The second option for those seeking a sync deal is for a musician to add to a database of songs that are specifically licensed for sync placements. This is the route St. Louis indie-pop band Scarlet Tanager has taken, licensing songs from its first album, American Songbird, to Extreme Media, which highlights emerging artists.
Vocalist and songwriter Susan Logsdon says that because of the band's deal with Extreme Media (which originated at MTV but whose name and ownership has changed over the years), Scarlet Tanager's music has been featured on The Real World, Dance Moms, Catfish and, most recently, a commercial for GoPro cameras.
"Sometimes they'll send us an email saying, 'Hey, check out The Real World next week because your song's in it,'" Logsdon says. "But with the GoPro thing, we didn't even know about it. Michael [Logsdon's husband and a guitarist for the band] woke up to a text from a friend who said, 'I just heard your song on TV!'"
GoPro commercial featuring Scarlet Tanager.
Logsdon says her band caught the ear of a music blogger who also happened to work at MTV2. The network was just beginning to put together its licensed song database and wanted Scarlet Tanager to be part of it.
"At first we were kind of skeptical. They sent over the contract and Michael had somebody look at it, who said, 'This contract's crap; you guys aren't getting anything good out of this,'" Logsdon laughs. "Then we talked to somebody else who said, 'This is where things are headed; it's not going to be how musicians used to make money.' We weighed it out and didn't see that many cons in it."
Like Pretty Little Empire, Scarlet Tanager earned a bit of cash for licensing its songs -- enough to move forward with recording and promoting a followup album.
"It was decent," Logsdon says. "It kind of feels like you're giving away your music a little bit, but I think we had taken American Songbird as far as we could on our own, so we thought, 'Let's just go ahead and do something with it.'"
And though licensing deals aren't always lucrative, entertainment lawyer Pierson says that the resulting exposure through media and social networking can be invaluable.
"If you have a fan base that's engaged, having a song on a commercial or TV show is going to be something that they like. They're going to see it, comment on it and share it," Pierson says. "I think it's a good thing to have your music used and out there, and there's something to building up a résumé of sync placements. The more songs that are used, the more they'll continue to be used."
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