Without the talents of musicians, movies would be less suspenseful, cartoons would be a little less entertaining, and long waits on the telephone would be filled with silence. With the incredible impact music has on our everyday lives, you would assume that being a musician is very profitable. Unfortunately, many musicians have trouble breaking even after they take into account all of their expenses. Legal fees, instrument repair expenses, travel costs, and other costs of doing business eat into the revenues of most musicians until their profits are almost nonexistent. Savvy musicians know that music licensing can be an ideal way to make their work more profitable without giving up control of their works completely.
Before you can understand music licensing, you need to know a little bit about music copyright. Not just a song can be copyrighted. Each individual piece of a song can have copyright protection. If someone writes lyrics, these can be copyrighted without any accompanying music. If someone writes notes to a song in a piece of sheet music, this can be copyrighted without any lyrics or performance of the notes. If you take the notes and the lyrics and perform them, the performance can also be copyrighted. While you do not have to register your copyright for it to be effective, it must be registered if you want your rights to hold up in a court of law.
