Sync Licensing 101: What Every Composer Needs to Know

Are you new to composing for sync, but overwhelmed by the jargon? In this episode, we sit down with Emmy-winning composer and sync expert Brad Hatfield to cut through the confusion.

Brad teaches Songwriting for Film & TV and Music Supervision at Berklee, drawing from decades of experience in the industry. From understanding contracts and ownership to knowing what to expect once your track is synced, this episode provides a thorough breakdown of sync licensing, publishing, royalties, and beyond. 

We define essential terms such as ‘master recording’, ‘writer’ and ‘neighbouring rights’, and explain why getting your splits and agreements in order can make or break a placement…

We also explore what ‘useful music’ means for Film and TV, and how AI is reshaping the future of sync. 

Whether you’re a songwriter, composer, or musician looking to break into sync, this episode will help you confidently navigate the production music world!

Chapters

0:00 Intro
3:38 What is Sync Licensing?
5:55 The three T’s: Term, Territory & Type of Media
9:14 What is a Publisher?
12:43 What is a Writer?
15:14 What is the Master Recording?
21:49 What is a Producer?
25:57 What are Mechanical Royalties?
31:01 What are Neighbouring Rights?
36:25 What is a Needle Drop?
38:45 What actually happens when a song is licensed for use in Film?
45:55 Writing ‘useful’ music and the importance of Outros
50:10 Why you should provide stems
54:00 AI and the future of Sync Music

Brad’s website - https://www.bradhatfieldmusic.com

Brad Hatfield Music Collective - https://www.bradhatfieldmusiccollective.com

#sync #syncliensing #syncmusic #synccomposer #composer #songwriter #productionmusic #librarymusic #filmcomposer #tvcomposer #filmmusic #tvmusic #synclicensing101 #productionmusic101 #neighbouringrights #royalties #publisher

Transcript

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David (00:00.056)

The whole point of this is that we tried to do a podcast in the early days of this podcast, about how you make money from sync and we realised we had no idea! We just didn't know what we were talking about. So we thought we'd bring somebody in that does know!

Jeff (00:14.978)

Let's talk about the master recording…

Brad (00:16.972)

Yeah, it's not the composition. It's a rendering of the composition. It's a different set of rights, you know. 

If you're a band, been together and we wrote those original things and we're gonna pitch to see if we can get something going with sync, please make an agreement amongst all your band members about what the splits are on the master recording, because that comes into play too!

Jeff (00:42.53)

I've always said it's better to get fifty percent of something than a hundred percent of nothing.

Brad (00:46.454)

Hell yeah!

David (00:56.354)

Welcome to Two Composers Two Continents. This is a podcast about our lives making music together and the people we meet along the way. You can find us at 2composers2continents with the number 2 on YouTube, on Facebook, if you use Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and all of the other grams and anything else. I'm here. Oh, don't forget, like, subscribe, leave us some comments, we'll build the community.

And I'm here with Jeffrey Meegan. And we've got a guest again. We've got Brad Hatfield. Jeff, would you want to-

Jeff (01:30.232)

So Brad Hatfield is a two-time Emmy-winning composer and arranger. For years he played with the Boston Pops under the direction of John Williams and Keith Lockhart, playing piano and keyboards and arranging for artists like James Taylor, Susan Tedesky, Demi Lovato, Darlene Love, Olita Adams, and Jim Belushi. His arrangements, orchestrations, and compositions have been performed by the Boston Pops, Houston Symphony, Rochester Symphony, and a few others as well. There's way too many Film and TV credits to possibly name. He's now on the writing team of The Young and the Restless. His award-winning online music supervision class is still available at Berklee, so go sign up. On top of that, he's an absolute expert at the ins and outs of the music business, most notably writing Music ForSake. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Brad Hatfield.

Brad (02:22.478)

Great to see both of you folks, and that was quite an intro.

David (02:23.836)

Yeah. We'll cut the YouTube short together where we just say he’s just an expert.

David (02:31.67)

Well, we should s we should say that the whole point of this is that we tried to do a podcast in the early days of this podcast about how you make money from sync and we realized we had no idea. We just didn't know what we were talking about. So we thought we'd bring somebody in that does know something about that. And that's the point of this.

Brad (02:52.47)

Mm-hmm, number one, I know you guys are doing pretty well because I kow you’re getting placed all the time! It's an interesting thing about being in it and then also having to take care of the business. And in this day and age it's possible to do the majority of it by yourself. And if you don't wanna fail, it's better that you know what you're doing.

Jeff (03:13.774)

Well, you know, that's interesting because but it's also one of the situations where I think most people don't do it by themselves and rely on another company or, you know, and you're just maybe just signing something and agreeing to things that you don't even know what the hell they are.

David (03:28.052)

No idea what, and some of the terminology, which is where we're gonna start. I mean, I found things today when we were talking and I thought, I didn't even never heard of that. Don't know what it means. Why don't we start just because I'm aware that some of the the students in different places that may watch this just won't know some of the terminology and we should just do a little dictionary clarification. How about physically, licensing? What does that even mean?

Brad (03:54.478)

Well, what starts it all is somebody wanting to combine music with their story. So, it could be an advertisement, it could be a TV show, it could be a film, it could be anything where you're taking a music and combining it with somebody else's creative thing. It's that merge. 

Jeff (04:14.856)

That's sync, right? 

Brad (04:24.372)

You’re combining those two things together, that's synchronization. As we'll hear in a minute, you're synchronizing both the song and the recording in most cases. So people will say, oh they bought my music or I'm gonna sell my music to this film. You, you're generally not selling things. So they get to keep it and they own it and they're done. You're usually licensing. So bottom line is media producers, film companies, TV, ad agencies, they can't use any music in their creative work unless they own it or control it. And if they don't own it or control it, do own it or control it. So once again, there's a big difference between selling your music, which we might also call a work for hire, where we you gave us two thousand dollars, we're giving you this music, we're done here. Generally don't want to do that unless it seems like a good idea at the time.

