Hi composer hive...I've been thinking of starting to compose tracks specifically for licensing...I've scored short films, video game play, and podcasts so far as I am beginning my scoring career. I'm curious to know if I am add tracks to a licensing library or even create my own site to do so......can I use tracks or cues that I've scored for a film but never made it into the final cut? Contractually if I own the rights to my music, I can license any of it unless it was bound to a previous specific project...correct? Also, does anyone have a licensing website or company they like to use? Thank you!
Composing : Licensing Tracks by Braden Pontoli
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Great question! Definitely scroll through the Producing Lounge as well to see if you can connect with producers or entertainment lawyers who could shed some light on this question. You can include a link to this post - here it is, if you can't find it: https://www.stage32.com/lounge/composing/Licensing-Tracks
I am not a lawyer. You may want to consider consulting with an entertainment attorney. Here is my personal take. If you have a contract contract for cues in a film, then it is up to the contract. You can not assume anything, the contract states whether you can re-use the unusued cues. For example, you may own the copyright, but the contract could say they have exclusive on the cues - so check the wording of your contract. And if it is ambiguous, consult with an attorney,
As far as your final question, I park my commercial tracks at musicsupervisor.com. Sites like these are designed for licensing mainly commercial studio material and not cues.
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Like Joel says, whether you can re-purpose rejected cues is entirely down to your contracts. I'd add that even if your contracts do allow you to re-purpose rejected cues, you're likely to meet resistance from the filmmaker if the music is overly similar to the ones that made it into the film. If the contracts are ambiguous, or even non-existent, just have a conversation with the filmmaker about it. Most are very understanding and supportive in my experience. If they're ok with it, make sure you get their agreement in writing.
As for licensing, you can do it yourself, but if you're doing it on your own platform with no advertising you probably won't have much success (at least until your reputation is pretty established). Music supervisors and editors generally won't bother seeking out smaller composers for individual licenses unless they have a very good reason to (such as request from the director), and they will turn usually to an established library for their needs due to the time pressure they're often under. You're much more likely to have success writing specific albums for a music library, or using a site like Disco for licensing. Or, consider a different angle and release your own albums as a contemporary artist would, including high end social media campaigns and advertising. If you get a few albums doing well then you may start to see licensing requests coming in directly.
Thank you everyone for your responses. This helps me out a lot!