Terry McBride is the CEO and one of three founders of the Nettwerk Music Group , which includes Nettwerk Productions (Canada’s largest independent record label), Nettwerk Management (artist and producer management), Nettwerk One (publishing), and Artwerks (graphic and fashion design). Founded in McBride's apartment in 1984, Nettwerk has corporate offices in Vancouver, Boston, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, Hamburg and London. Nettwerk Management’s exclusive client roster includes Avril Lavigne, Barenaked Ladies, Dido, Stereophonics, Sarah McLachlan, Sum 41, Jars of Clay and Jamiroquai, among many others.

So what is a "song"? Is it a copyright? A melody and lyric?  Who owns that "song"? What rights do the owners have to control its consumption?  These questions are at the heart of today’s debate within the music business. On one side there are the record labels, publishers and a great number of artists, on the other side a large number of music consumers. I have spent a lot of time listening to the opinions of all parties and have expressed a lot of my own points of view. So as this debate evolves, what do I think today?

Well, all parties are correct. Each has a valid list of reasons and a deep passion for what they believe. So rather than keep myself in this ongoing debate, I took the summer off the public speaking circuit with the exception of doing a fun artist brainstorming session with the UK based Musictank group. I left the debate thinking that all perspectives are "right".

During this time I immersed myself in various psychological, scientific, and wellness books as part of my own personal journey. I did a lot of yoga, listened to a lot of Kirtan music, and traveled back and forth to Asia a few times. Understanding how the brain works made me more and more curios about music and the neurological science behind it. What does music do to us on an emotional level? Looking at how we bookmark our life’s journey to various emotions with music being one of the strongest sensory marks.

The more I soaked this in the more apparent to me is that a song is in fact an "emotion". When a listener relates to that "emotion", they attach their own personal emotions to that song. In a sense creating a new emotion or a co-collaboration. This neurological wiring within the brain creates a conscious sense of ownership within the listener based on the emotional level they have infused into the song.

Today such collaborations are seen on many more levels than just a few years ago. The ability to do music mash ups, video mash ups, remixes, perform the song in a virtual space with friends. The personal and social emotional connection is now even more amplified than it ever has been.

I see this emotive impact in how music is used in movies and TV shows. Some music placements have little to no effect on sales, yet others have a profound effect, even if it’s the same song used both times. If the song connects to the emotion being expressed within the visual, it amplifies its effect on the viewer, and the emotional glue now has multiple sticky points. Sarah’s McLachlan’s song “Angel” a 5-minute piano ballad became a #1 hit single at top 40 radio. This would never have happened without its placement in the pivotal part of the movie “City of angels”. Sum 41’s “With me” saw a placement in an emotive scene in Gossip Girls, which caused digital sales to explode over night and help drive the song past 175,000 sales in just a few months as the clip spread through Youtube.

Clearly, the future is not the ongoing debate on control and ownership of copyrights, with the big stick approach of suing fans. Music, along with all the other forms of rich media, is going into the clouds where it will be pulled down from servers when and how the consumer wants. The new values reside in what is behind this media; the meta data. The quality and increase in value of this meta data will have a profound effect on the future. Digital maids will be cleaning up your media locker, moving files to where they belong and propagating your custom and peer based playlists. Digital valets will be pulling down media from these cloud servers and prepping it for the consumer’s consumption. Songs will not only be just the music, but will contain data that will allow foreign lyric translations, edited versions, sheet music, instruction on how to play the song and so on. Future economic models will be based on monetizing the behavior of the consumer by adding true value.

This thought process is not a huge step from what I have been publicly talking about, but it is a key shift in my perception as to music and its psychological effect on us.

Larry Mills is VP of Marketing & Partnerships with independent music licensing company Pump Audio (a division of Getty Images ).

 As everyone knows, the music industry is in a state of flux.  What we know and what we thought we knew changes every day.  While the revenue model for the artist continues to change – one constant is the potential for making money through licensing.

In the past, most artists saw their publishing royalties tied directly to the sale of CD’s and radio play, with the occasional movie, tv or advertising placement.  That’s different now.  With CD sales decreasing, on-line radio royalties not set, the need to increase ones synch licensing is vital in the business model for artists.

Licensing revenue and opportunities are much more expansive than many artists realize.  Everyday, thousands and thousands of songs are licensed for advertising, web, mobile, corporate uses, tv shows, movies and many more.  Not all of these songs – actually a very small percentage of these songs – are from major label artists.

How synch licenses work.  A content creator (TV production, advertising, media, corporate, web design, etc.), must acquire a license when they take music and use it as a soundtrack in their production.  They must pay (or negotiate not to pay) the artist, or the rights holder (record company, publishing company), for this license which allows them to use the music in their work. 

One of the major positives of the synch license is that the payments come directly to the master owner and song publisher – which means if you are an independent artist, you see that money right away.  For example – if an ad agency uses your track in an on-line advertising video and pays $2,000 for it – you as the master owner and publisher would get that check cut directly to you.  If you have a record deal, and don’t have a publishing deal, the label (master owner) may get half (if you’re not recouped), but by keeping your publishing, you would get $1,000 right away.

With a television placement, you not only receive money from the synch, but every time that show runs, the broadcaster must pay performing rights fees which results in the artist getting paid by their PRS (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC).  You may not receive much to have your song used on a reality show on MTV, but every time there’s a “Road Rules” marathon and your song is in there, that is generating performance fees for you.

There is also the ever needed ‘exposure’ that you as an artist are looking for.  There are great success stories of bands that have had a song in a movie, or an advertisement or as the theme song for a tv show, which has made their careers (see The Rembrandts, Feist, etc.).

I worked with an artist who placed a song in a Portuguese bank commercial and received around $10,000 for the spot.  The song became so popular that they have seen their fan base in Portugal (which has turned out to be mostly women) grow so large that they set up a tour, and have traveled over there three times in the past two years.

Now – this may sound all well and good, but there is still some work involved in getting these synchs, and there is no one way to go about it.  There are online licensing companies that feature and promote independent artists (for full disclosure, I work for one), there are also tons of music supervisors out there that are always looking for new music and finding them can be tough.  There is also the old fashioned way of reaching out to ad agencies yourself.  I would recommend all three (and all the other ways that you can think of).

If music licensing is appealing to you, I would also recommend cutting an instrumental version of each song you create while in the studio, and also 30 and 60 second cuts of key parts of the track.  In many cases, productions use instrumental versions (better for background music) and also like to have neat :30 and :60 cuts so they don’t have to do any music editing.

With the industry changing, the playing field is leveling off, and the money making opportunities are increasing – maybe the multi-million dollar record deal is a thing of the past, but the possibility of being a professional musician making money doing what you love is growing.