Jeff

It’s gotta have a lot of zeros on it…

Brad (05:22.798)

Yeah. What you want to do in in in all in as many cases as possible, which allows you to retain the rights to the music that you've created, is license the music to them. So that agreement is not media mogul purchasing your song and the recording and we're done here and you have no further rights to it. Instead, they're licensing it. So in this particular case, you wanna say, okay, we're gonna let you use this music and how long is it going to this license going to be in effect? That's called term. Is this an independent film that's at a at a film festival? Might be one or two years. That's how long they have the rights to keep those things combined. They wanna know where it's going to go. Is it all throughout the world and universe?

David (06:27.374)

Seen that on contracts.

Brad (06:28.544)

Yeah. So you don't necessarily want to sell your music and the recording, that that composition and that recording all bundled up and say here, you can have it. You want a license. And so, what you're doing now is you're giving them permission. But then in that agreement, in that license agreement, and this applies to both the song as a composition as well as the recording, if you are controlling both of those things. So you're gonna establish the term. How long is this license going to be in effect for a film festival? It might only be two years. Most cases it's gonna be perpetual, you know, for eternity. In perpetuity, baby. Yes. The other thing you're gonna have to establish is what territories. And in this particular case, it might be something, this is just a domestic usage, it's never gonna go anywhere else. 

Jeff (07:24.696)

Mm-hmm.

Brad (07:26.178)

It’s hardly the case anymore, especially with how things get moved over to other streaming services or clips up here elsewhere. It's hard to control that territory, but that is one of the terms. And then the third one is what is the type of media? And if it's a film festival, then that's limited to that festival screening. they will not only have it in the theaters at the festival, but it's now since COVID not uncommon for them also to say, okay, if you're attending this film festival we we'll do the streaming, but you're paying you know as a as an attending person. Right. So those three Ts, the term, the territory and the type of media are the big parts of that license agreement. And then the other thing that can really drive the price up, or drive it down, is the type of use.

Is this a feature which all the songwriters want, or is it background use and also the duration of the usage of music? Is it a three-minute feature where everything stops and your music is completely dominating? Or is it 20 seconds of somebody walking into a coffee shop and you hear your song in the background? So, the whole idea here is that you have to define what that license is going to cover. But the good news is you continue to retain your rights to all those. Now you might have co-writers, you might have people that own that recording with you. And we'll get to that in a minute. But the whole idea here is you have got an agreement that says yes, you may combine this song and recording with your project and here are all the things.

David (09:09.414)

Got it. So then you've also, sorry, I was just gonna say, moving on from that, you are the writer of that song, you might own the song, and we'll clarify that. But unless you give it away, then you're also the publisher of that song at the very beginning. But when I was young, I didn't even know that there was a I didn't know what these words mean. I just heard them and say, okay. And no idea what that meant. Can we just clarify for our viewers, listeners, a publisher? What is a publisher?

Brad (09:45.034)

Right. Strangely enough, they control the same amount of rights as the writers do. So there's a writer side that equals a hundred percent of writers, and then there's a hundred percent of publishers. 

Jeff (10:00.556)

Which interestingly in Europe they do, they just use a hundred percent.

David (10:04.418)

Yeah, so we do 50/50, so it can be really confusing that you guys talk about 200 percent of stuff and we talk about 100 and get very confused.

Brad (10:14.986)

It's ASCAP uses that 50/50 model, BMI uses 100/100. Since the two of them have combined their search engine, this song view thing, they've gone to this 50/50 thing and it's challenging. But the idea is that in terms of clearance and what shows up on a cue sheet, which we'll talk about later, it's you're gonna see it equaling 100 percent. You need to see total hundred percent. When they're trying to license something and there's one writer that holds one percent that is not answering the phone calls or the emails or the text, they're not going to be able to use that song. They need 100 percent buy-in. So it's easier to use the one hundred thing, you know, for our purposes here. But the idea is that the publisher is an administrator. They're not a creative. They might be, if they're one and the same person. But the idea is that you've got somebody that's essentially representing that composition. And it could be your yourself. Or you might assign your publishing to somebody who can actually do something with your music.

Jeff (11:24.35)

Well that's pretty straightforward, right?

David (11:25.983)

Yeah. 

Brad (11:27.614)

Exactly. And they're gonna get a piece of the pie. In fact, when it comes to performance royalties, which we'll talk about in a minute, or even mechanical license fees, same thing down the road, they share the same revenue that the writers get.

Jeff (11:43.266)

But I've always said it's better to get 50 percent of something than 100 percent of nothing!

David (11:48.076)

The other thing I found with, I mean, we're lucky enough to be to be represented by a couple of different publishers and they've always been very good for us, that actually they'reincentivized. They don't earn anything if you don't earn anything. So you know, they if they just sit in something it's a big fat nothing for them too. 

Jeff (12:09.646)

I'm gonna go a little further with that down the road, David, about publishers that are very comfortable and no longer have to pitch. And the writers are like, get music out there!

Brad (12:23.074)

The role of the publisher is to you know, administrate the composition. Okay. And that's the composition, not the recording necessarily, right? It just it's mainly the composition. In our world, it's often they're representing both sides in terms of administrating, you know, a license agreement. The other question that you had was what it what is a writer or what constitutes being a writer? And that's someone that has actually creatively made this composition. And it gets really interesting. I mean the age-old thing of, I wrote the music and so and so wrote the lyrics and we're 50/50 and here you go. There's so much collaboration that goes on these days and it's collaboration at all different kinds of levels. But once again, you need to be on the record as being a writer. Somebody's gotta write it down somewhere, but that entitles you to all kinds of downstream revenue from performance royalties and other uses of the composition. Doesn't matter if somebody else sings it or performs it, instrumentally, makes a new recording. The writer is part of a machine, so you want to be a writer.

David (13:44.615)

So we're separating out coming up with the creative idea from physically performing it and recording it.

Jeff (13:52.056)

From recording, yeah.

David (13:53.998)

That's crucial.

Brad (13:53.462)

Yeah. You can have somebody that can't sing or play a lick, but they can write the song, maybe they croak it into you know, a cassette machine. 

David

It's me!

