“We can't pay you, but its great promotion for your record”, is a familiar line for most musicians and if you’re a new artist, free promotion can be extremely tempting and very beneficial. But surely if a company use’s your music or content for the benefits of their business to the extent of multi-millions in the way of profits, surely one would argue that your content should be paid for.
If for example you consider US radio, performers don’t get paid for airplay while radio claims its great promotion. The only other countries where this happens is in Iran, North Korea and Rwanda, not exactly the most forward thinking in regards to liberty. With this in mind, commercial radio in the US is funded by advertising and is worth $16billion dollars a year, while the entire industry would be redundant without the music that it acquires free of charge.
In an era where physical record sales are dwindling I pose the question, “Is promoting an actual record, promoting the past?” With that said ‘synch licenses’ are becoming a key route to profitability and vital for artists to be able to survive on their music. What are ‘synch licenses’ I hear you say? A synch (meaning a synchronisation license) is when music is used in TV shows, movies, advertising or computer games. Yet in Japan it has almost become the norm to not pay writers and performers for music used in advertising - it's regarded as promotion for the artist's record. MTV uses the same argument and so do many computer games companies. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick even went as far to say “record labels should pay for the privilege of having their music in their games.”
Viacom built the largest television network in the world on the back of playing music videos on MTV without paying a penny for them, (they started paying recently, but only in certain territories outside of the US). Of course it's fair that these companies make a profit, because without them there wouldn’t be the vehicle of promotion. However, one could argue that music videos promote the channel as much as the channel promotes the artist.
So now I’m thinking with all of this in mind, where and how does an artist make their “cash monies”... In my opinion, with record labels taking a larger percentage of live performance revenues, an artist’s/performers key attribute is his or her “brand”. Once the artist solidifies their core audience the fundamental goal must be to hone the brand and everything one wants to represent. Once the public or group of the public buys into you, so will the corporate conglomerates, and thus, you get paid your CASH MONIES...
