Music licensing is a great opportunity for artists to make money by allowing their music to be used, reproduced, or sampled. There are many different types of licenses available depending on the location of use, audience, content medium, and rights ownership.

We’ll explore the different types of licenses available and how you can quickly (and easily) start licensing your music today. 

Ready to get started?

Let’s jump in. 

Types of music licenses 

Synchronization License 

A synchronization license allows for use of your song in film, tv, advertisements, and video content. Any visual media that wants to use a published song as a soundtrack or background music must purchase a sync-license. 

Sync-licensing can be very lucrative for artists! Especially nowadays, advertising and visual content is becoming more and more popular. What better way to create engaging, memorable content than to have a great soundtrack in the background? 

You may be familiar with the impact these songs had in the Netflix tv series Stranger Things: Heroes by David Bowie & Running up that Hill by Kate Bush. Sync-licenses allow great songs like these to be used in all types of visual mediums—and your songs can be used too!  

Public Performance License 

A public performance license gives permission to play a song for public broadcasting. This applies to any place or occasion that plays your music including restaurants, radios, concerts, festivals, or stores.  

You might’ve heard on social media that the retail store, Zara, is known by customers for their great in-store music playlists. To play these songs in their stores, Zara must purchase Public Performance licenses.  

Mechanical License 

Also known as a “reproduction license”, mechanical licenses allow for a licensee to record or reproduce a track for audio-only or physical distribution. An example of this is if a song is recorded onto a CD, vinyl or cassette. Many times, record labels will buy mechanical licenses to sell merchandise of CDs or records.  

A mechanical license is also needed when making a cover song of another track. If you want to create and release a cover of a song, you must pay a fee to the original owner. Some famous covers you may know: Hallelujah, originally by Leonard Cohen, and covered by many artists Fast Car by Jonas Blue – Originally by Tracy Chapman  

Master Recording License 

In a master recording license, the rights of the original song (aka the masters) are handed over to the licensee. Usually, these master rights are held by a record label or by the artist. It can be confusing to understand where this license type fits in with sync and mechanical licenses, especially since a Master Recording license can be used for both visual and audio content mediums. 

If you want to purchase a Masters license and then use the song in a visual format, you still need to purchase a sync-license. The same goes for if you are reproducing the song in an audio or physical format—you’ll still need a mechanical license. 

Now, why is this?

The reason is because master recording licenses involve the specific recording of a particular song; whereas sync and mechanical involve the composition of a song. Let’s take Beyoncé’s “Halo” as an example. 

Say a company wants to make a commercial using the song "Halo” in the background. As we mentioned before, the combination of music with visual elements requires a sync-license. But the difference here is that the company wants to use Beyoncé’s version of the song.  

Here’s the thing: other versions of “Halo” exist—either by covering artists or instrumental versions, etc. If someone wanted to use the song “Halo” in a visual use, you’d only need a sync-license—because a sync-license covers the general composition of the song (the melody, lyrics, instrumentals).  

If someone wanted to use Beyoncé’s version of “Halo” (the specific performance of the song), you’d need to purchase the masters recording license in addition to the sync-license. So, if you want to use a specific recording of the song—you need a masters recording license.  

Going back to our example of the tracks used from Stranger Things, the David Bowie song “We are Heroes” that Netflix used, wasn’t the original version of the song by David Bowie. It was a cover done by Peter Gabriel. Because of this, Netflix doesn’t have to purchase the master recording license from Bowie’s label.  

Typically, master recording licenses take longer to obtain and require more custom-negotiation with the master rights holder.  

Blanket License 

A blanket license is the most accessible license type for independent artists. This is because it usually involves your song as a part of a ‘package deal’.  

Your Performance Rights Organization (PRO) or Collective Management Organization (CMO) can sell your song within a blanket license. A blank license means a licensee can buy a group of songs under one license. Since a PRO holds the rights to many songs, this means they can sell these rights for you.  

Royalty-Free 

Royalty-free licensing allows for use of a track without paying additional royalties when the track is played. Royalty-free doesn’t mean the same thing as copyright-free, so you still must purchase a license to legally use the music.  

Typically, a royalty-free license allows a purchaser to use the music for a specified time and/or in specific places. As an artist you can sign up with a royalty-free music company, who will negotiate licensing agreements with you and then sell your music to buyers.   

How to get started licensing? 

So, how do you start licensing your music?

You can license your music yourself, but this can become complicated and overly technical. Especially since there can be a lot of legal jargon, you may end up having to work with a lawyer anyways. Thus, an alternative is to license your music with the help of a music licensing company. These companies usually charge a small fee for your music to be featured in their music library. Buyers then go to these companies and search through their catalog to find the tracks they want.  

By working with a licensing company, you gain access to their industry connections, large network, and established interface for finding music. You also avoid creating a licensing agreement yourself (since this is the technical, legal part of the process).  

Always make sure to thoroughly review any agreement before signing. You may even want to consult an attorney to make sure you feel aligned with the licensee's requests.  

Licensing with Winamp for Creators 

You can easily license your music with our Winamp for Creators V2 platform. Get your music licensed for ads, commercial use, video games, TV, and more. Licensing also includes getting your music broadcasted in restaurants, bars and shops worldwide. You can also license through our partner, Jamendo.

With Jamendo, you get compensated for each track that is sold, earning up to 65% of each sale. It is also free to opt-in! This makes it a great option if you want to test out licensing, but don’t want to commit financially.