What is Sync Licensing?

For our fifth “Happy Hour” of 2021, we invited esteemed film director/producer and music supervisor Jonathan McHugh and Songtradr’s SVP of Global Platform Sales Nick Woollard to discuss the many facets of sync licensing. In an entertaining hour-long conversation, we spoke about the dos and don’ts of negotiating sync licenses, dived into some need-to-know sync licensing definitions, and discussed tips on how to pitch music supervisors.

 

Happy Hour Guests

• Jonathan McHugh — Jonathan is a documentary film director/producer and music supervisor who has produced over thirty films and TV shows, including Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. He has also music supervised seventy-five films and TV series, including the Cinemax/HBO TV series Jett and Blindspotting starring Daveed Diggs.
• Nick Woollard — Nick is a music and technology expert with 15 years of experience building scaled, global licensing solutions for advertisers, brands, and television producers. He has experience running global sync teams, bringing new products to market, and working as a senior executive in high-growth music businesses. Prior to joining Songtradr, he studied at the renowned Swedish Creative Business School, Hyper Island, completing an MA in Digital Management. 

The interview was conducted by Songtradr CXO, Victoria Wiltshire.

 

Demystifying music licensing definitions.

What is a sync license? It’s a term music supervisors and music licensing experts know well. So to kick things off, we asked both guests to provide a definition of the common music industry term. After confessing to having Googled to confirm his interpretation was correct, Nick took the first stab at answering. 

“There’s probably two definitions of a sync license. There’s a sync license that most people would refer to as licensing music for synchronization, normally with audiovisual content. Sometimes there are edge cases like licensing music for a podcast, where you are synchronizing it with other audio,” Nick explained.

“In reality, a sync license in technical terms actually relates to clearing the publishing of a track, so the synchronization of the composition, i.e., the melody or the lyrics. Whereas, clearing the sound recording is actually a master use license.”

“Having said that, in 15 years, I don’t think I have ever heard it separated out,” added Nick. “I would always refer to a sync license as being a combination of both the publishing and the master.”

“You’re right,” affirmed Jonathan. “They are both very different, and both of them are needed to license any piece of music. You can’t have the master without the sync, and vice versa.”

Our guests then took turns describing other key industry terms. First up, Nick spoke about a micro license, also known as micro sync.

“My understanding of micro licensing is mainly in the YouTube or online space, where it refers to small incremental payments that aggregate up over a large user base. Other people would refer to that as any low-cost, high-volume licensing.”

Next up, Jonathan described one of his most-disliked music industry terms, a needle drop license.

“It’s not literally someone dropping a needle,” confirmed Jonathan. “They refer to it generically as just a song playing in a scene. The word, when it says dropped, it sounds like it wasn’t curated or cared for, that it was just dropped in there, but that’s not the case most times.”

Nick jumped in to note that the term needle drop is not used in the UK, where he is based. There, it is referred to as one-off licensing.

Lastly, the duo discussed a one stop music license. Jonathan declared that the term is critical to music supervisors.

“The goal is to always simplify our jobs,” Jonathan explained. “If we can find what is called a one stop, it means the publishing and the master are owned by the same source and you can license them directly from one party. That’s why music libraries win in our world. Because we know we can just make one call and it’s done. You don’t have to worry about anything.”

“One stop people that control both the sync and master are incredibly important for what we do because of the ease of use.”

 

Negotiating sync licenses: the dos and don’ts.

The conversation then turned to how artists can successfully negotiate a sync license. Nick has worked in the industry for fifteen years, and his first piece of advice was around building trust. He explained that nurturing a relationship can lead to more meaningful placements in the future.

“It’s not just about extracting maximum value from that one deal. It’s also about your ability to build a career or build a relationship with an important stakeholder,” said Nick.

“One of the things that would seem really important to me is to not pull the rug out from under anyone’s feet. So the idea of changing terms, pulling out at the last minute, or declaring that there are different writers who were not originally on the list when you were talking about the deal – I think it’s that ability to be trustworthy and transparent with the people you’re dealing with.”

