FAQs

The Music Library is an online one-stop-shop platform, offering sync licenses to pre-cleared music from both established and up-and-coming artists. 

The Music Library can be used by Content Creators to find and sync-license music from real artists that can be used and synchronized in audio-visual content they create and publish. Music Library licenses are available for almost every type of project, creator and budget. All rights pre-cleared, recording and publishing rights, worldwide.

‍Music Makers and other rightsholders, like record labels and music publishers, who own or control recording and/or publishing rights in tracks worldwide can offer free or paid sync licenses to their tracks directly to Content Creators using the Music Library as a way to grow their exposure and increase revenue.

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The Music Library is for Music Makers looking for extra exposure and an increase in royalty generated revenue when getting their songs placed (synchronized) in apps, games, podcasts, videos/film, advertisements, user-generated-content, etc. 

• Self-releasing Music Makers (i.e. independent self-released artists without a publisher) who exclusively own or control both the master recording as well as all of the publishing rights for their tracks worldwide can license and make available their tracks for sync in the Music Library immediately without any further approvals from other rights holders needed;
• Music Makers (i.e. artists, record labels, etc) who own or control the exclusive and worldwide master rights in their tracks, but not (all of) the publishing rights into compositions embodied therein, can use the Music Library to license and make available that track for sync licensing to Content Creators, subject to the relevant publishing rights holders approving to license their publishing rights therein to us. The publishing clearance feature of the Music Library can be used to request a license from the respective publishing rightsholder(s). Once all publishing rights holders have accepted to license their publishing rights into the track to us, and approved the terms under which the track is being made available, the track is made available for sync licensing in the Music Library.;
• Music Makers (i.e. publishers, composers, lyricists) who own or control exclusive worldwide publishing rights in tracks submitted to our Music Library by others can use Collabhouse to license to us their publishing rights into those tracks and approve the terms under which those tracks are being made available for sync licensing via our Music Library and collect their share of any (publishing) royalties generated.

For Content Creators, the Music Library is the online go-to music sync discovery platform, filled with high quality songs to discover and purchase sync licenses to quality music for your next creative project. It is the ideal one-stop-shop music library offering worldwide sync licenses to fully cleared tracks from both established and up-and-coming artists. We offer sync licenses for every budget and type of project, including free licenses. All rights are pre-cleared worldwide!

The royalty split allocation and publishing clearance feature of the ‘Add to Music Library’ menu for the relevant release can be used by master recording owners or right holders to request the respective publishing rightsholder(s) of the composition embodied therein to license their publishing rights in order to allow us to provide fully cleared sync licenses to it via the Music Library.   

Once all publishing rights holders have licensed their publishing rights into the track and approved the terms under which the track is being made available, the track is made available for sync licensing in the Music Library. Please note that a track will not  go live in the Music Library until all the required publishing clearances have been approved and licensed by their respective rights holders.

Collabhouse shall pay out any Music Library earnings to users in accordance with the recording and publishing royalty splits provided for each track. License fees collected  from the sale of sync licenses through the Music Library are divided into 50% recording royalties and 50% publishing royalties after deduction of Collabhouse’s 25% commission fee. These recording and publishing royalties are accounted for and paid out in accordance with the recording and publishing royalty splits set for that track on a daily basis, usually within 24 hours after a Music Library license was sold.

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1. Create a profile and upload a release

First create a Collabhouse profile and make sure to select ‘Music Maker’ as one of the roles. Once you have a profile please go to the ‘Releases’ page in your ‘My Collabhouse’ section and follow the steps to create a release. 

You can upload single tracks, EPs or albums (with a maximum of 15 tracks). For each release, you need to provide artwork, release and track name(s), audio files, together with other important information that helps identify your tracks in the Music Library. You are able to add songs that are already distributed to DPS (not via Collabhouse) to the Music Library - in this case please make sure to skip the part where you submita the release  for distribution.

