When you’re paying a musician to create something for you — for example, to play on an album, record a song for a film, or to create a soundtrack for a commercial you’re producing — you may think you’re automatically acquiring copyright ownership. After all, you’re paying for the work, right? But payment doesn’t guarantee copyright. You need some documentation that shows the musician agrees to transfer the copyright to you.

Having your hours, invoices and related info organized and easily accessible prevents you from being a hot mess with important money-related recordkeeping.

This kit provides a basic merchandise license agreement template as well as explanatory background and instructions for filling out the template.

The info and agreement template in this Licensing Kit is aimed at helping filmmakers and musicians execute an agreement for a song to be included in a film or video.