Music Sync Licensing: How Songs Get Into TV, Film and Ads

Sync licensing is the permission to put music in timed relation with moving images: a scene in a series, a film, an ad, a trailer, a video game or a brand video. Using an existing recording takes two permissions. The sync license covers the composition (words and music) and comes from the publisher, or from the songwriters if there is no publisher. The master use license covers the recording and comes from whoever owns it: a label, or you if you paid for it and released it yourself. Fees are negotiated deal by deal. Songs reach picture through music supervisors, production music libraries, sync agencies and publishers, and the ones that get picked are easy to clear: agreed splits, one contact who can sign, instrumentals and stems ready, complete metadata.

This guide follows official sources checked in September 2026 and focuses on the US, the UK and Canada. It is not legal advice: for a real contract, talk to a music lawyer.

Route to picture	Who they are	What they need from you
Music supervisor	Chooses and clears the music for a film, series, ad or game	A short, relevant pitch, a private link, rights you can clear fast
Production music library	A catalog of tracks made for picture, licensed to productions	Instrumentals, stems, edits, tags and a signed agreement
Sync agency or publisher	Pitches your songs to supervisors and negotiates for you	The right to represent the song, for a share set in the contract
Direct	An indie filmmaker, a game studio or a creator who writes to you	A written license: use, length, media, territory, term and fee

The two licenses behind every placement

An example used throughout this guide. Maya wrote the lyric and the melody of “Night Bus Home”; Theo wrote the chords and produced it. Their split sheet says 50/50. Maya paid for the recording and released it herself, so she owns the master. No label, no publisher.

A streaming series wants 40 seconds of the chorus under a scene where a character rides home at dawn. To use it, the production needs:

1. A sync license for the composition, signed by Maya and Theo for their shares, or by one of them if the other has authorized that in writing.
2. A master use license for the recording, signed by Maya as the owner.

If Theo cannot be reached that week, the placement usually dies: a supervisor on a deadline moves to the next song on the shortlist. That is why “one-stop” songs are so attractive. One contact controls, or is authorized for, both the composition and the master, and can say yes the same day.

If the series wanted a new recording instead, for example the lead actor singing the chorus on camera, it would need only the sync license: the new master would belong to the production.

Both licenses spell out the same terms: which scene or spot, how many seconds, whether the song is in the background or featured, the media (TV, streaming, cinema, online), the territory, the term and the fee. Commercial songs have no fixed price. PRS for Music, which runs a sync licensing service for members who mandate it, says it weighs the market, the type and size of the production, the territory and the popularity of the track before recommending a deal. When the episode later airs or streams, the composition also earns performance royalties, through the cue sheet explained below.

How music reaches series, ads and games

Music supervisors. The Guild of Music Supervisors describes the job as overseeing all the music-related aspects of film, television, advertising, video games and other visual media. In practice, the supervisor reads the script or watches the cut, builds a shortlist with the director or the agency, then clears the rights: finds who controls each song, negotiates and gets both licenses signed. Supervisors receive far more music than they can hear, so many work mostly with sources they trust: publishers, sync agencies, labels and libraries.

Production music libraries. Libraries hold catalogs made for picture: tracks tagged by mood, tempo and genre, usually with instrumentals, edits and stems, and with rights the library can license quickly. Deals with composers vary. Some libraries ask for exclusive rights to a track, others are non-exclusive. Before you sign, read the exclusivity, the term, whether they can edit or retitle the track, and how the license fee and the performance royalties are shared.

Sync agencies and publishers. A sync agency pitches your catalog to supervisors and negotiates when a scene fits. A publisher does that and more: registrations, collection, covers. Both take a share of what they bring in, as set in their contract. The guide to music publishing deals covers what to check in that contract. If what you want is other artists recording your songs, the guide on how to write songs for other artists covers that route.

Direct requests. Indie films, student shorts, podcasts, small game studios, video creators. The money is usually smaller and the decisions fast, which makes these good practice. Put every license in writing, even a free one.

What makes a song easy to license

A supervisor chooses the song that fits the scene, but among songs that fit, the one that gets through is the one that clears without friction:

• Rights you can clear in a day. A signed split sheet, every co-writer reachable, the master owner known.
• No uncleared samples or interpolations. A sample adds at least two more owners to the conversation.
• Lyrics that leave room for the picture. Leaving, arriving, waiting, starting over. Few proper names, brands or dates that pin the song to one story.
• A fast intro and clean edit points. The mood lands in the first bars, the chorus can open a cut, and the song has a real ending rather than a fade.
• Versions ready. At least an instrumental, and a clean version if the lyric has explicit words.
• Finished sound. A home recording can work if it sounds finished next to a professional mix. A rough phone demo is for writing, not for pitching; the guide to music demos explains the difference.

Stems, instrumentals and alternate versions

Music editors cut songs to picture. The more versions you hand them, the easier it is to use your song in more than one moment.

File	What it is	Why they want it
Main mix	The full song, final master	The version they chose
Instrumental	Main mix without the lead vocal	Dialog can sit over the chorus
A cappella	Vocals only	Trailers, remixes, a single vocal moment
TV mix	Instrumental that keeps the backing vocals	Keeps the hook’s texture under dialog
Short edits	For example 60, 30 and 15 seconds, each with a real ending	Ads and promos
Stems	Drums, bass, harmony instruments, lead vocal, backing vocals and effects as separate files	The editor can build a custom edit or drop a part

A few rules make stems usable:

• Every stem starts at the same point (0:00, bar 1) and has the same length, so they line up when dropped into a timeline.
• Same sample rate and bit depth as the master. Ask the library or supervisor for their exact specification; each one sets its own.
• Clear names that include the song, the part, the tempo and the key, such as NightBusHome_Stem_Drums_92bpm_Am.wav. The free song file name generator keeps the pattern consistent across every version.
• Export them from your DAW and keep the session: if an editor asks for “the same without the tambourine”, you want to answer in an hour.

Metadata that travels with the song

Supervisors and libraries search by mood, tempo and theme, and clear by names and codes. Put this data in the file’s metadata fields where your export allows it, and in a one-page sheet that goes with every pitch:

• Title and version: Main, Instrumental, A cappella, TV mix, 30-second edit.
• Writers: legal names, roles, shares, PRO and IPI number of each.
• Publishing: the publisher, or “self-published”, plus any administrator.
• Master: owner and contact.
• Codes: an ISRC for each recording and the ISWC of the composition once assigned; the royalties guide explains both.
• One-stop contact: name, email, phone and who can sign for each side.
• Search data: tempo, key, duration, mood, genre and lyric themes, with the full lyric as text and a clean or explicit flag.

To fill in tempo and key accurately, run the final mix through the free song key and BPM finder; it analyzes the audio file in your browser, and the file never leaves your device.

Splits, signatures and who can say yes

Before pitching, every writer must agree that the song can be pitched, and who signs. Write it down. The split sheet guide explains what goes in one, and the free split sheet template checks that the shares add up to 100%.

Keep three things apart:

• Composition shares: who wrote what, from the split sheet.
• Master ownership: who paid for and owns the recording. It can be one person even when the song has four writers.
• Authority to sign: who can quote a fee and sign a license, and within what limits. Some writers exclude uses in advance, such as political campaigns or certain products; agree that before an offer arrives, not after.

A “sure, go ahead” in a chat is not a license. If the song was registered with a PRO, check that the registered shares match the split sheet: mismatches hold up payment.

After the placement: cue sheets and performance royalties

The sync fee is paid once, under the license. The airing pays again, as performance royalties, and that depends on the cue sheet.

ASCAP describes a cue sheet as a schedule of the music in a film or television program, listing writers, publishers, their shares, their societies, how each cue is used and its duration. It is typically submitted by the producer or music editor, and ASCAP warns that if your music is not listed, or no cue sheet is filed, it may not be able to pay you. In Canada, SOCAN also requires audiovisual cue sheets with the title, writers, publisher, duration and type of use of every piece of music in the production.

So, after a placement:

1. Register the song with your PRO before it airs, with the same shares as your split sheet. The registration guide covers how.
2. Ask the production for a copy of the cue sheet, or at least confirmation that it was filed.
3. Check that the title and writer names match your registration exactly.
4. Watch your statements for the airing dates.

