A free WAV download is yours to write and record to straight away — no strings attached.
Before you release the song, though, you need a license. That's what actually gives you the legal right to put it out.
Non-Exclusive Lease — you get the license and stems for a fee, plus the instrumental stays available in the store, so other artists may license it too.
Exclusive Buyout — a one-time fee and splits proposal that pulls the instrumental from the marketplace for good. It becomes yours alone, forever, and no one else can license it again.
Non-exclusive leases may have already been sold for the track and will still be honoured — this just prevents anyone from purchasing a license after an exclusive agreement has been reached. For this reason, it's recommended to put in an offer as soon as you're interested.
Royalties — For leases, you earn 100% of the master royalties on the first 1M streams (or equivalent). Putting in an offer for exclusive rights is recommended if you believe the song will perform above this cap, so perpetual royalty splits can be discussed. If you're without budget or desire for an exclusive, that's fine — they'll just default to 80/20 Artist/Producer net receipt splits on the song's earnings as per agreement.
For clarity, Artist Net Receipts refers to the artist's earnings on the master, after a distributor takes their percentage. So if a label takes 50%, Artist Net Receipts are 50% of the total master earnings. That would make an 80/20 Artist/Producer Net Receipt agreement 40% and 10% of the song's total earnings, respectively.
Publishing — The default publishing splits for all exclusive and non-exclusive licenses is 50/50 Artist/Producer. However, we're making music here, and I understand things are fluid. If the music has been repurposed, added to, or re-recorded, feel free to reach out for a bespoke publishing agreement that closer reflects the compositional contributions of all members of the song.
A word from me — Music industry contracts, lingo and terminology can be incredibly confusing, and as an artist myself, I've made a conscious effort to make these agreements artist-friendly and easy to understand. If you have any questions, I'm more than happy to answer an email or a DM any time.
