Royalty Collecting Societies Archives » Royalty Free Music Blog by Proud Music

What is a commercial? How does one license music for it?

What is a commercial?

The Proud Music Library offers music titles for its use in commercials, such as, for example, in promotional films. A commercial is usually, in a nutshell, a promotional production that advertises a product or service. The target is the end user. This happens generally through media such as TV, radio, websites, and mobile phones, commercial spots on DVD or the like. Data carriers are rarely found.

Music tracks for commercials — Searchmaschine for music that is perfect for commercial use!

commercial music library

In this respect, licensing for the use of music titles from the Proud Music Library is paid in lump sum. This means that the use does not depend on the frequency with which a spot is projected or on its length. There are standardized commercial licenses (for example, for TV or online advertising), which limit the use to one year. The Proud Music Library also offers the so called “buyout” licenses. Just send an individual license request indicating the area of use (worldwide, across Europe, or individual territories), the period of use (one or 2 years), and the degree of dissemination or type of use (TV, Websites, third party site, etc.). License combinations are also possible, which, for example, include only TV/radio, TV/Internet, or Internet/radio.

completely royalty free music means free music for commercial us?

With the use of so called “completely royalty free music” from the Proud Music library there are no charges to pay to any collecting society like ASCAP, BMI, PRS, GEMA, etc.. It means not music for free or gratis music. This is valid also in the case of buyout licenses for royalty-free music! Should the commercial spot be inserted on TV and radio, there would be likewise no charges for the repertoire, as long as the TV or radio station has a flat rate contract with a collecting society. This also proceeds in the case of cinema advertising, depending on whether the movie theater operator also has, in this case, a flat rate contract with a collecting society.

Royalty-free music and production music for commercials on TV, Radio or Cinema — Royalty-free music for commercials on TV, Radio or Cinema

What is Royalty free music?

Is it free music?

The definition of royalty free music denotes a onetime licensing fee. This form of licensing differs from the traditional one in that earlier, licensing was paid for every minute, second and moment of use of a particular work of music. But the term can be misleading. Royalty free does not mean that broadcasting time, for example, is completely free.

It helps you achieve your goal

Networks and radio stations pay for a license that allows them to broadcast that music at particular times and at particular moments. They are required to keep track of the number of broadcasts on a cue sheet so that music broadcast can be recorded properly and then, royalties are distributed accordingly to the musicians, composers, and music publishers. In other words, royalty free music means that you pay in this case a onetime licensing fee, but to use in your own productions regardless of how often you use it. Still, in this manner, royalty free music is made more accessible to the common public. Whether you are a teacher in a classroom who would like to make presentations more dynamic, a student working on a project, a friend working on a special present, or if you are trying to find the right way to propose by creating the appropriate mood, royalty free music helps you achieve your goal.

Proud Music Library

It is not free music

Royalty-free means not that the piece of music is free to use. The most royalty-free music tracks are registered with a domestic or foreign collecting society. This means that the use of a piece of music must be reported with a registration form (=cue sheet) to the local collecting society, e.g. ASCAP.

When using royalty-free music in commercials or advertisements, although the use of the license price is often limited but already clarified, so that there will be no complicated negotiations with rights holders muß (pre-cleared music). That’s why this is called rather Production Music. or Stock Music. But Stock Music is often music where the composer is not registered with any domestic or foreign collecting society. In the Proud Music Library you find this music under the label “completely royalty-free music”.

What means “GEMA-freie Musik”?

The term “GEMA-freie Musik” means completely royalty free music. The composer of this music is not registered with a collecting society (ASCAP-free, BMI-free, PRS-free, SUISA-free, AKM-free, TONO-free, SIAE-free). The Proud Music Library contains more than 10,000 completely royalty free music for all media: e.g. web, movie, tv, advertising, on hold.

What about the PRO-registered songs? Does the standard license covers everything for a trailer on a website?

