A Guide to Getting Music Licensing for Your Independent Film

It's Easier Than You Think to Get a Song by a Singer or Band You Love

If you are an independent, very low-budget filmmaker, you may think that getting recognizable music, or music by singers or songwriters signed with any kind of label, is completely impossible. Getting the rights to a song that is shared by an artist, a songwriter, a record label, and a publishing company can be tricky, but it is not unattainable. It is also not as expensive as you might fear.

Last summer, I worked on a very low-budget feature film. The budget for this feature film was under $20,000! The director had one song in particular in mind to use during one of the scenes that was by a known singer. While it certainly would have been easier to just let the person scoring the film fill the scene with music by an unknown, the notion of using the particular song in the scene just wouldn't die. So it was my job to see about getting licensing for the song for this small indie film. I thought it couldn't hurt to ask as the worst case scenario would have been for them to say 'no.'

What I learned is that it is not impossible to get real music for a film; in fact all it takes is a little negotiation.

For a small production, even getting a one-hit wonder's songs can be taxing, but it is not out of the question. It is just a matter of contacting the right people and trying to get on the same wavelength. If a film is really low-budget, there is probably a reason, and you probably have very little money to spend on acquiring music rights, but a little money can go a long way if you have a lot of grit and some decent bargaining skills.

To secure the rights to a particular recording of a song, a filmmaker must have both a Master license and a Synchronization license. A master license is obtained through the record label, or whoever owns the copyright to the recording you want to use. It will usually be the record label, though some very wealthy artists, such as Madonna, have the money to buy back their catalog, and therefore own all of their own material.