I am trying to understand publishing rights etc

I was wondering if "the beatles" song were used in any advertisements on TV? Has this happened many times?

who do you need to ask to use "the beatles" song in an advertisement?

and how much would it cost?

THanks

 

Yes songs by the Beatles have been used many times in adverts and at least a few times by Nike.

You need permission from the right's holders, The catalogue is a little split so it depends on the particular song and the writers.

It costs whatever you negotiate the rate to be with the rights holder. If you are just a small mom and pop shop making ice cream flavoured condoms they might let you have it on the cheap, if you are Nestle they might try to get a bit more dosh for the slip.

 

Last edited: Feb 9, 2024

i think when u give publishing rights to cdbaby and such, i don't they think ask you each time someone wants to use the song

i guess more specialized publishing companies ask you each time someone is interested?

 

Those scenarios are two different use cases and not really an apples to apples comparison.

 

A couple groups like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin have adamantly opposed ever allowing their music in advertising abd when they caved on rare occasions I would imagine the price paid was truly staggering...

 

Course what you always could try doing is making a sound alike that gets the idea of the original song across but it's just different enough to hopefully avoid copyright infringement. "Hopefully" being the operative word there.

 

Pun intended?

 

It would cost 100's of thousands of dollars to license a beatles master recording. Easily 500K, if not 1 million or even more. Whoever controls the rights could settle for less, but i doubt they would unless it was for a campaign they believed in, non profit etc.

On average, for your random run of the mill, no following artist in a major ad campaign , say for Target, or Amazon or something, your looking at anywhere from 25k - 150k. It can go much higher, or much lower. My biggest sync to date was 500K all in + royalties, (i didnt see nearly all of that, splits with co-writers, publisher etc) my syncs on the smaller side of things (background music in a reality tv show etc, is anywhere from 1k-5k all in).

Generally a music supervisor will reach out to the publisher or rights holders and offer them a sum. Publishers can counter or accept, or decline. Ive had publisher decline for some of my songs many times, because even though we were offered 10k or so, we had gotten the song synced for 30k just a few months before etc.

Things are going to change drastically though over the next few years with AI... why license a beatles song master recording for half a milli, when you can just generate something that sounds almost identical for 30$ a month.

 

It is really nice when someone actually notices and isn't angry about it

 

for example, if u upload your music on cdbaby and allow them to be the publisher, I Don't think they ask you if they gonna use your music in a film or so...they just use it and pay you...

when you get those offers, they ask you? is that a specialized publisher? Or cdbaby music publishing etc?