For PRO-registered songs the user has to pay an additional fee to the local collecting society:

– Italia: SIAE
– Germany: GEMA
Read more…

Please contact your local collecting society to get more information how to calculate the fees.

The national copyright collecting societies

Here you can find a list of the different copyright collecting societies of our composers and the corresponding links:

Germany: GEMA “Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte” (musical recordings and performances)

Link to the GEMA

Austria: AKM “Autoren, Komponisten, Musikverleger” (lyricists, composers and music publishers)

Switzerland: SUISA (Swiss Association for composers rights)

UK: MCPS-PRS

MCPS “Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society” , PRS “Performing Right Society”

USA: SESAC “Society of European Stage Authors & Composers”, ASCAP “American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers”, BMI ” Broadcast Music Incorporated”

Canada: SOCAN “Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers”

France: SACEM “Société des auteurs compositeurs et éditeurs de musique”

Norway: TONO (Copyright collective for authors and composers of musical works)

Italy: SIAE “Società Italiani degli Autori ed Editori”

Ireland: IMRO ” Irish Music Rights Organisation”

New Zealand, Australia: APRA “Australasian Performing Right Association “

Poland: ZAIKS “ZwiÄ�zek Autorów i Kompozytorów Scenicznych” (Vereinigung der Bühnenautoren und -komponisten)

Spain: SGAE “Sociedad General de Autores y Editores”

Denmark: KODA (copyrights for composers, songwriters and music publishers)

Genres

The Proud Music Library contains a wide spectrum of music genres online. You can download the tracks of different genres directly and license them for your projects in marketing, advertisement, movie, electronic games or background music. Therefor the listed titles in the Proud Music Library are attributed to particular genres. Because of that the query will deliver accurate results. Beside the research of genres you can also get search results after mood, character, tempo, instrumental, etc.

Ramp

The term “ramp” is used by radio broadcasting producers. In the intro of a song, there are usually no vocal sets. So, the Radio DJ can use this part as a ramp for introducing the next title. A different use case can be the early fade-in of the next track during the previous moderation, so that the ramp ends at the same time as the moderation.

Ramps also are useful for the production of corporate or product films. As production music tracks are usually instrumental tracks, the term ramps does not refer to vocals but instead to the arrangement. In this contexts the intro before the full arrangement begins serves as a ramp. Usually the end of the ramp signalises a change in visual theme, so that sound and image synchronously generate attention.

CELAS

Under the name CELAS the german collecting society GEMA (Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte) and the british MCPS-PRS (Mechanical Copyright Protection Society – Performing Right Society) Alliance offer since january 2007 a conjointly licensing possibility for music repertoire of the EMI Music Publishing company. The particularity of the CELAS is the unique possibility to acquire a pan-european license for the repertoire of the major EMI Music Publishing. The CELAS shall at this become the main point of contact for transnational online licensing.

What does the PRO label mean?

Proud Music Library Preview Downloads

Proud Music has two classes of tracks available for licensing:

1. Tracks, that are not registered with any Royalty Collecting Society or Performance Royalty Organisation (PRO).

These tracks are marked:

PRS: Completely Royalty-Free Music

For these tracks you do not need to submit a cue sheet – unlike other libraries of royalty free music on the net.

2. Tracks, that are registered with a Royalty Collecting Society.

These tracks are marked:

PRS: [Name of a Royalty Collecting Society]

PRS stands for: Performance Royalty Society/Organisation, i.e. the royalty collecting society, where the composer registered this work.

Please ask your client to submit a cue sheet to your Royalty Collecting Society. This is the same procedure with nearly all royalty free music you aquire on the net.

Do I have to fill out cue-sheets?

All royalties for using completely royalty free music are paid upfront to us, no performance royalty societies in your country are involved.

For PRO-registered tracks you have to fill out ‘cue-sheets’. Referring to this, please visit the website of your local collecting society, where the suitable rate-cards are displayed.

For more information please refer to our license terms and conditions (EULA).