Additional Information About Music Licensing
When you license music from our royalty free music library you will not have to pay any ongoing fee to Thought Equity Motion for your use of the music in your production and you may use the royalty free music again and again. When you license music from our rights managed music library you will pay a single fee to pay for a certain defined use of the music depending on the term, territory and use of the music by you. Although you may not have any future payment obligations to Thought Equity for your use of the music in your production, you may have to complete and file cue sheets if you publicly broadcast or perform the music in your production. The public performance of music is typically characterized as playing music that the general public will hear one way or another. Learn more about cue sheets and click here to download.
Please note that you do not own the copyright to the music you license from Thought Equity, you are merely licensing the right to use the music in your production pursuant to the terms of our license agreements. Please review the terms and conditions contained on this site and in our license agreements with respect to your use of the music you license from Thought Equity.
What is a cue sheet and when is it required?
A cue sheet is a form that details the specific use of a piece of music within a broadcast. It outlines the name of the music, which program it is part of and how the music is used, for how long, and how many times it is performed, etc.
You are generally required to complete and submit a cue sheet when the music you use in your production is publicly played via the radio, Television, movie theatres and through other sources. There are no additional fees associated with your submission of cue sheets. Cue sheets permit certain performing rights societies, such as BMI, ASCAP, SOCAN and many others including international societies to administer music licensing revenue to composers and publishers of music for the public performance of their music. These performing rights societies exist for the purpose of collecting public performance revenue from radio stations and TV stations and networks, movie theatres, and various other sources under international and national copyright laws.
Television broadcasters and networks and radio stations have to pay to broadcast music. This payment is typically made as the result of a blanket license between a performing rights organization such as BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.) or ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and the Television broadcaster, network or radio station. The performing rights organizations administer the licenses with music users and broadcasters on behalf of their members, the music publishers, composers, music libraries and individual musicians.
Based on the cue sheet the Television broadcasters, networks, radio station or other broadcasters receive from you or the production company, the broadcaster will notify the relevant performing rights organization of which music they have broadcast by completing cue sheets and submitting those to the performing rights organizations. The performing rights organizations then pay their members based on how much each member’s music has been broadcast. This payment is also called a royalty, and although you as a customer of Thought Equity’s music libraries may never have to pay it to the performing rights organization, it is a future payment made as a result of your use or broadcast of the music, even royalty free music, that you license from Thought Equity. It is the broadcasters' license that is paying the royalty to the performing rights organizations.
