What is beat licensing?
Beat licensing is also known as “Beat leasing” where artists would buy/Lease your beats to legally use them for their project. When you buy a beat from an artist it’s a license being sold, the license permits the artist to use the beat for a limited amount of streams/sales only.
NOTE – The artist doesn’t own the beat after purchasing a lease, it’s only a limited license, Which brings me to two types of licenses – non-exclusive license & Exclusive License.
1. NON EXCLUSIVE LICENSE – A “Non-exclusive license” means more than one artist can legally purchase the beat or the producer can sell that license to countless other artists. Once you record vocals to that non-exclusive beat you ONLY OWN COPYRIGHT OF THE LYRICS. The producer still OWNS THE COPYRIGHT OF THE BEAT.
2. EXCLUSIVE LICENSE – An “Exclusive License” means the producer can sell the beat to one single artist only. Once the exclusive license is sold, no other artist can purchase that beat again. And it is sold at a much higher price than the non-exclusive licenses.
Some technical terms used for beat licensing:-
Producer/Beatmaker – Licensor/Leasor
Artist/Singer/Rapper – Licensee/Leasee
Usage rights – the terms and conditions a licensee follows to legally use a beat
Term – how long a license lasts/number of streams/sales