Micro-Sync Licensing: What Is It?

While sync licensing and the rules and regs behind it are often discussed, micro-sync licensing is a little less well known. Here, we break down what micro-sync licensing actually is, and how it can benefit you.

Guest post by Randi Zimmerman of the Symphonic Blog

We’ve talked about sync licensing and royalties many times on this blog. One thing we haven’t talked about is micro-sync. In this post, we’ll dive into what it is and why it’s important. Here’s everything you need to know…

What is Micro-Sync Licensing?

Let’s break it down…

Sync licensing refers to the synchronization of a song with any form of visual media. Any time your song is featured in a TV show, movie, commercial, etc., that’s called a “sync placement”. — That being said, sync and micro-sync are essentially the same thing, but with one major difference.

Scale.

Sync vs. Micro-Sync

Just as an artist would be paid licensing fees and royalties for a placement in a TV show or film, they would also be owed “micro-sync” fees and royalties for smaller features.

Some examples of the types of common micro sync placements include:

• User generated content, i.e. YouTube 
• Social media posts
• Internal company videos
• Video presentations at events and conferences
• Professional wedding videos
• Podcasts

Typically, sync licenses are negotiated between the production and content owners for thousands of dollars per license. However, this process can be very time consuming and requires a lot of paperwork.

On the other hand, micro sync is on a much smaller scale, so the business model is quite different. Content owners looking to get into micro sync need to operate in a marketplace that facilitates quick and easy licensing so they can achieve a high volume of small placements. This adds up!

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Sharpen your skills…

How to Prepare Your Music For Sync Licensing

How to Optimize your Songwriting for Sync

What You Need To Know About TV & Radio Royalties

5 Ways To Make More Money Off Your Songs

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How does this benefit you?

It would be nearly impossible for you to find thousands of people who are willing to pay you a few bucks each to use your music in their video project. However, the demand is out there. If you play your cards right, you could have steady income coming in from all over the world.

• The best way to achieve this is to work with a platform like Musicbed, Songtradr, or Artlist. These prominent platforms aggregate music, attract content creators, and make the licensing process a much simpler, streamlined experience.

In Conclusion…

Micro-sync is a relatively new concept, but it opens up a lot of opportunities for small content creators to harness the music of real artists. With micro-sync platforms, artists have a whole new way to spread the love and collaborate with ease.