A very common question is this. “Why do artists make their music royalty free?” There are actually a number of reasons why artists do this and each artist may have a different one. I’m going to go over some of the more common reasons and then I’m going to honestly tell you why I personally make my music available royalty free. The candidness of my response might surprise you.
One reason that an artist might make his music royalty free is for exposure. Think of it, if you will, as a company selling a product and in order to get you to buy that product they give you another product of a lessor cost for free. This is done as an enticement to try the more expensive product.
If you look around the Internet at many sites selling some product or another, you will often find words like “Free Report” or “Free Download” or “Free Sample”. A big reason why this is done is because today’s consumer is very wary of buying anything, especially online. The horror stories of crooks and con men are rampant over the web. In fact, things have gotten so bad that the FTC had to recently step in with some regulations on what you can and can’t say on your site when selling a product. As a result, consumer confidence is shaky to say the least.
So music creators as well as other vendors will create what is called a “loss leader” in order to gain the public’s trust in the hopes of selling a more expensive product.
Let’s face it, relatively speaking, royalty free music is cheep. Especially when you consider that a piece of music where you have to pay a royalty fee for can run you tens of thousands of dollars, if not more, if it ends up on a CD or movie soundtrack that is seen, heard, purchased or whatever, millions of times. So while the music creator could make more money selling music where they got a royalty for, making their music royalty free is more enticing to the customer which means more purchases which in turn means more exposure for them as an artist. This could, down the road, lead to higher paying projects.
It’s really no different than an actor starting out doing commercials because the exposure might make it easier for him to break into doing feature films, or a comic doing improve to start before landing a sitcom or playing Vegas.
Another reason why composers might make their music royalty free is because they don’t want the hassles of the more lucrative writing gigs. There is an old saying. “Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.”
As somebody who has been in the music business since 1979, I can tell you that it is not all roses. There is a lot of politics, hobnobbing and backstabbing. There are a lot of compromises that you will have to make. Think you have any real creative control or input? When the executives say “I want a 3 minute pop tune” and then go through all the things they want in it, they’re not kidding. And if you want to keep your writing gig, you’ll give them exactly what they want.
And contrary to what most people believe, being a pop song writer doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to make a fortune, even if you write a song that’s a hit record. At 2 cents royalty per song (after all, the artist, label and a whole lot of other people involved also get their cut) you have to sell a boat load of records just to make a decent living. And hit records don’t sell forever. Eventually, they go off the charts and the sales stop, which means the royalty checks eventually stop coming in or at the very best look more like an electric bill for a bungalow.
Point is, because of the frustrations and corporate BS that you have to put up with, royalty free music, as a business model, can be a relaxing and refreshing change of pace.
Another reason composers will choose to create royalty free music is because of the ease of creation.
When you’re writing for a major project, you’re under some very strict guidelines as I stated above. When you’re writing royalty free music there are no constraints. Take a look at this very site. You will notice that there are a number of categories from acoustic to rock and everything in between. There is no way that you have that freedom of creation when you’re working on a specific project or an artist says to you “I want you to write this kind of song for me.” You do what you’re asked to do, period.
The royalty free music business is total freedom. Sure, if you have to do a custom track for somebody then it’s different. But you’re always free to turn down any work you don’t feel suits you. And in the meantime, you can continue to write any tracks you like and put them up on your site because you know there is somebody out there who is going to want it. Just looking at my daily download logs is proof of that for me. In fact, I am often surprised at some of the tracks that have been downloaded.
Okay, so why do I personally do royalty free music? Well, to be perfectly honest, my experience with the music business in 35 years has been less than pleasant. It is a rough world out there. My successes have been few and far between. In short, I like to eat and praying for a hit record is no way to live. So I’ve turned to this business model because it is a fairly certain income.
Will I ever get rich off of this model? Probably not. But as long as my wife is working and the bills are paid, I’m content with this model. At the very least, it allows me to do something that I love without all the hassles and pitfalls that I’ve outlined above.
So when you get a chance, check out some of the music on this site. You may just find something that you can use.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim