Libraries want your composition. Labels want your master. We want neither.

None of the three, and the short version is the contrast. Like a music library or publisher, we put your music where supervisors look, tagged and cleared so it can be licensed the same day a brief lands — unlike them, we don’t take a share of your composition, we don’t co-publish, and we never retitle. Like a label’s A&R, we go looking for artists, listen to the whole record, and build a plan around specific songs rather than a bulk upload — unlike them, we don’t own your master, there is no recoupable advance hanging over you, and we don’t touch your release plans.

Formally, we are a sync agent: we represent your music for use under picture and nothing else. The full map is in Where we fit at the top of this page.

Our representation commission comes out of the sync fee on placements we land, at the split for your tier. The percentages are in the three cards above: you keep 60%, 70% or 75% of the fee depending on the tier. On the publishing tier we also keep 20% of what we collect in US publishing, which is a fee for doing the administration, not a share of the copyright.

If we place nothing, there is no sync commission. We take no commission on a sync you land yourself, on any tier.

Attention and clearance readiness, rather than volume. A large catalog is found by search; we listen to the record, pick the songs, and pitch them to named projects — and we get the paperwork into the state where a buyer can license the track the same day, which is where most independent songs fall out of contention.

What is not different is ownership, because we don’t take any. Plenty of libraries are perfectly legitimate, and on the non-exclusive tier you can use them and us at the same time.

No. On the administered tier we handle your US publishing as a fee-only service: that is administration, not ownership. We never take a share of the copyright or of your publisher’s share. You still own your publishing, we are the administrator of record in the US for the term, and it reverts to you when the term ends.

It is also US-only — outside the US, everything stays yours and you are free to appoint anyone you like. See what we don’t do, and Where we fit for how that sits next to a publishing deal.

Read “Which one am I?” at the top of this page — three short prompts that cover almost every case. If you’re new to sync, or you don’t know us yet, the answer is almost always non-exclusive. The exclusive tiers are for songs you’re ready to commit specifically, not for artists ready to commit generally — you list the songs, and everything else stays completely free.

Still not sure? Say “not sure” on your application and we’ll help you decide before you sign anything.

No, on all three deals. On Non-Exclusive and Exclusive we don’t touch publishing at all and don’t register ourselves as your publisher anywhere. On Exclusive + US Publishing you still own your publishing — we’re the administrator of record in the US, for the term, and it reverts to you when the term ends. We keep 20% of what we collect; you keep 80%. If we collect nothing, we’re paid nothing.

Yes — it’s the standard rate. The major admin services charge 15–20% to do only the administration. We charge the same 20% and also pitch your song and send you a quarterly report, which none of them do.

No. We register your songs ourselves, directly, which is why our 20% comes off the gross the society credits and not off some smaller number after somebody else has already taken a cut. Your statement shows what came in and what came out.

Your writer share is yours, permanently, on all three deals. It legally can’t be assigned to anyone anyway, and we wouldn’t ask. On Non-Exclusive and Exclusive we take 0% of your backend, full stop — one percentage on one upfront fee, and you never see us on a royalty statement again. On Exclusive + US Publishing you keep 100% of your writer share and 80% of the publisher share we collect in the US; outside the US, everything is yours.

Separate money, separate organisation, and we take 0% of it on every tier. SoundExchange pays on the recording — not the song — when it is played on non-interactive digital radio like SiriusXM or Pandora, and it splits that money 45% to the featured artist, 50% to whoever owns the master, 5% to a fund for non-featured performers. Registration is free and takes about twenty minutes at soundexchange.com. If you own your masters you should be registered whether or not you ever work with us, and we will say so again if you sign.

Two things it does not cover, so nobody is surprised later: ordinary AM/FM radio pays performers nothing at all in the US, and foreign digital-performance royalties are genuinely hard to collect — each country has its own body and most require local membership. We do not collect either one for you and we are not going to imply that we do.

Non-Exclusive: we keep pitching, or you serve notice of non-renewal — whenever you like — and the song reverts to you at the end of its current 12-month term. In the meantime you are free to keep pitching it yourself and to sign it elsewhere; what you cannot do is stop us pitching it before that term is up.

Either exclusive tier: the same notice of non-renewal ends the song at the end of its current 12 months, and once a song has finished its first year you can withdraw it outright on 30 days’ notice — a toggle on the song in your dashboard, or a note in writing. So if we go quiet after year one, you are a month away from having the song back. We’d rather give a song back than sit on it.

