The Importance Of Licensing Music

By Author: Jack Martyn
Total Articles: 3
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Why would I pay more for a song on your site when I just bought it on iTunes for a lot cheaper?
We get this question from time to time…actually, more often than thought we would. (Incidentally, we got a call just this morning from someone asking a similar question).
We've explained before, you've probably heard before, but sometimes it's good to keep the memory fresh. Let's start back a few years.
Before the influx of digital sales (al a iTunes, Amazon mp3, CdBaby, etc…) artists sold CDs (or tapes, records, 8 tracks, what have you, depending on how far back you want to go), and they toured. This is how they made money - they sold full albums and received a percentage of that price and they toured where they were paid for playing, sold merch, etc…
Then came the single track digital buying era, which is great for consumers. It allows us to purchase a single track, download it immediately, and listen to exactly what we want within seconds. People are still buying full digital albums, but not nearly as much anymore. Let us put it into more perspective for you:
For ...
... an average artist (not Coldplay or U2 or another top 40 artist) to make just over $1000 US dollars a month (minimum wage), they need to sell:
About 150 self pressed albums a month (CD) or
1,160 albums if the artist is involved in a high end royalty deal (CD) or
1,200 full album downloads from iTunes (or similar) or
About 2,000 single mp3 sales per month from iTunes or
About 4,000 CDs with a low end royalty deal or
1.5 - 4 MILLION plays per month on a streaming site such as Spotify or Last.fm

And that's just for minimum wage, FOR ONE PERSON. If you have a band of four, multiply those numbers. (numbers taken from the article - informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online)
All of that to say, this industry is not easy money for the average artist. Of course they have their tours, merch sales, percentage of ticket sales. etc…but, and this brings us to the actual point of this post, with album and song sales bringing in less income (and we won't even get started on piracy's affect on income) artists need some other way to bring in money.
And, thus, licensing
Licensing is one of the main ways recording artists get paid for the work they do.
By licensing a song, you are telling, not only the artist that you like and respect their work, but you are telling everyone who sees your project that you respect other artists.
As a photographer, if you were driving down the road and you saw a billboard with one of your images on it, what would you think?
As a videographer, if you're watching television and see a clip from something that you shot on a commercial, what would you think?
Just like you, recording artists are putting their time, talent and effort into making something extraordinary and, just like you; they would like compensation for some of their work.
So what's the importance of licensing?
At the end of the day, it's about respect. Respecting other artists. Respecting work. And yes, even respecting the law.
The Music Bed can't make anyone license songs. We don't want to make people license songs. What we can do is educate. We believe the educated person will make the educated choice.

Looking for Music Licensing ? There is a wide collection of Royalty free music within the stock music library.  For more information on Royalty free music for photographer , you may visit themusicbed.com.