Worked example: a sync pack for “Night Bus Home”

Maya and Theo decide to pitch the song to a sync agency and to two indie supervisors they met at a festival. One afternoon of work:

1. Rights (20 minutes). They sign a split sheet: 50/50 composition, master owned by Maya. They add one line: Maya is the one-stop contact, authorized to quote and sign licenses for both, except political ads.
2. Versions (1 hour). From Maya’s DAW session: main mix, instrumental, a cappella, TV mix, and 60-, 30- and 15-second edits, each ending on the final chord of the chorus.
3. Stems (30 minutes). Six stems from 0:00, all the same length: drums, bass, keys, guitars, lead vocal, backing vocals.
4. Names and metadata (20 minutes). One naming pattern for all 13 files, and a one-page sheet: writers, PROs, IPI numbers, the ISRC, “self-published”, tempo 92, A minor, mood “late night, tender, hopeful”, themes “going home, small hours”.
5. Private link (10 minutes). One page with the main mix and the instrumental to stream, and the full pack available on request. The guide to sharing unreleased music privately covers links that don’t leak.
6. Pitch (10 minutes). Four lines, written for each recipient:

Hi Dana, I’m Maya, a songwriter from Portland. “Night Bus Home” is a tender late-night song about the ride back after everything went wrong, 92 BPM, clean lyric. One-stop: I control the master and I’m authorized for the composition. Stream it here [link]; instrumental, TV mix, edits and stems are ready if it fits.

The same short-pitch logic appears in the guide to sending a demo to a label: one song, one link, no attachments.

Common mistakes

• Pitching a song you can’t clear. A co-writer who disappeared, or a sample nobody licensed.
• Unrequested attachments. Large WAV files in a first email get deleted; send a streaming link.
• No instrumental. Many scenes have dialog; a song without an instrumental loses those scenes.
• Stems that don’t line up. Different start points or lengths make them useless in a timeline.
• Metadata that disagrees. Different names or shares in the file, the sheet and the PRO slow down clearance and payment.
• Signing a library deal unread. Exclusivity and term decide what else you can do with the track for years.
• Registering after the airing. Register first, so the cue sheet has something to match.

Where Zoundroom fits: the pitch-ready song in one project

A sync request usually arrives when you least expect it and needs an answer the same day, so everything about the song has to be findable in minutes. In Zoundroom, each song is a project that holds its recordings, lyrics, notes and files, with the same account on iOS, Android and the web. For “Night Bus Home”, Maya imports the final mix, the instrumental and the a cappella she exported from her DAW, keeps the lyric and a credits note with the splits, IPI numbers, ISRC and one-stop contact, and adds the signed split sheet as a file. She shares the project with Theo (Free allows up to 2 artists, Pro up to 5), and on Pro they leave timestamped comments on the main mix, such as “0:41: clean cut for the 30-second edit”. Zoundroom does not export stems, does not pitch or license music, does not register works and does not collect royalties: your DAW, your PRO and your partners handle those parts. The next step: create a project for the song you would pitch first and write its credits note today. See how to organize music projects in Zoundroom.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a sync license pay?

There is no fixed rate for commercial songs. Each license is negotiated, and the fee depends on the use (background or featured), the length, the media, the territory, the term and how known the song is. A national ad and a student short are different worlds. Ask what the budget is before quoting, and get the offer in writing.

Do I need a publisher or a sync agency to get placements?

No. You can license your own songs directly if you control them, and many indie placements happen that way. A publisher or agency brings contacts and negotiation in exchange for a share of the income, set in the contract. Read the term, the territory and the exclusivity before signing.

What does “one-stop” mean in sync?

It means one contact can license both the composition and the master. For a supervisor on a deadline, that removes most of the work, which is why one-stop songs are easier to place. If you own your master and have your co-writers’ written authorization, you can offer it.

Do I get royalties when my song is used on TV?

The sync fee is paid once, when the license is signed. When the program or ad airs or streams, the composition can also earn performance royalties through your PRO, as long as the song is registered and appears on the cue sheet filed by the production.

Can I pitch a demo for sync?

Only if it sounds finished. Supervisors place recordings, and a song needs to hold up next to professional mixes. If you only have a demo, a publisher or a library may still be interested in the composition, but for direct placements, pitch the finished master.

Sources

All pages checked on September 28, 2026.

• Guild of Music Supervisors: what is a music supervisor.
• ASCAP: Cue Sheet Corner (what a cue sheet is, who submits it, why unlisted music may not be paid).
• SOCAN: audiovisual cue sheet (information required for each piece of music).
• PRS for Music: commercial music sync licence (permission from the rightsholders, sync licensing service, factors weighed in a deal).