Singer and Musician Leila Williams from London found the licensing procedure as an independent musician much too complicated and intransparent. As a consequence, she didn’t license her music to advertisement, TV, films, and gaming for a long time. But she didn’t stop there and started the project The Unsigned Library. It aims to simplify and demystify music licensing and make it fair for independent artists who can’t afford a lawyer. She is now crowdfunding to kickoff her project from musicians to musicians.
A Career In Music Licensing?
After many years as a singer, skating around the periphery of the music industry, Leila Williams was lucky enough to work with some great Producers, write some great songs, learn about and most importantly fall entirely and utterly in love with music placement. Because, one day, she was asked to write a song overnight for a TV show.
Writing a song to brief overnight, recording it the next day and knowing people would hear it on TV – what a buzz!
From there she set about looking into how she can build a career in music licensing, to find out it wasn’t as easy as she thought. Because she would need a publisher to license her music. And to have licensed her music, she would need a publisher…
Second, she looked into licensing libraries. And again, she got stopped at the first hurdle. Since she received a contract an inch thick, she would have needed a lawyer to look at it for her. But she couldn’t afford a lawyer. So she didn’t proceed.
The Unsigned Library
This is why The Unsigned Library was born. Leila wanted to find a way of making it much more pro musician. So she started working with a selection of musicians on brainstorming the necessary points needed to offer to independent musicians for a fair, transparent and straightforward licensing process.
Our aim is to shine a light & showcase the quality & quantity of untapped independent music available. Get more of it on advertisements, TV, films & gaming. Create a platform purely for independent musicians to build a career in music licensing. Make it clear & understandable by simplifying the legal language, financially rewarding the musicians with 100% of the license fee. Focusing on emotive music & the power it has to connect with a brand audience, seeking songs with that extra something.
After working for two years on the project so far, Leila is eager to make it a reality now. Hence she funded a Limited company in the UK and started a crowdfunding project on Indiegogo.
Music Licensing
What’s music licensing? Selling licenses for your incredible music to be used in advertisements, TV, films, radio & gaming. An industry that is thriving, however so many independent musicians don’t know about it, don’t know how to get started or they think they’ll lose control of their music due to not understanding the intense legal language on licenses (let’s be honest who can afford a lawyer to check things over before you sign on the dotted line?)