new production, in order to do this, they need permission from the owners of the music copyright. When this music is to be used with pictures that accompany ii, it is called the right of synchronization. This permission to actually record and copy and include some music into a new media project is called mechanical right. It is these permissions that royalty free music libraries make available easily and rapidly. This permission is required in order for a media producer to include the music in their new production. For instance, this could be for a new corporate video, on hold production, website, film, or television program. The media producer doesn't have to pay any additional fees to the royalty free music library, regardless of how the new media production is used, provided that the terms of the license are followed. This general principle is used, although different royalty free music libraries might have somewhat different terms for their licenses.

The term royalty free can be somewhat confusing regardless if it's used for music or other media like video or pictures. More accurately descriptive and better term might be license paid, but the term royalty free has become the standard within the music industry. When a media production that is newly created is broadcast at a later time in one way or another to the public in general, there can be some confusion about the term royalty. There is another right in music, which is called the performance right. This means that the media producer must have permission when music is broadcast to the public in general. The media producer doesn't have to pay anymore because they have already licensed the music from the music library that is royalty free.

The performance right is administered in each nation by a local Performance Rights Organization (PRO), who represents the artists who write the music. They will collect a fee from the broadcasters, for instance radio and television stations, and redistributes the funds to the writers of the music, so that each writer will get a small payment for every radio or television broadcast of their music sooner or later. The local PRO will enquire from whoever broadcasts the music to the public, for instance the television networks, to pay a license fee for this. This is normally a yearly blanket license fee that will cover the broadcaster for all of the music that they broadcast during the entire year. For instance, the producer of a television program doesn't have to pay PRO fees because the television station will pays them annually. Therefore, radio and television broadcasters simply pay fees for the performance rights fees to their local PRO. Libraries of royalty free music don't charge fees for performance rights.

There are several reasons to use music that is royalty free which include: it's legal; it's specifically intended for use by the media; it's more cost effective than conventional licensing; licensing is easy; it's readily and wildly available, and; it provides easy and rapid access to music.




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