Brad

And then they get folks to record make a good arrangement, but that composition belongs to that person. And of course you want to make sure that it's clear that it's yours as well. So, and once you start collaborating, once again, I don't usually make a big document. A lot of people will do split sheets, especially if it's like heavy duty w that you know they're working for huge artists and there's real money and pressure there. In that case you would have a sheet that lists everybody’s percentages. But generally, we just in an email or, texts I don't prefer because they’re harder to find, within an email or once you register the song and those splits go into the performing rights organizations, they're there to be looked at and returnedobtained. So we've talked about a publisher administrating the composition. Once again, they're administrating the composition, and then the writers. And then there's the recording.

Jeff (15:13.494)

Yeah, let's talk about the master recording.

Brad (15:15.862)

Yeah. It's not the composition. It's a rendering of the composition. Different set of rights, you know? And this is where if you've written something really good that could be covered in a variety of ways, this is a good thing. If you're creating the recording, you don't own the composition. You're the performing artist or you're the person that produced the recording or you're a collection of people.

Brad (15:45.216)

Another big word of advice is that if you're a band been together and we wrote those original things and we're gonna pitch to see if we can get something going with sync, please make an agreement amongst all your band about what the splits are on the master recording. Because that comes into play too. When you license something, they're gonna wanna know what the shares are for the writers. They wanna know who controls the publishing and they're gonnawanna know who controls the master recording.

David (16:17.304)

So it's a different a different pot of money, right? A master recording pot of money, a writer's pot of money, a publisher's pot of money. That's interesting.

Brad (16:27.01)

That's I mean, when it comes to all the world that we're talking about here, synchronizing that music with somebody else's story, they're synchronizing the composition and that's the writers and the publishers on one side. That's all tied to the composition. And then they go, oh but we heard this recording on YouTube of somebody doing the song. We want that recording. Well, they gotta deal with the people that control that recording, right? And they have to work out an agreement with them, a license for them. So things get really, can get tricky when a show says, we really like the song, but our actor wants to sing it. So, in that case, the master owner will be producing the TV show. We do a lot of stuff on Y & R where we've got people on camera singing. Those recordings don't get released. They do very well for the writers and the publishers because they're on camera performances that are featured. So, the royalty rate is quite high but there’s no recording. We've got something coming up which I can't talk about yet, that's written by one of our artists, Lindsay Foot, I can say her name. She's done other stuff for us. And this is the, she's gonna wait until the show airs where the actors sing her tune, then she'll release her own version. So if there's a bit of a buzz going on, then it'll come back to her and she's a sole owner of that.

David (17:58.466)

But the so just to be clear here, playing devil's advocate here, the owner of the master recording may have nothing to do with the performing of the master recording.

Brad (18:07.574)

Yeah, in in the case of somebody on camera on a T V show or a film, you know, doing it.

David (18:14.732)

But you could just assign the ownership of the master to somebody else, right?

Jeff (18:22.16)

Yeah, you could sell the rights. Yeah.

David (18:25.504)

I could say, okay, I'll give you a hundred bucks and now you own my master recording, not me.

Brad (18:30.726)

You could do that, but I mean if you think that, well I guess this comes down to what are the legs on this thing? Because master recordings and we'll get to this in a minute, but in the USthey don't generate performance royalties. Elsewhere they do, neighboring rights. We'll get to that in a minute. but there might be a time where you just say, I'll just take the money for the recording, and good luck with it.

David (19:00.022)

Yeah, I'm broke and I need the cash so you take.

Jeff (19:04.022)

Well and if someone is underwriting your recording, they're gonna own the masters, right? I mean if someone is producing a band as the executive producer, then they own the masterstoo.

Brad (19:12.438)

I think they might be interested in the whole concept of music libraries and song cataloguesand some business models. So when I first got into this, I was working at soundtrack studios in in Boston. They also have a studio in New York. They were doing a lot of stuff and they had what it's called a music library, a sort of a repository of music that they could put behind ads and industrials and you know, whatever and license those things out. As a composer, I would get paid like, what was it? 100 bucks for writing something. I'd get paid 50 bucks per tune that I played on in the session. And that was they bought out my master recording rights by doing that. They paid for the musicians, that it was their studio. They paid me as a composer. So, they now, they controlled the publishing and they controlled the master recording. There's nothing I can do about that. There's a few of those tunes that I really likeand I wish I could get back. But they own them because they paid for them and that's what the agreement was. I think for us what we're talking about here is folks producing their own recordings, controlling their own composition for the most part. And then you know-

David (20:29.462)

But it is worth saying, I mean, like when we're working for a production music library, they own those master recordings 'cause they're paying for So we don't own them. Which means we also can't choose where they go. We don't own them.

Brad (20:45.838)

So, there's all different types of agreements that you could have with these different companies. And if they're paying for it, that usually means they own it. There's a big trend of them not paying for anything and just taking it on and representing it. But what you want to do then is say to that company, all right, go push this stuff, but that’s mine. So you want to have an out, you know, either be able to exit the contract or have an agreement that that recording belongs, you know, to me. And so this gets into a lot of different deal points that you could go for. But I think to David's point, if you're working with a company that ispaying you and paying for the costs of producing something, yeah, they want something for their money. They sure, they now have incentive to get them back, right?

Jeff (21:38.294)

Now they have their money back. Right.

David (21:43.084)

So we should do a bit more clarification, right, Jeff? We should a couple of other terms. What do we got?

Jeff (21:48.93)

Yeah, so well the next on our list is which a good add, Brad, are producers, which we generally don't do much in the work that we do, but that's certainly a legit thing. So producers can take a percentage as well, correct?

Brad (22:04.768)

It has to be worked out with the writers because if they're gonna make any money, I mean generally you're reassigning your publishing folks and that's just what you do. You just wanna have a deal where you can hopefully get it back without too much of a hassle. That's the kind of you know, business model that I have with my company. it's like, hey, if this if this tune is not working out, have it back. 

David (22:28.152)

Can I have it back, please? Yeah.

