Sync licensing for an independent catalog: what a music supervisor needs from you

A sync license lets a piece of music be used with moving picture — film, television, advertising, games, online video. It is the part of the business where a single placement can be worth more than a year of streaming, and it is also the part where most independent catalogs are unlicensable, not because the music is wrong but because the paperwork is.

Two licenses, not one

Every placement needs two permissions.

The master use license covers the recording. It comes from whoever owns the master — the artist, a producer with a share, a label.

The synchronisation license covers the composition. It comes from whoever owns the song — the writers, their publishers.

A supervisor who wants a track has to get both. If the recording has three owners and the song has four writers with two publishers, that is nine parties, and the placement has a deadline measured in days. The supervisor moves on to a track that clears faster.

What "one-stop" means

A one-stop track is one where a single party can grant both licenses. The master and the publishing are controlled by the same entity, so one signature clears everything.

For a supervisor, one-stop is the difference between a track they can use and a track they will think about. For an independent catalog, being one-stop — owning both sides, or having written agreements that let one party license both — is the single biggest thing you can do to make the catalog licensable.

What has to be true before anyone can license it

• Ownership is documented. Split sheets for every recording, with master and composition shares that sum to one hundred, signed. If a sample or an interpolation is in the track, its clearance is documented too. An uncleared sample makes a track unlicensable at any price.
• Every recording has its ISRC, and every song has its ISWC and its writers' IPI numbers. The license names the recording and the composition by code.
• The performing-rights organisation is on file. The supervisor's cue sheet needs it.
• You can deliver. A high-resolution master, an instrumental, and stems if you have them. A track without an instrumental loses the placements where dialogue sits over the music, which is most of them.
• Somebody can answer within a day. A quote request that waits a week has been answered by somebody else.

Pricing

Fees run from small for a short online use to substantial for a national campaign, and every one depends on the medium, the territory, the term, the prominence of the use and whether it is exclusive. A published rate for the standard uses removes a round of email; a custom quote handles everything the standard terms do not fit.

The free sync rate estimator on this site gives a range for a use, so a first conversation starts from a number.

What SNVRKOTICS does

SNVRKOTICS licenses its own catalog at sync.snvrkotics.com. Every recording is one-stop — the company owns the master and the publishing — with a published rate per use, a license issued at payment, stems delivered with it where the recording has them, and the writers, publisher and performing-rights organisation on every track's page. Anything the standard terms do not cover goes through a quote request that reaches a person.

For a catalog held in SNVRKOTICS, the works, recordings, split sheets and codes are the documentation above. If the catalog is one-stop, it is licensable; if it is not, the split sheets show exactly who has to agree.