No, and we want to be straight about why, because a number would be easy to put here. A quota makes an agent send your song to briefs it doesn’t fit, and a bad pitch burns your song’s first impression with that supervisor — you only get one. What we commit to instead is the reversion above: if nothing has actually happened in twelve months, you take the song back. That’s a harder promise to fake than a pitch count.

It depends where the song is in its own 12-month clock, and the rule is the same on all three tiers. In a song’s first year, you serve notice of non-renewal — any time you like, no window to hit — and the song reverts at the end of that first year. After that first year, you can withdraw the song at any time on 30 days’ notice: flip the withdraw toggle on that song in your dashboard, or tell us in writing, and it comes back 30 days later without waiting for the end of the current term.

Either way, two things follow the song out: the 60-day Opportunity Lock on any pitch still open on the reversion date, and the 12-month tail limited to the pitches on the written list we send you within seven days of that date. Anything not on the list is released.

We’ll tell you what happened and when — pitch, brief, inquiry, hold, outcome — in every quarterly report. What we don’t publish is the list of channels we use to find those opportunities, the same way no agency publishes its contact list. That’s a different thing from how music moves around: we’re open about keeping the catalog on Disco and Bridge.audio and sending shortlists as links from them, because those are the tools everyone in sync already uses. If that’s a dealbreaker, non-exclusive is the right tier for you.

It is a non-exclusive clause only. It exists because on that deal you are pitching the same songs we are, so there is a collision to prevent. On the exclusive options we are the only ones pitching the song, so there is nothing to lock and the clause isn’t in that agreement.

Here is how it works on non-exclusive. When we pitch your song to a specific project, we tell you — and for 30 days you don’t pitch that same song to that same project. Every other opportunity stays wide open, and you can pitch different songs to the same project. The reason is your fee: when one buyer gets the same song from two sources at two prices, the price collapses and the song often gets dropped from consideration entirely. The lock expires on its own and we release it early if we’ve stopped pursuing that project.

The same mechanism carries over into reversion: if a song is coming back to you at the end of its term and we’ve already pitched it to an open project, that specific pitch stays live for up to 60 days until the buyer passes or the license is signed — everything else is released on the reversion date.

And one word in that clause is doing real work: on the non-exclusive tier the lock only covers projects you pitch knowingly. We cannot see where else your music is being pitched and we are not going to police you for it — if another rep takes your song to a project we happened to name and you had no idea, that is not a breach. The clause exists to stop deliberate double-quoting, nothing else.

You tell us up front which categories you won’t license into — political, alcohol, firearms, gambling, adult, religious, whatever you decide — and we can never license into those without asking you. Outside your no-go list, everything is pre-approved so we can quote at supervisor speed. Inside it, we ask, and if we don’t hear back within 24 hours we’re allowed to proceed. We’re telling you plainly because it’s the term most likely to surprise you: supervisors work in 12–72 hour windows and an unanswered email is a lost placement. The way to protect yourself is to make your no-go list complete at signing. Four things always need a real yes from you no matter what — a brand sonic logo or jingle, a lyric change or re-recording, buyer exclusivity longer than 12 months, and any licence that runs forever.

No. Ever. Retitling creates duplicate registrations of the same song under different names, which is how royalties get lost. We don’t do it on any tier, and it means a song you place with us stays cleanly yours — including if you want to move it somewhere else later.

Yes, and that’s usually the right order. Because we never retitle and never register as your publisher on the non-exclusive deal, your songs stay clean and upgradeable — which isn’t true of most non-exclusive libraries. After a placement, or after six months of us pitching, we’ll usually be the ones to ask you.

We’d rather not, and it’s in your interest that we don’t. When you cancel an administrator, most societies keep paying them until another publisher affirmatively claims your songs, and the major admins keep collecting for 6 to 12 months after you leave. So a “takeover” usually means a year of confusion and money going to the wrong place. Sign the Exclusive tier instead — we don’t touch your publishing, there’s nothing to unwind, and you still get 70% instead of 60%. If your admin term ends later and you want us to take it on then, ask us.

We take nothing. That’s true on all three deals. If you find it, book it, and clear it, it’s your placement.

Because on that deal it’s the only thing we take. No publishing, no backend, no cut of anything you source yourself, no retitling, and no piece of the song after the check clears. Plenty of companies quote a smaller percentage of the fee and then take half your publishing for the life of the copyright — which is far more money over a song’s life than 40% of one fee. Compare the whole deal, not the headline number. And ask any rep you’re talking to what they take after the sync fee.

We’d rather you had one. Every reputable person in this business says the same thing, and a deal that only works when the artist doesn’t read it isn’t a deal we want.