Brad (22:31.65)

And yeah, and good luck, you know. You know, I don't take on stuff that I don't think is gonna fly, but you know, sometimes the scenes that are needed don't happen for seven or eight years, you know. So you gotta wait it out. 

Jeff

You know what, we forgot to mention in the intro that you have the Brad Hatfield Music Collective, which is your own library.

Brad (22:50.774)

Yes. Little sidebar. That got that started just because getting onto the team of composers, that was part of something that was acceptable for me to be able to represent other people's music as long as I was fully the publisher or half a co-writer. And som they needed music that that that I couldn't create. So we had folks that could and I was able to sign them and get their music on and that's working really well for us. But to bring it full circle, a lot of those folks use producers because they are not capable of recording things themselves. They don't either have the facility or they don't have the ability to make a mix that's broadcast ready. And this is an education for a lot of these younger or newer folks, I should say. I shouldn't say young because some folks older are just getting into it and they have talent, and they're relying on folks that can push the buttons and turn the knobs to make their music work. Now you can pay a producer, you could go into a studio and say, I'm gonna pay you 750 bucks to just make this happen in the studio. I've got my musicians in here. Can you just make sure that it goes to tape right and that the mix comes out with the right stuff on it and that you give me some guidance and blah blah blah. And it could be a fixed fee, but some producers might say, hey, you know what? I kinda wrote half of the hook hook sort of or I, you know, contributed this beat-

David (24:34.562)

So 10 percent of it should be mine, of the publishing.

Brad (24:38.284)

Or the writers. Yeah, yeah. 'Cause the publishing just tends to disappear on in most of our cases. It usually gets assigned to somebody else. It's not usual that you get to retain it.

David (24:51.192)

So you're giving them writers, you're you're giving away a portion of your writers.

Jeff (24:55.97)

So becoming collaborative.

Brad (24:56.942)

Yep, might be 5 or 10 percent, you know, could be anything. Whatever they can work out. But this could in lieu of paying the producer, you're giving them points. So she, you know, the producer is like, look, I believe in this song and I know you have a good connection, so I'd rather, you know, be part of that downstream thing for the next 10 years rather than yeah, the I don't need the cash right now, right?

David (25:23.102)

It's buying an eighth of a racehorse and saying, it's gonna win a race at some point and when it comes in I'm there.

Brad (25:30.358)

Good way of looking at it. And it sometimes does take years. I have to laugh when something comes up that I did like 15 years ago that never saw the light of day but finally ends up in something. Kaching, you know.

David (25:44.11)

So let's move on to a couple of other terms. Let's talk about, we've mentioned a couple of things. We've talked about mechanicals and we've talked about neighbouring rights. Let's put some meat on those bones. What are we, let's talk about mechanical royalties. What are those?

Brad (26:01.866)

Mechanical licenses are, the most obvious use is you want to cover somebody else's song. Soyou go to Harry Fox, HFA, Harry Fox Agency, and you go, who controls this song? 'Cause I want to put out a recording of it. Used to be a CD or well, it could be a LP or a cassette these days. And you want to cover it and just release it just as a standalone song. We are not talking about sync. This is really important. Mechanical licenses have nothing to do with sync except for something I'm going to address in a minute. But this license just allows you, gives you the rights by paying for this license, this mechanical license, to distribute and reproduce, even if you don't sell anything. If you're handing them off the stage while you're out on tour and just signing them or whatever, that's a unit.

David (27:01.518)

So I wanna cover this dude's thing, I buy a mechanical license and then I can either perform it, stream it, my recording of it, that is.

Brad (27:13.846)

Yeah. A performance of the recording, in other words, yes. It could get radio play, it could get streamed, it could be physical copies. You know, when you get the mechanical license you say, how many copies are you gonna make of this? And this is what gets really dodgy. How many streams do you are you gonna get in this period of very time? 

Jeff

4 billion!

David (27:34.446)

Who the hell knows!

Brad

Well you'll be paying a lot! Aim low.

David (27:39.106)

Probably twenty. Yeah.

Brad (27:40.502)

Yeah. You pay in advance, those mechanical license fees. And there's services now. I just had an artist that I was just producing that she had, they were all covers on her jazz thing. And soI think it was called Easy Song. I could be incorrect there, but that's a company that helps you to get the mechanical licenses. They charge a fee for it. And then they say how many units are you creating and then what do you think you're gonna stream? And then you're responsible, you know, year after year to reboot if you’re streaming more.

David (28:15.192)

You gotta guess how many streams you're gonna get and if you're horribly wrong you just you have to pay?

Brad (28:21.816)

You're gonna pay something up front, David. And if you if it goes really well, I don't know how they keep track later, beyond my scope, but then you pay again. But the idea here is you just have that permission to cover that composition. Where does that money go? Those fees go to, there might be a middle person, like I just mentioned, somebody that helps it go along. But the publishers and the writers share in that mechanical. And I think now it's like, 12 cents per unit for songs under four minutes. So the rate finally went up after many, many years sitting at 9.1.

David (29:00.158)

In the UK, just for our UK audience, this is the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society, the MCPS, which is now allied with the PRS, which is really confusing because it looks like they're one organization, but they're not. It's just they happen to put it in their title. So yeah, for Harry Fox read MCPS in the, in the UK.

Brad (29:26.274)

So the one time you might see a mechanical license be associated with sync at all is that a song is licensed, sync licensed, for use in a movie. Before the movie comes out, they go, we're gonna release a soundtrack. And in which case, that unit is not combined with picture. They're putting out either a streaming form of it or maybe a double green vinyl LP, I don't know what they're gonna do. But anything that's not tied to the picture, that is just you know, streamable or downloadable or hard copy, that requires the mechanical license. And those things still could be negotiated, at least in the States. They don't always pay the what the government says you're supposed to pay, you know. That's a whole other conversation.

Jeff (30:20.226)

So the movie producer is doing a movie and he wants to use the song Blue Moon, right? And he gets an artist to put, to sing Blue Moon to put in his movie. They don't need a mechanical license to do that even?

Brad (30:35.64)

They need the sync license to put that song to picture. And then if they decide that they're going to release that version, let's say it's an actor singing it, and they want to release that as a as a soundtrack thing, then the mechanical has to be negotiated and it's always based on unitsor streams, which makes it, you know.

David (31:01.614)

And what about what about neighbouring rights? Where are we? I know you don't have them, but we do.

Jeff (31:07.148)

Yes. Thank God. Woo!

Brad (31:09.994)

Won't you be my neighbour?

David (31:12.334)

So we should we should just clarify.

Brad (31:16.566)

Yeah. So in the States, at least in the in the sync world, it's a lot of deals were made because the movie companies were just, you know, grabbing this and grabbing that and and making it somewhat challenging for writers and publishers to keep pace with the change of technology and what was getting paid out and this whole concept of, oh we're gonna get a royalty every time our song is played? So the companies are, you know, because it's the networks, at least with TV, it's the networks that pays these performance royalties. We'll look at that closer in a minute. But the writers and publishers are getting these performance royalties every time that song is broadcast.

David (32:06.872)

So it's a performance royalty, a neighbouring right is a royalty for the players, not the writers.

Brad (32:12.79)

Well it's the writers, we're yeah, the neighbouring is different. So I just wanna clarify that in the States it's the writers and publishers that are making those performance royalties. If it's streamed, right, not associated with a picture, then there are agencies that do collect sound exchange, which will collect money from these streamers, those rights – it’s writer/publisher on one side and master owner and performer on the other side. So streaming in the US, we actually do make some money. They're collecting money for those performers and for the owners of those master recordings. In sync, they do not, not in the US, but in the UK and everywhere else in the world, except maybe North Korea and the US, they do not collect these fees that would be allocated to performers and owners of the recording. So neighbouring rights are those rights that are adjacent to the composition, and they are getting paid you know per performance. So, one of the things that a lot of folks in in the states try to do is like, how can I align myself with an entity in Europe or some other place and say or have things recorded there a way they're will abide by those rules. So that other income stream comes in. I know Jeff and you are doing much better with that than I am. I'm just like, well, I got enough on my plate. I'm not chasing them down, but there are agencies that you can use to get a track down those

David (33:54.766)

You know it's really interesting, when we, just a sidebar here, ding, we did this years and years ago. For years we weren't allowed to collect them just due to the vagaries of the publisher that we were with, that wasn't a thing. And then when it became a thing and we were allied to one of these agencies, I think it was Global Master Rights at the beginning, now called Peer Music, they said, okay, write down every tune, all of the things and who played what and we're like, you've got to be kidding me! I need to remember who played what, and then we had to prove what we did on that. So hold on, did you play the Maracas on that tune or was I the triangle player or did you sing it? Or and we had to go through all of that, but the flip side to that is now we get a check every quarter. That that made it worth it. So, it's worth media writers in Europe certainly knowing that if you play on your own compositions, you get paid as a writer, you might get paid as a publisher, you might get paid as a master owner, but you also get paid as a player. And the PPL in the UK collects that. I'll get off my horse now, but yeah, it's important. Because it's a pot of money.

Jeff (35:06.752)

No, no, it is important. There's a fair chunk of change that could be wet.

Brad (35:11.79)

Absolutely. It's tedious. I mean, I've just got hundreds of, I mean, a bunch of our jazz stuff gets streamed on this service called the Jazz Groove. And one of my employees actually isone of the the curator, or A and R and you know puts the playlists together. She just came back to me and said, Okay, you've got recordings that we're using. Some of are over twenty years old, do you remember? But it's, so that's the other thing which we haven't gotten to yet, but details matter. And so when you are creating music and making the recordings, please do a good job storing all that data cos you’re gonna need it.

David (36:03.998)

And also the MIDI realization is a performance too. So even if you're not in a different studio, you're at home and you're just playing it yourself, right. That counts. And that's important the in this day and age as well. So that's useful. So we've gone through a bunch of stuff. What's the other one?

Jeff (36:24.77)

We got one more. Needle drop. What's a needle drop?

Brad (36:27.694)

Yeah, I mean generally I mean it's an old school term because back in the day one of my ourgood friends, Paul Antonelli, a music supervisor, he used to work at the network, I think it was CBS, and he or when he first got started, literally would be running down a hallway to a place that was the music library and they had LPs of you know, dramatic music that they would play live while filming. And he goes, Okay, I need some tension, I need some joyful, I need some hopeful, and they literally would drop a needle down on the spot.

Jeff (37:09.23)

I didn't know that's where the term came from. That's so cool.

Brad (37:12.352)

So it's basically it's a one-time use of a piece of music. So, it's just in terms of, and they're usually source music for the most part, meaning in the background. Source music typically is people walk into a cafe, there's music coming out of the ceiling. Or maybe there's somebody over in the corner playing guitar and singing softly. But it's music that that's within the environment where the characters are. And by the way, this is like the heaviest use of music that happens in in sync is background. So if you're dreaming about one feature after another, keep dreaming. But the reality is if you can, you know, do good source music-

David (38:00.322)

God bless source music. That’s a career for us!

Brad (38:04.582)

Yeah, we live on it. it's it's insane. When we do when the music does come forward, it's great. You know, features are great. pays more in a lot of different ways. But yeah, the needle drop is just like a single usage. With that being said, you might be dealing with an entity that says, Hey, we like your catalogue and we want to use, you know, 10 songs per episode, five songs per episode, and they might just say Hey, we're gonna give you $5,000 and we're just gonnachoose what we want out of your catalogue. But typically it would be a very clear one-time use.. That would be licensed.

David (38:44.97)

So let's take a scenario here. Let's imagine a situation. I've just written a song. Just written a song and I'm pretty stoked about it. And I pitch it to you, Mr. Film producer or director or production company, and you say, actually we like that. We'd like to use it. Now what? What happens now?

Brad (39:07.658)

Right. Well, first of all, you this is where you're dotting I's and crossing T's. You have to have complete control over this or administrative rights to it. So, if somebody says I want to use that, they don't want their job to become hard. They don't want to have to go searching out folks or find out later that there was a fourth writer that wasn't mentioned because 'cause she you know, he ran off with the bass player and pissed everybody off.

