Music licensing is the commercial use of copyrighted music through an agreement called a music license. Music licensing agreements guarantee that a song’s copyright holders are paid for the use of their music in media like:

• Movies and Films
• TV Shows
• Video Games
• Online Video Ads

That means an artist somewhere is getting paid (a lot) for that car commercial they play way too much on TV.Music licenses and fee splits are typically arranged between artists and publishers through publishing contracts.

But like I said before, many artists represent themselves for publishing in order to retain 100% of the licensing fees. In fact, artists and bands often form their own publishing companies to represent their own music.

However, getting your music placed can be a lot more difficult without the help of a publisher and their resources.If a license is arranged through a publisher, the revenue from the placement is shared between the artist and the publisher based on the terms of the sync agreement so that everyone at the table gets a piece of the pie.