Music publishing agreements series; (part 18) Synchronisation

Synchronisation is becoming bigger and bigger business for publishers every day. The first reason is the growth of South Africa’s film industry in recent years (including productions like Hansie, the Oscar-winning Tsotsi and many other productions that used local music soundtracks. Think also about the music you hear on television commercials, documentaries and other TV programmes). The second reason is the worldwide growth of the video game industry.

Generally, both fields are handled in the same way by publishers. Original (i.e. customised and especially-written) music is today more prevalent in the video game world than ever before. This revenue stream is thus becoming more and more important for savvy publishers.

A South African composer, Trevor Rabin, has become a multi-millionaire by composing and producing film scores for major Hollywood blockbusters including all the Steven Segal movies, Rock Star and many others. He does not even bother touring as a rock star any more, due to the huge income he earns from film score synchronisations.

Synch is actually a double license

When existing recordings are used, two synch licenses are in fact granted (one for the composition and one for the recording) although it has become industry practice to combine these into one document and split the royalty equally with the label. (what you get out of the label’s ‘side’ or half will depend on what your record agreement says, and what you will get out of the publisher’s ‘side’ or half will depend on what your publishing agreement says). Often, where there is no re-recording restriction in your recording contract, the publisher might ask you to re-record the song for synch purposes, thereby cutting the label out of the deal.

Whether you will want to do this or not should depend on the split offered to you by the label compared with the split offered to you by the publisher. If they are the same, why bother? If you are asked to write a completely new work (‘score’) for a film or video, you will need to check the exclusivity clause in your record contract before going ahead and recording. You may be prevented from doing so, in which case your publisher will no doubt hire session musicians to perform your composition instead.

Video game synchs

Video game music can range from a simple synthesiser tune to an orchestral piece. Older games had simple organ ditties, whereas today, in the eighth generation of video games, these games often have complex soundtracks similar to the film scores of movies, and even interactive soundtracks which change based on player input, in order to create an appropriate atmosphere. In video games, mood is everything, and music plays a huge role in creating the required moods.

The complexity of music used in video games has improved to the point where the score of a video game is today almost indistinguishable from the music played in film soundtracks. As the technical capabilities of video consoles has increased, very well-known artists have made this line of work their business, for example Trent Reznor, who composed the music for Quake and Hans Zimmer who composed the music for ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’, among many others. Many film score composers have therefore crossed over into video games.

Conversely, several game composers have done the opposite. For example, Michael Giacchino made his name with the ‘Medal of Honour’ video game series and then went on to compose music for both ‘Alias’ and ‘Lost’ (well-known television series) as well as the 2009 movie ‘Star Trek’. Danny Baranowsky, who first saw money from music when he wrote the music for a puzzle game on Nokia phones, now makes millions from game music. He is on record as saying that he makes ten times more money from game music composition than from selling music through outlets.

It has now become increasingly common for film and video game soundtracks to be commercially sold as albums or downloads and even performed in concerts. These two worlds are colliding. You can make serious money out of this collision: that is why it is advisable for you to license the music to the game creator non-exclusively (unless it is offering enough to justify a buy-out) but keep the copyright. This will allow you to double your income. Make the synch license income, but also sell the music on iTunes, other outlets and indeed, on Steam (even though this is regarded as a go-to site for games, not music, people source game music that they have heard on it and like, from Steam itself).