David

Again?!

Brad (39:36.27)

Yeah, I know. That's like the second time!

So yeah, I've had a couple of curveballs happen where they go, yeah, yeah, we I got it all covered. And then they send in this file that's got two other people's names on it. I'm like, these people are not signed! So have your house in order. Make sure that it's clear who all the writers are, what their percentages are, also their PRO performance rights organization affiliation is BMI, ASCAP, CSAC, PRS, whatever. And what about the publishing shares? you want to make sure that that is also super clear in the percentages and the PRO affiliations. And then lastly, just bringing up that once again, they heard your recording of this, I'm assuming. And so, they want to know, you know, who controls that master? Am I negotiating with you or is there somebody else? Is it a record company that that that owns that master? You know, who are we talking to here? So make sure you have all that stuff lined up. More than likely depends upon the yeah, the level. If you're a newbie, it's more than likely not going to be a huge feature. So maybe it's going to be a background use and now you gottakinda figure out, what should I be asking for? Well ask around to people that know something or have a general idea before you open your mouth.

David (41:07.566)

So they ask you what you want for it? They don't say we've got a thousand dollars-

Brad (41:15.407)

They may do that. They may just say, here's what we're paying. You know, and it's MFN most favoured nations, or we've got a set budget. We know we have X amount of cues. Yours falls into this bucket, background you. 

David

I’m sorry, MFN? 

Brad

MFN, most favoured nations. So, this is basically an agreement that when they make an agreement with one party, that and you if you say, I want MFN, you know, with so and so or whatever you've already negotiated, if you were gonna come in at four thousand dollars and they've negotiated twenty thousand and you say, I want MFN, suddenly you're getting twenty thousand dollars. And of course, you know, it can be a budget busting thing.

Jeff (42:03.224)

So then they'll go, Well, we don't like your music that much. Yeah.

Brad (42:05.452)

Yeah, yeah. Or we can't we can't do this, you know. Right. So they might show their hand, they might just say, Hey, here's what we've got. If you're further up the food chain, it's a more featured use, then there's going to be sort of a history that that record company that might be representing the recording or the publishers that are representing the song. It's a more established piece of music. You go, yeah, well, they used it in this show or this film, and for that we got X. You're looking at distribution. I mean, you have to look at it. Is this a film festival or is this Marvel? You know? What are we talking here? Because I mean, yeah, sometimes that number comes at you, or based on my own experience with when I was working with a publisher that was representing my music, I would see what those numbers were. So I felt like I know what I'm talking about because I have but if you're brand new.

David (43:05.286)

I didn't have a clue. Yes. I had absolutely no idea. Somebody says, what are you looking for? And you think, Pfft, I have no idea what to ask for. And there's that terror of what if I ask for five dollars more than they're willing to pay and they just say no and never come back? And you just don't know.

Brad (43:24.15)

Yeah, the idea here is that if they really like the tune, you know, it's negotiable. And also, folks, there's more on the table than just the money. You know, in terms of the licensing terms, that might be negotiable or there could be a lot of different things. Or you might just limit the term of the license, especially if it's a film festival. There's other things that you could do to say, okay, this is not about the cash. 

Jeff

It's about getting money from this, 6/7 years from now.

David (43:54.316)

So people don't get pissed off with you if you want to actually negotiate stuff. You shouldn't be scared t0-

Brad (44:01.334)

You should put a number out there, but it has to be based on something. You know, it has tobe made up you have to come up with a number that makes sense. If for background use, unknown artist, more than likely, it’s not gonna be, you know a big ask. If you've got four billion YouTube streams and everybody's talking about your tune and they want to use it in a more featured way, go for it baby.

Brad (44:32.608)

But yeah, it's dodgy, but I would say consult somebody else, you know, before you put that number out there. And if you're new, you just want to get in. So don't you know don't go hardball and then blow an opportunity that could have gotten you gone.

David (44:53.282)

That's always the hard bit, right?

Brad (44:55.928)

First stuff that I ever did, you know, that somebody asked me to do for free, I'm like, you know, I got a family. What are you talking about? You know? But then it was on T V, you know, ten days later and I'm still getting paid for that and that's 25 years ago.

David (45:10.836)

Well, I mean I think about the first thing I did when you gave me the opportunity to do something. I paid to do it! I mean, I paid a band to do it on not on a promise, but on a possible maybe thing. So you're kinda crossing your fingers and hoping to, you know.

Jeff (45:29.346)

Yeah, I mean ooking back, I mean, you always are working for free in the beginning. You're just working for the opportunity, right?

Brad (45:37.386)

It's risk tolerance and it's cash flow. And it's an understanding of like, no, I feel good about this. I'm you know, eventually it's gonna happen. Maybe that gets me to the other thing, is that David, you started it off with saying, well, I've written this thing and you know, and now they've come after me. But if you're thinking about just getting into this business and trying to build up a catalogue, which you kinda have to do, it it's trying to, I mean, that's throwing a dart from 100 yards out.

Jeff (46:13.486)

So it's like buying a lottery ticket. It's no different. Yeah.

Brad (46:18.658)

But if you really listen to how music is used in the in the areas that you think you would do well in, that should be your first guide. Do your do your research, see how music gets used in actuality, not just what you're in your mind's eye of like moment. But you gotta create useful music, and that's not only just the composition itself, which has to be great. But it also has tobe able to live in the background. So you've got to be economical with pretty much everything and consistent in your textures. Fon't ignore your intros and especially endings on our show. Endings take you to commercial or take you out of the scene. That might be the only time you hear the song is the last.

David (47:10.004)

We've talked endlessly about, we often talk, Brad, I know you wouldn't have heard it, but we usually start our talks about albums we've done with me saying, I've got a bug up my ass about the intro on this tune and we've done that time 'cause I've got four seconds to tell you where I am and what we're doing here. What are we doing? But yeah, intros yeah. It's interesting what you say about endings, 'cause maybe we haven't I haven't thought about that as much.

