This page details those of our composers who are not members of any royalty
collection society, and which music tracks are totally royalty free in all senses
of the word.
First, we would like to try to explain some of the complexities of music use
and royalty-free music. We've tried to make this as short as we could:
Most music composers and publishers are members of various composers' rights
societies. Some societies oversee and look after the composers' works with
regards to physical manufacturing of products that contain their music. These
rights are called "Mechanical rights". Other societies oversee and
look after the composers' works with regards to broadcasting and public performance
of their music. These rights are called "Performance rights".
When you find music listed as "royalty-free" on this web site and
other web sites, it usually means that the composer and publisher of the music
are not members of any society that oversees their mechanical rights. This
means that you can freely use their music on DVD, CDROM and any other physical
object that contains their music, and you can have these CD/DVD's manufactured
in a factory, without paying any fee to any collection society for that.
None of the composers on Shockwave-Sound.com are members of any society that
oversee any mechanical rights.
However, most composers are members of a society that oversees their broadcasting
and public performance rights. This means that anybody who broadcasts
their music, or plays it in public (for example, at a trade show, or in a
sports arena), need to obtain a license from their country's royalty collection
society. In most cases, this does not affect you (our customer) in any way,
because the broadcasters already have this license and therefore no additional
fees are actually payable by anybody.
For example, you buy a track from us by a composer who is a member of PRS.
You use the music on a DVD film and manufacture 5,000 copies of that film.
No problem, the composer isn't member of any mechanical rights society, so
there are no fees to pay for this. A year later, your film ends up getting
broadcast on BBC, or perhaps on YouTube. Now, the composer will receive a
tiny micro-payment for this. This micro-payment is however just taken from
the already paid, annual license that the BBC and YouTube pays to the PRS.
No extra money is payable by anybody. Nobody has incurred any extra expenses,
because the license money was already paid by the broadcaster, as a large
annual fee.
So, whilst the music is not entirely free of all strings, it is
still fair to call it royalty-free because neither the producer, nor the broadcaster
(who already has an annual license) has to pay any royalties.
The only time an actual additional expense would come into this situation
would be if you decide to broadcast the music yourself, and you don't
already have a broadcasting license. For example, at a concert or at some
kind of venue that doesn't already have a PRS license. Some countries also
consider telephone music-on-hold to be a "broadcast".
As far as trade shows or sports events, here you would expect the venue/hall
to already have a license from their country's performance royalty organization,
but you may want to check that.
Recently, the PRS in the United Kingdom have deemed that a person or company
in the UK that uses music on a UK web site is classed as a 'broadcaster'.
And, as a broadcaster of music, if you want to use any music that is composed
by a composer who is a member of a performance rights society, you need a
license from the PRS. The license typically costs £50 per year. This
applies only to UK persons and companies with UK web sites.
Wherever you look for "royalty-free music", be it on the internet
or in traditional production music libraries, most of the music you'll find
is in this category. The composers are not members of any mechanical rights
society, but they are members of a performance rights society, and it would
be fair to call their music "general royalty-free".