Provide Recording and Publishing Royalty Splits

After uploading and completing a release, you  must indicate how both recording and publishing royalties earned on the tracks included on your release must be paid out. To allocate royalties to someone else, simply add their email address. When the person or company you are looking to give a royalty split is already on Collabhouse, you can select their Collabhouse profile. An invite to join Collabhouse is automatically sent, when the person or company you are looking to give a royalty split to is not yet on Collabhouse. Please note that approval is required from the person and/or company you allocate a publishing royalty split to before your track(s) are made available in the Music Library. Further details on Publishing Clearance requests are provided below.

3. Select tracks and set your Music Library Settings

Next step is to select the tracks you want to add to the Music Library and provide your Music Library Settings for each track. You can do this on the ‘Add to Music Library’ tab of the relevant release in your ‘Releases’ menu. You also have the option to set the same Music Library Settings for all tracks on your release or provide different settings for each individual track. After selecting your tracks and providing your Music Library Settings for each of them, you can submit them for inclusion in the Music Library.

4. Publishing Clearance requests 

• If you or your profile owns or controls all publishing rights into your track and you have allocated 100% of publishing royalty splits to your own Profile, your track is made available in the Music Library immediately after submission.
• If you or your profile does not own or control all publishing rights into your track you must indicate the parties that own/control such publishing rights by allocating publishing royalty splits to these parties using the ‘royalty splits’ screen of the relevant release (please see above). When you submit your track to the Music Library by setting and saving your Music Library Settings, a publishing clearance  request is sent to the respective publishing rightsholder(s) you allocated a publishing royalty split to. Once all publishing royalty split owners have agreed to license their publishing rights in the track to us, and approved the track’s Music Library Settings under which the track is being made available as well as the track’s publishing royalty splits, the track is made available in the Music Library.
• You can change your track’s royalty splits and Music Library Settings at any time. Any changes you make will need to be approved by all publishing split owners before your track is re-included in the Music Library.

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Once a track has been submitted to the Music Library it will first undergo our Quality Control process: 

- each individual track is listened to and accepted or rejected, based on overall recording quality, musical style, copyright compatibility and potential

- each individual track is rated 

- all tracks are tagged with an AI-based music tagging system (style, mood, energy, etc.) in order to improve their visibility and optimize their sync potential 

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You can submit tracks to the Music Library directly for which you own or control both the master rights as well as all of the underlying publishing rights worldwide and for which you have allocated all publishing royalty splits to your own profile. Upon submission to the Music Library, your tracks will immediately go live without further publishing clearances required. 

Tracks to which you only own or control the master rights worldwide but not all of the publishing rights and for which you have allocated publishing royalty splits to other profiles, will only go live in the Music Library after all such publishing royalty split owners have accepted to license their publishing rights into the track to us, and approved the track’s Music Library Settings under which the track is being made available. You can use Collabhouse’s ‘Publishing Clearance’ functionality as described here below to obtain the required licenses from the publishing royalty split owners. Should one of the publishing rights owners refuse to license their publishing rights into your track, we advise you to contact the rightsholder directly to resolve.

Music Library Settings allow Music Makers to add their tracks to the Music Library by determining their own license fees (or base price) and the types of projects (“Content Types”) that tracks may be used in. Content Types include Social Media, Podcast, Live Streaming & Private Filmmaking, Game & App, Radio & TV, Corporate & Non-Profit, Ads and Film. More information on what type of media each Content Type includes is provided on the ‘Music Library Settings’ page of the relevant track, When you choose to add a track to the Music Library, you will be taken to the ‘Music Library Settings’ page and asked to provide these settings.

To make a track available for use in a specific Content Type, such as ‘Social Media - Branded (incl. Ads)’, simply check the checkbox alongside that Content Type. You then need to select the pricing (either ‘Free’ or ‘Paid’) for that particular Content Type.

If you select ‘Free’ for a particular Content Type, Content Creators are able to obtain a license to use your track in their content for free. You may prefer this option if your main goal is to increase the use and exposure for your track.

If you select ‘Paid’ for a particular Content Type, Content Creators must pay a fee to obtain a license to use your track in their content and you can determine the base price of a license. You can either choose from our pre-filled ‘LOW’, ‘MID’ or ‘HIGH’ suggested price tiers, or choose ‘CUSTOM’ to determine your own license base price which can be anywhere between €0.25 and €10,000.00.