Nick then threw the question Jonathan’s way. He asked if Jonathan had ever encountered a situation where the goalposts were moved towards the end of a major music supervision project. Jonathan didn’t have to think too hard to answer the question.

“I’m coming off a thing recently where a hip-hop artist who we have one line of dialog from in a show… we couldn’t get the guy to sign a piece of paper for three months. Then, suddenly, his lawyer got into it after we sent him a note saying, ‘hey, we need to get this done.’ He sent back an offer that was three times the amount, so I just sent back a scathing letter to them and said, ‘we’ll pay this amount if that’s what you want, but we’re not using your music anymore, ever.’ Then I got a response from the publisher saying, ‘well, come back with a counteroffer?’ That kind of shit just doesn’t resonate well. So if I can never use that person again, they’re done.”

Responding to Jonathan’s ‘what not to-do’ story, we then asked if he would recommend artists license many small tracks for low payments and leverage those placements or wait for a more lucrative deal to come along.

“There is no such thing as the big white whale,” Jonathan responded. “People are like, ‘that’s not enough money.’ But I say, really? That’s five hundred dollars more than you had yesterday and you can take that piece of music and market it.

“So, take the money. Don’t be precious. Maybe you are getting ripped off, but it’s all relative. How much would you pay them to put your music in so that you could market yourself around that show? What’s that worth to you? You have to flip the mentality on people sometimes.”

 Pitching songs to music supervisors.

In the next portion of our Happy Hour on the fundamentals of sync licensing, we delved into the topic on every artist’s lips: how can you get your music in front of a music supervisor. With 113 production and music supervision credits to his name, Jonathan has worked with artists at every level. Echoing the advice of our previous Happy Hour guests – Aron Silverstein and James Curtiss, who placed Vitamin String Quartet’s classical pop covers in Bridgerton – Jonathan affirmed that every artist should start with the fundamentals. 

“If you’re ever reaching out to music supervisors, you better make sure you’ve done your research, that you know exactly what shows they’re working on, and that you know exactly what vibe of music is in those shows. Because if you send something to a music supervisor and you say, ‘hey, here’s my music, I think it would be great for this,’ but you haven’t really listened or watched that show, and you’re off base and it looks like you didn’t even do the research, your email’s not even gonna get read. Or it will be read and disposed of quickly.”

“You really have to make sure you know what you’re doing. It’s a lot of time and energy to be able to find the right people doing the right shows, and most of them won’t respond because they’re ridiculously busy,” Jonathan continued. “So I think that idea of having third-party clearance, or working with a team like Songtradr, will be really beneficial.”

Nick agreed that the fundamentals are essential. “If you take our situation at Songtradar, there are jobs we pitch for where hundreds of tracks will go into the same brief,” he said.

“One of the things our team is doing is trying to give more context to that piece of music, beyond just an audio file that the music supervisor may or may not listen to or even like. So that idea of having an audience, having relevance, having points of interest that you can refer to, whether that’s as an artist or the people that are pitching that artist, it’s really important.”

Having covered what artists should do, we then flipped the question and asked our guests what artists should not do. Jonathan began by warning artists not to assume that because their music is about a specific topic or sounds a certain way, it fits what a music supervisor is working on.

“It’s very hard to know what people are working on, so it’s very hard to hit that nail on the head. But if you see a certain show and you see it’s all hip-hop, then don’t send them rock music,” Jonathan explained.

“It’s very hard to figure what music supervisors like because we like what we have to like. We like what is up for that show. I’m doing one show that is predominately Bay Area hip-hop right now called Blindspotting. But I’m doing another animated comedy that is everything from 60s music to modern-day hip-hop. So you just never know what people are working on, and you have to try and pigeonhole as much as you can to try and figure out if your music might work with the projects they’re working on.”

 

Our guests answer your questions.

During the final segment, we put questions sourced from the Songtradr community to our expert panel. Jonathan and Nick spoke about writing the perfect pitch letter, whether you should license your music for free, and why visuals matter.

Should artists offer independent productions use of songs without licensing fees for the sake of exposure?

“I think in any scenario, the answer is always yes. But you should try to get some money for your work even if it’s just a dollar,” answered Jonathan.