Brad (47:35.602)

Never fade. Never fade. If they need a fade, they will do that. Absolutely. But if they have a hard ending, especially on daytime, where there's the look and then there's the other look, then the commercial. Anyway, to have a pinpointed moment where that hits and rings out to whatever length that they want, is so much better than these people they send us stuff, especially dance stuff that just abruptly ends. It's like you can't use that. Or if it ends with just the vocal, sometimes you can have that Grey's Anatomy moment. Depends on the tune. Right where that, you know, if the lyric works, yeah, you can do that. But I'm telling you, it's like turn the vocal off or the lead instrument off and you listen to that ending. Does it make sense? Is this something that would work in a movie or a TV show or? 

David (48:27.758)

Do you want, I mean something we've kind of maybe overdone, God forbid, when we've-

Jeff (48:34.114)

I was gonna say we've done endings to the nth degree. Yeah, where they're like, okay, we only want four, please.

David (48:40.5)

Yeah. So is that helpful?

Brad (48:42.6)

It is. I mean it's funny. I mean I tend to do that more with score than songs, because how you leave a scene with is it gonna be hopeful, sympathetic, is it gonna be oh crap, is it gonna be we're gonna be all right? These are four different emotions that that that cue could be going in any one of those directions. And some of them I just get to the end and I go, all right, I've clearly, you know, led people this direction. But this cue is useful. I'm gonna put it down the middle. So I'll often use these sort of like even just ending on a four chord rather than one leaves you lift it up a little bit. We hardly ever have a resolution in a major court. Except maybe on a wedding scene where, yeah, we're good, you know. Well, for now. But it just usually it's there's always some sort of you know, suspension in there. I use a lot of Lydian stuff that is just like bright but you know, like you know and then, you know, if I'm gonnareally going full on Wagnerian it's minor seven flat 5. I don't go full on diminished, you know, that's just a little too old school.

David (50:03.47)

I love it. Okay.

Jeff (50:05.666)

Yeah, you want people to come back after the commercial, right? What's gonna happen?

Brad (50:07.948)

So just to I want to make one more point about you know creating useful music that also comes to the mixes and using stems, which are combinations and groupings of the elements that are in the song. We live on the ability to have music supervisors and music editors make their job easy and please directors and producers that might be saying, that's bugging me, that saxophone thing, or that vocal, the lyrics are in the way. So when you make your mix, make the full mix, do a mix with no vocal at all, just the track. And then we go a few steps further. We'll use like all the keyboards and guitars type types of stuff. That goes into one stem and then bass and drums go into one stem. And then of course we have the isolated vocal in one stem. So that's our general thing. All those fit into a brick. Exact same starting and ending point. So they can drag the whole thing in to their DAW and go against picture and they can edit freely and then they can go, yeah, that vocal's in the way. Or you know what? I've got score coming in. We're gonna strip this down to just bass and drums. So that source music still has that energy, but it's not harmonically getting in the way of these new sustained things that are coming.

David (51:29.942)

It's interesting. Fifteen years ago, I don't know how you remember this, Jeff, but when we were doing stuff fifteen years ago, we weren't asked for stems. Particularly now it's become this thing.

Jeff (51:39.336)

No, stems have become a in the last really five, six years it feels like, you know.

David (51:47.054)

And now you even have software that says I'll just I'll take care of that for you, sir. And just It's that Andrew Shirps what's it? I can't even think what it's called. There's some software that that will bounce factory or whatever it's called and you just set it, go get a coffee and all of your stuff's done. God bless it.

Jeff (52:05.688)

Programmed in.

Brad (52:07.352)

I don't know. I still do every stem that I make, I never just bounce. I do it in real time, which means I'm standing around a lot to the point where my Apple Watch says it's time to stand up and I'm like, I've been standing for an hour, you know. So I do everything in real time. I'm mixing back into my DAW. I never just bounce stuff out 'cause I don't trust that there's not gonna be a reverb send from the vocal that's still on that's permeating the bass and drum track or I hear some crappy playing in there, I'm like-

David (52:40.61)

I gotta fix that. Right. That's a salient point, 'cause actually I tried some of that stuff and I found I used it for about an hour and then realised I was listening back to everything I'd done in real time anyway. Anyway.

Jeff (52:59.383)

Well, I clearly don't because I have sent stuff to Brad where he'd be like, Hey Jeff, there's a vocal bleed on the drum and bass track, you wanna fix that?

Brad (53:08.046)

We gotta listen to everything. We have like three sets of ears, you know, with the company. And so and as long as somebody catches it, 'cause the last thing I need is to get everything over to the show. They've brought it into their machines and now I go, sorry, here's a new thing.

David (53:28.002)

But actually it's really interesting. One of the great things I know we're not today's sermon is not about it's not about collaboration. But one of the great things about collaborating is that everything you do I listen to, Jeff. I mean if I've cut a mix. You listen and we cut we always fix each other's crap. I mean just there's always something you miss 'cause you're listening over and over and over again and you just get tolerant to something that somebody else says, is that supposed to be there? And you think. No. But yeah, okay. Maybe we should talk about AI. Yeah. Boom ching. And that'll bring it down. Like everybody was really happy and now they're like

Brad (54:08.878)

I think it's time for a diminished cord now.

David (54:11.884)

Yeah, you could use it. So how is this impinging on stuff? I mean I know it infringes on the copywriting thing, but where are we? I mean, as of as of February 2026, I'm gonna put that 'cause this will be out there for years, permeating for people to listen to and it'll be robots watching this in ten years' time.

Jeff (54:36.62)

The AI watches this. Yeah.

David (54:38.178)

Yeah. But as of 2026, February, how is the AI copyright thing impinging on your ability to make money? Let's bring it back to money and rights.