The final license fee for a track is determined by the base price you select as part of the track’s Music Library Settings in combination with the Content Type, license term and track length selected by the end user. 

You can set Music Library Settings on a release level, by selecting the ‘Per release’ option before inputting your settings, to add all tracks on a release to the Music Library with the same settings. Or you can set Music Library Settings on a track-by-track basis by selecting the ‘Per track’ option before inputting your settings. You can choose to add some, all or none of tracks to the Music Library.

You can change your track’s Music Library Settings, including pricing, at any time. Any changes you make will need to be approved by all publishing split owners before your track is re-included in the Music Library.

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Publishing clearances and approvals, in addition to royalty assignments, can be managed directly within the platform. Publishing royalties are assigned within the ‘Set royalty splits’ section of the ‘Create Release’ menu by allocating publishing royalty splits. When you allocate publishing royalty splits to a publishing rightsholder who does not yet have a Collabhouse account, they will be sent an invite to create an account. Clearance requests are sent once you’ve set and saved a track’s Music Library settings from the ‘Add to Music Library’ menu. The publisher(s) will then be sent an email including the Music Library Settings saved with a prompt to approve the settings and royalty splits and license their publishing rights. Publishing rights holders can manage the publishing licensing requests they receive from the ‘Publishing Clearances’ tab in their ‘My Collabhouse’ menu.  You can see the status of the publishing clearance requests on your tracks from the ‘Add to Music Library’ tab of the relevant release, from the ‘Releases’ section of the ‘My Collabhouse’ menu.

Once all  publishing royalty split owners have accepted to license their publishing rights into your track to us, and approved the track’s Music Library Settings under which the track is being made available, the track is made available in the Music Library.

The uploading Music Maker will receive an email notification to advise them of the following publishing clearance status updates; 

• Publishing clearance request approved and clearance completed; track live in Music Library (when all publishing rights holders have approved Music Library settings and royalties).
• Publishing clearance request approved; awaiting further clearance approvals (when one of multiple publishing rights holders have approved Music Library settings and royalties).
• Publishing clearance request rejected (when any publishing rightsholder rejects the Music Library settings and royalties).

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If your clearance request is rejected or you do not receive a response, please contact the relevant publishing rights holder directly to resolve and amend your track’s publishing royalty splits and Music Library Settings accordingly to send out a new publishing clearance request.

It is free to include your tracks in the Music Library and make them available for sync licensing. Collabhouse does take a commission of 25% on any Music Library licenses sold. The rest is paid out in accordance with the recording and publishing royalty splits provided for each of your tracks.

You can determine whether you want to offer your tracks for sync in the Music Library for free or against payment, and you can provide your own license fee per content type. The license fee you select or enter per content type in your track’s Music Library Settings is the minimum license fee, or starting price, applicable to 1-year licenses that include up to 30 seconds of use. Price mark-ups apply for licenses that include a longer track use and license term. You can change your track’s Music Library Settings including license fees at any time. Any changes you make will trigger a new publishing clearance request being sent out to all publishing royalty sp[lit owners for approval. Only once all publishing royalty split owners approved the new Music Library Settings, your track will be made live again in the Music Library.

You can change your track’s Music Library Settings and remove or add tracks to the Music Library and change your pricing at any time from the ‘Add to Music Library’ tab of the relevant release in your Collabhouse profile. If you are the primary owner/ controller of a track’s sound recording as well as the underlying publishing rights any changes made to your track’s Music Library Settings are reflected in the Music Library within 24 hours.

If you have indicated that there are third party controllers/ owners (ie. Publishers) of a track’s publishing rights, the track is made available within the Music Library only once all publishing rights holders have approved the inclusion of the track, and the terms under which the track is being made available. Please see the section above titled “What is the process for requesting Publishing Clearances for new Music Library settings and/ or royalties?” for more information.

Please note that when you change the Music Library settings of a track that has already been cleared, new publishing clearances are required from all interested publishers.

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You can remove your track(s) from the Music Library at any time from the ‘Add to Music Library’ tab of the relevant release in your Collabhouse profile. The selected track is removed from the Music Library as soon as you confirm its removal.

