D.I.Y.

CD Baby Sync Licensing Paid $400K To Indie Artists In Last 3 Months Of 2013

cd babyIt's no secret that to survive musicians need to cultivate multiple income sources. But revenue from synch licensing has usually been unobtainable for d.i.y. artists. Today's announcement today that CD Baby paid out $400,000 in synch licensing in the last quarter of 2013, offers an indicator that some of this revenue is possible for more musicians. 

Most of the revenue comes from YouTube; and to be clear, no one should quit their day jobs based on today's news. 

Divide $400,000 by 300,000 CD Baby artists and each would get a check for $1.33. But The CD Baby payouts represent a 70% increase over the previous quarter and 150% more than the same period in 2012. It also pushes the total that CD Baby has paid in sync royalties beyond $1 million. 

More Revenue Ahead

image from www.rudyhuyn.comThis is just the beginning,” says Kevin Breuner, CD Baby’s director of marketing. “It’s gone far beyond ‘found money’; this is legitimate income. When YouTube begins it streaming service it’s just going to grow exponentially. We did a test, seeding out YouTube channels with a subset of album artwork videos. Within a few days we had over 50,000 views and hundreds of channel subscriptions. That’s huge."

"In the past, artists waited until fans made a purchase,” Breuner observes. “Now there is value in what your fans do with your music in the social space."

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4 Comments

  1. so 4 or 5 top selling artists are getting sync while the remaining 300000 artists remain poor and obscure

  2. Actually, that’s not true at all. The thing that is so exciting about what we’re doing with CD Baby sync is that tens of thousands of artists are tapping into this new revenue stream that didn’t exist a few years back. It’s not a world governed by how popular you are or how much you sell, it’s all about usage of your songs. Of course some artist are making more than others, but part of that is just due to how much they focus their attention on YouTube and other ways people can use their music. Each payout has grow by leaps and bounds, so we really do see this as only the beginning of the opportunity here.

  3. This is a great sign of growth in the DIY community. Sure it may only be pennies compared to The millions that Em, or Jay would get on a sync license but the fact that this opportunity exists for the Indie artist is good and it can only get better.
    Lets hope youtube and cd baby keep the push going for the indie artist over edtablished

  4. Question. Are we talking CD Baby here or CD Baby PRO? And if so is it an exclusive publishing deal? The article is missing those two points.

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