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What is licensing and sync and why is it important for musicians?
Let’s face the fact. Unless you’re a superstar like Beyonce who can drop a secret album without any marketing or promotion and still somehow end up at the top of the charts by the end of the week, a musician has to work incredibly hard to make their money. One of the reasons why the career of “musician” often appalls parents (“but you’d make such a good lawyer!”) is the fact that it is incredibly unsteady. It is not salaried, you don’t go into an office from 9 am to 5 pm, and no project is ever guaranteed. You get by on your talent, connections, and maybe a little luck.
Multiple streams of income. You hear this phrase all over the place in the music world. It is the idea that album sales aren’t enough anymore—and haven’t been for a long time. Today, musicians can’t simply rely on album sales, but they also need to rely on ticket sales, merch sales, TV appearances, and a lot of publishing and licensing deals.
Now before you say anything about them wanting to make money (“music should be free”; “they knew they weren’t going to make money anyway”) you must know that all musicians have a habit. It is a habit that they need to fund somehow. It’s called: eating.
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In order to do this eating thing, licensing agencies like Billy Penn Music do their best to put their artists into film, TV, and commercial projects. This is a huge source of income for most artists because people and companies can’t use music in their projects without getting the proper permissions and giving the proper compensation to the artist. If they do use the music without permission, the artist has grounds for a lawsuit.
What does Billy Penn Music do?
Billy Penn Music (BPM) is a sync agency like no other. Because BPM is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office (GPFO), filmmakers have direct, in-house access to a company that is dedicated to finding the perfect sync. But the project does not have to be affiliated with the GPFO to request our help. They can submit briefs directly to us, request specific songs to be licensed, or ask one of our composers to create a custom score for their project.
Billy Penn Music is committed to providing a conduit between film/TV/commercials and our artists.
We realize that this mentality may not be unique to us. That’s OK. Because we have more.
We offer 100% pre-cleared and easy-cleared music that is, furthermore, fully qualified for use with the Pennsylvania Film Tax Credit Program. That means that if you want to license a song, the process is as simple as it can get, to the point of that it may not even need to be cleared by the artist. And, if you are a film, you can get tax credit for it. (For more info on the Tax Credit Program, click here).
Our commitment to both our artists and our filmmakers is what makes us stand out from the rest.