The 7 Day Challenge to Kickstart Your Career in Music Licensing

Before we get started, I want to make sure you have at least 3 tracks (songs and/or instrumentals) recorded and exported as mp3 files.

Ok so…

To start with, sit down and pick between 3 and 10 tunes you’re going to be focusing on for the next 7 days.

These could be songs and/or instrumentals. It doesn’t matter as long as the production quality is good (friendly reminder: good does not mean perfect).

If you’re not sure about production quality, move forward anyway. You’ll find out soon enough ?

Here’s what I want you to do for each of those tunes:

Make sure the tunes you selected are registered with a Performance Rights Organisation (PRO).

If you already know what a PRO is and have already registered your songs with yours, move on to day 4 now or take the day off ?

PROs are the organisations that ensure that you get paid royalties when one of your tunes is performed on radio, TV, etc.

In the US, that could be ASCAP or BMI. In the UK it’s PRS. SACEM is the one in France.

You only need to register with one. For example, I registered with PRS when I was living in London. Now I’m back in Paris and it’s fine: PROs around the world collaborate with each other to collect royalties in their territory and coordinate with other PROs to get the composers paid.

There’s no need to be fancy about it. Just register with the PRO of your choice.

Check out this list of PROs to find out the options in your part of the world.

Now I can hear some of you getting ready to scream WHAT ABOUT COPYRIGHT?!!!!

Well, here’s my take on copyright: you don’t need it right now.

NO YOU DON’T!

SERIOUSLY! Get over yourself!

With the scores and scores of music being uploaded on Youtube, Spotify, Soundcloud, etc. every single day (in 2012, Soundcloud users were uploading 10 hours of music every minute), what do you think the chances are of YOUR music being exactly what a horrible little thief person needs right about now?!

Second question: what if you had your song copyrighted and someone stole it from you and made money with it… what are the chances that they would make bucket loads of cash with it?!

Third question: if they did make bucket loads of cash with it… could you afford to spend years in court (making advance payments to lawyers)?

Now, of course, it’s your call and it’s your responsibility. I’m just spouting off my opinion here. I’ve decided that, for my music, copyrighting is not worth my time and money. I may live to regret it.

By all means, get every single one of your songs copyrighted if you like. Just make sure you’re not using this step as an excuse not to move forward, like an entrepreneur who registers an LLC before having a product to sell.

Anyway, now you have 3-10 tunes ready to go, you’re registered with a PRO and you’ve registered the 3-10 tunes with that PRO.

Let’s move on to step 3.

Here’s a list of 8 music libraries…

You can find more on Google.

Just be imaginative and search for “stock music”, “production music”, “music library”, etc.

While you’re doing your research, there are a couple of things I want you do to:

When you’re submitting music to a library, don’t forget to follow the submission guidelines detailed on their website. They took the time to write them, you should take the time to read and stick by them :p

That means if they ask for a minimum of 4 tracks and you only have 3, wait until you have another tune to offer. If they ask for streaming links of individual tracks, don’t send them attachments or links to a playlist.

I know, I know, that’s just common sense. And yet, scores of musicians don’t put in the time or effort to actually follow the simple guidelines of music libraries. Don’t be that person.

If your schedule is packed right now, schedule a 7 day period in the near future where you commit to this and set a reminder.