Music licensing is the licensed use of copyrighted music. Music licensing is intended to ensure that the creators of musical works get paid for their work. A purchaser of recorded music owns the media on which the music is stored, not the music itself. A purchaser has limited rights to use and reproduce the recorded work.
DEFENITIONSThe following words and phrases appear in discussion of music licensing:
license
the right, granted by the copyright holder, for a given person or entity to broadcast, recreate, perform, or listen to a recorded copy of a copyrighted work
licensor
the owner of the licensed work
licensee
the person or entity to whom the work is licensed
performance
for the purposes of this article, the live performance of a musical piece, regardless of whether it's performed by the original artist or in the manner it is best known
broadcast
the replaying of pre-recorded works to multiple listeners through various media or in a 'semi-live' setting such as a bar or bookstore, and including radio, TV, webcasting, podcasting, etc. (Note: Using this definition and the previous one, you find the information that leads to phrases like 'live broadcast performance'.)
performing rights organization
large companies, the best-known of whom are ASCAP, BMI, and to a lesser extent SESAC (there are others as well) whose fundamental job it is to keep track of every single performance or broadcast of all works protected under copyright. A more in-depth analysis of how these organizations work will be threaded throughout the body of this article
pre-cleared music
music that has been pre-negotiated for price, distribution and legal use, generally through licensing for film, video, television (commercials and programs), Internet, events, video games and multimedia productions.
copyright
literally, 'the right to copy.' Prior to 1886, no effective international law of copyright existed. The first major international copyright law conventions were the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works created in 1886. It is not within the scope of this document to examine the various changes, additions, and ancillary agreements to the Berne Convention.
synchronization licensing
the licensing of musical works to be synchronized with moving pictures as background in a motion picture, television program, video, DVD, etc.
master use licensing
the licensing of the recording of a musical work to be performed as a soundtrack, bumper, lead-in or background to a motion picture.
publisher
for the purposes of copyright, a publisher is the owner of the copyrighted work. It is now standard practice for songwriters of even the slightest prominence to form a 'publishing company' who actually owns the rights to their work; the reasons for this are matters of legal finery and largely not of value to the scope of this article. This phrasing is reflective of the state of media at the time of the Berne Convention, when all music distribution was done on paper as sheet music (or player piano rolls).
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