Brad (54:50.304)

Yeah, there's always gonna be music that's being generated that's useful but maybe not something that you would carefully zone in on. So you think about spa music or in the old days airport music, where it's just vibe and texture, not a big melodic commitment, not anything that could be like a good song. It could be played by a solo violin or you know or orchestra. The tune is there, you know? So there's always going to be people in machines and machine learning that are going to generate stuff that's gonna knock a true artist, composer, producer out of a slot. So I mean I that's just gonna continue to happen. It's just the way the technology goes. Am I worried about it? Nah, because I'm kinda like on the back side of this. You young folk really have to worry about this… But I think, what are the concerns now? The concerns now are is that and this is just there was a big thing just recently, I thought it was maybe a Disney thing, is that some you know, machine learning, language learning AI technology was indeed taking images you know, that were copyrighted and somehow finding their ways into things it was generating and creating. So this is a fear that some music supervisors have, is that somebody's generating a song and then it turns out there's a problem lying underneath it that only comes forward when that show or movie is becomes really popular and then that song is heard by somebody with enough power to go sue, right? It's usually, you're only gonna get sued when people, you're making money and then of course they have to chase it down. So there is a little bit of a fear factor, I think, with supervisors dealing with folks that they that aren't known entities that they might have a fear that a indie artist, yeah, I got all these tracks from what is it, Suno or one of these other, you know, things. So I'mm look, you can get something to come out of AI, but when I've got a director or a music supervisor talking to me in real time saying, I need a little more hope right here. I can just fix it because I'm talking to him and I got my keyboard here and I can go, you know what? That English horn thing is giving you that vibe, you know? So we'll get rid of the English horn. We'll go with a more positive sound. Are you gonna be able to do that or are you gonna go back to AI and go, This is too sad here.

David (57:39.135)

Melancholy.

Brad (57:50.488)

They told me it's too sad. Don't make it so sad. AI, you know, figures it out. So I think, especially if you're working the picture where those moments, those movements, those looks, the story behind how you got to this scene is a human thing. That's got it's not just what's happening right now make it look this way. No, but he's thinking about something that happened three months ago. And we know that because we just watch the film and they justshowed us the flashback so we know how that person is feeling.

David (58:23.436)

It's too linear to to just be able to do that. And it's also worth saying, I'm not gonna name check the person 'cause I didn't ask permission, but we were chatting not so long ago with somebody who works for one of the publishers we write for, who is intimately involved with dealing with understanding how companies feel about AI and what they're prepared to use.And there is a real, at least at time of recording, there is a pushback and a fear of, you know, we don't we want to use music made by human beings. A because there's a litigus element to this and we don't actually know where the prompt did that was that stolen from somewhere or was it where did that come from? And B because they just it's a bit like LPs making a return. They want human stuff. So I said, should we be worried here? Should we be putting all our money on red on in the casino or what do we do? And he said, nope. Doesn't feel like that at time of recording as we are at the moment. It doesn't feel like that at all. So for all of the doom and gloom, it may not be the case through all of the food chain at all levels of what's being used. But certainly for people that are making this stuff right, it doesn't feel that way.

Brad (59:51.296)

And David, you know, to your point about the human thing and also making yourself survive these technological things. You gotta educate yourself and you gotta and be able to embrace the technology as it works for you. You've gotta make yourself you know unique, indispensable, you know. And it's not only just delivering the music, it's understanding the story that they're trying to help tell and being a good listener. And I, we chatted about this in a previous meeting that most of the most of the feedback I get from my music supervisors or might be coming from directors or producers, but through the music supervisors, they're rarely talking in musical terms. They're talking in emotional terms. And they're talking about history and forecasting what's coming up. This is all human stuff. And you've gotta be a human to appreciate what they're looking for.

Brad (01:01:02.094)

But yeah, there, you know, we have been, I've used AI vocals. I have an artist that sent something in, vocal was killing, total AI. I mean, you know, just type in the line, type in the lyrics, and then you can go to work and choose different voices. Scary. So from a performance standpoint, you know, especially vocally, that's tough because this stuff is getting really good.

Jeff (01:01:38.422)

I don't know. Yeah. What can you do? You can only worry about what you do and make the the art that you make, right? So-

Brad (01:01:44.23)

Yeah. And then also make sure that you're part of the this downwards, you know, the stream of the creation. So being a writer, most importantly, is the big thing, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And keeping track of all your details.

Jeff (01:02:00.076)

Well, gentlemen, I think that we have we've done a much better job on this pod than we did on the last pod. Because we didn't do any of it. We did not do

David (01:02:06.402)

Well when nobody's looking bad one day we'll show you what we originally recorded where we got about three definitions in and went, wait, no what does that mean? No, no, that doesn't mean that. And just descended into mayhem of this is useless. Yeah, yeah. It's brilliant.

Jeff (01:02:24.61)

Well, we can't thank you enough for defining a bunch of these things for us and yeah, I think a lot of people are gonna find it very useful.

David (01:02:32.686)

And once again I'm just going to point people towards your music supervision. Where can they find it, Brad, the music supervision class?

Brad (01:02:38.764)

Yeah, Berklee online. So if you just look that up and then type in music supervision, you will see two courses now. A regular one and then a more advanced one. And then I also have songwriting for film and T V, which is which is also gonna share a lot of the music and that's all been redone. I just revamped that like a year ago. No cool. So that's all been updated andyeah, education, knowledge is power. Good music is powerful. Aligning yourself with folks that can do something with your music. If you try to do it all yourself, that's great. You own everything, but if you can't find a home for it, you know, that's yeah, a challenge. And then the other thing is take care take care of business. Make sure that you've got all the bits and pieces of who owns what down. And that you're working with stuff that you have permission to work with and offer it up and then you're gonna make other people, you know, the supervisors and producers' jobs easy. This is this should be our number one concern. How can how can I help you tell your story? How can we help you tell your story?

David (01:03:57.198)

This is great. Well, I really appreciate the time. This has been very, very interesting. I might go back and watch this and make some notes actually 'cause it's like that was gold. I wanted that. Well this is wonderful. Thank you so much for the time, Brad.

Jeff (01:03:57.575)

Thank you, Brad.

Brad (01:04:12.482)

My great pleasure being with both of you, Jeff and David. Just great. 

David (01:04:17.634)

Fantastic. Until then. Yeah. Take it easy.

Jeff (01:04:18.998)

Thanks for listening, everybody. Yeah!