Nick agreed and added that “if there really isn’t a budget available for a certain project, then maybe [you would license your music for free]. But it wouldn’t be something I would try to encourage as a regular occurrence,” he said.

How to write a pitch letter without sounding pushy

Jonathan repeated his earlier advice that it’s essential to know the music supervisor’s work and express that you’re a fan without sounding too sycophantic. “It’s like that line from This is Spinal Tap, ‘there’s a thin line between clever and stupid,’ so you need to be somewhere in that middle ground.”

“It all comes down to tone, to being humble and walking that thin line of putting some personality and humor into what you communicate without it coming across as being unprofessional,” Nick added.

Regarding sending follow-up emails, Jonathan recommended waiting two weeks before trying again. He also emphasized the significance of personal references or introductions.

“When someone you know knows somebody else, that’s really important,” Jonathan said. “Personal introductions from other people make you wanna read it and respond. That’s where the third-party sync agencies come in handy.”

Does the artist’s design have a significant influence, or is what really matters the way the music sounds?

“The aesthetic of your art matters greatly, but nothing substitutes for what it sounds like,” answered Jonathan.

Music structure and format are a huge hurdle. Can you please discuss that?

“A lot of the time, we can’t even use a whole song or even part of a song,” explained Jonathan. “So it’s really about the catchiness of it.”

“Music supervisors listen to so much music, so whatever your first ten to fifteen seconds is, it’s got to grab people. First appearances do matter. If you can hit people off the bat and go my song is this in fifteen seconds, that’s gonna help me stay in there and keep listening.”

“Typically, in the production library world, you would expect a song to have a slow, steady buildup to a crescendo. Then there would be a nice drop-off, and then there would be a happy leveling off towards the last 30 or 60 seconds,” noted Nick. “Those tracks were very versatile when it came to editing because they were quite predictable. An editor can chop them up and move them around a scene with ease. So I think if you’re working in a library space, then there’s definitely something to be said about a structure that is typical.”

“I actually know editors that would be able to make the first selection of tracks based on waveform alone,” Nick added. “They may listen to the first fifteen seconds, but they can roll a track in or out based on the shape of the waveform.”

Nick also emphasized authenticity. “One of the big things we put in front of any music supervisor, broadcaster, or ad agency is around the authenticity of the music. And some of that is about making it non-formulaic.”

How do you license songs, and why is it so important?

“Everything has got to be buttoned up,” said Jonathan. “You have to be able to speak for your art and represent it on a financial and economic [level]. That’s the rubber meets the road for us. We might like a song, but if your shit is not together, then it doesn’t really matter.”

“It’s ultimately there to protect the moral interests of all the parties,” affirmed Nick. “As a film producer, I want to know that I can use that track safely, that I’ve got the right indemnities, and that when I need to put it on a DVD or stream it on Netflix that I’m not suddenly going to get bitten because I haven’t cleared those rights. If I’m an artist or songwriter, I want to know that I’m going to get paid fairly for my work. And I want to have control over how it’s used.”

Fans can catch the full Songtradr Happy Hour on YouTube.

Watch the full panel discussion:

Watch other Songtradr Happy Hour Sessions in full:

• Meet the Team Behind the Classical Pop Covers on Bridgerton
• Reporting on Music in the Digital Age
• WeTransfer and the Intersection of Music, Business, and Tech
• The Art of Placing Music in Sports Content
• Finding Your Virtual Audience
• The Power of Women in Music
• Making Music for Ads: The Do’s + Don’ts
• Music Placements that Break the Mold
• Creating Killer Artist Images
• Hip Hop Deconstructed with Murs
• Touring’s Out. Now What?
• Power Songwriting for Sync Placement
• Up Close and Personal with Hit Filmmaker Jon Turteltaub
• Pitching Yourself to the Industry
• Music for Gaming: What’s Working + What’s Ahead
• Balancing Branding with Artistry
• Music Through the Ages: Soundtrack or Catalyst for Change?
• How to Make Money with Your Music: Monetization Tips for Indie Artists
• Music Supervisor Roundtable: How the Music & Media Business Has Been Impacted by COVID-19 

 

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