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If you do not yet have a Collabhouse account, please register here. Alternatively, you will be sent an invite to create a Collabhouse account the first time a user adds you to a track as publishing royalty split owner.

When a user saves new Music Library Settings for a track on which you are allocated a publishing royalty split, a Publishing Clearance request is generated and an email is sent to all interested publishers containing the details of the track (including the royalty split assigned to you and the Music Library Settings). The email will contain a link to Collabhouse, where the publisher(s) can approve or reject the settings and a track's inclusion with the Music Library. You can review and manage your pending clearance requests from the ‘Publishing Clearances’ section of the ‘My Collabhouse’ menu.

Collabhouse does not set any Music Library Settings on behalf of a user, please contact the uploading Music Maker directly to discuss the details of a particular clearance request. The requesting Music Maker’s name or artist name can be found within the details of the notification email and alongside a clearance request.

Collabhouse shall pay out Music Library any possible earnings to users in accordance with the recording and publishing royalty splits provided for each track by the uploader. License fees generated from a sale through the Music Library are divided into 50% recording royalties and 50% publishing royalties, after deduction of Collabhouse’s 25% commission. Music Library royalties are accounted for and paid out to users on a daily basis, usually within 24 hours after a license was sold.

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To Find and select the perfect track you want to license from the Music Library, you can use multiple filters at the left side of the Music Library page to narrow down your search. You are able to select a wide range of search parameters like, for example,  Content type, Licence fee, Genre, Mood and also opt to use the Advanced search tool.

If you find a track that is an ideal match for your project, you can first see whether the track is within your budget and available for the type of content you are working on. To obtain a license you first click on “License this track”, select the type of project you wish to use the track in, together with the required track length and license term. You are also asked to provide a short description of your project. After providing the required information, your license fee is calculated automatically and you can obtain the license. Payment is processed via PayPal, and you can use your PayPal account, debit or credit card. After obtaining a license, you can download the track in WAV. 

You will also receive a proof of license and an invoice for the license fee in case it was a paid license. You can find an overview of your Music Library licenses on the ‘ML Licenses’ page in ‘My Collabhouse’.

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Tracks you license from the Music Library can only be used and synchronized in the Content Type and during the term you specified when obtaining the license. Each license allows you to use the track in just one project. If you want to use a track in several types of content (i.e. in a Facebook post and in your podcast), you need to obtain multiple licenses. When using a track from the Music Library please do not forget to credit the artist(s).

The Music Library offers both free and paid licenses. For each track in the Music Library an overview is provided of the types of projects it can be licensed for together with an indication of their license fees. The license fee for a track is determined by the license base price determined by the artist or owner of the track in combination with the project type, license term and track length selected by you. The exact license fee for your project is automatically calculated after selecting the type of project, license term and track length.

The Licenses are meant to be used for one project only. It is a one-time license and can only be used by the entity who purchased the license. No transfer is permitted. Anytime you would wish to reuse the same track for another project, you would need to purchase a new sync license.

Any sync license you purchase from the Music Library is connected to the Collabhouse user account used during the transaction and cannot be transferred by the buyer to a third party. Whenever another party, for example, a brand wishes to reuse the content you have created with the synced song, the brand would need to first purchase a new sync license for the same track.

You can use tracks you licensed from the Music Library in your project for the duration of the License Term you selected while obtaining your license. When you license a track from the Music Library, you can select for what period you want to obtain the license:

• 1 year license,
• 3 year license
• perpetual license

You can find the License Term of your Music Library license on your license receipt or in the ‘ML Licenses’ section of your ‘My Collabhouse’ menu.

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No, you are not allowed to remix a track you licensed from the Music Library. You are allowed to cut and edit the track to have it fit the content you wish to use it in.

Yes, you can edit a track you licensed from the Music Library. However, the editing is meant for track length adjustment purposes only.

Yes, you can monetize the visual component on the video, not the audio part.

Please contact us at support@collabhouse.com if you received a claim on one of your social media videos for using a track you licensed from the Music Library track and we will work with you to release it.