CrucialCustom - Music Licensing, Advertising & Marketing Blog

This month’s blog is geared towards artists - whether you’re part of the Crucial Custom roster or not! Music licensing is one of the few remaining ways for recording artists to make money, and the competition is always growing. And while your primary concern should be continually creating excellent, licensable music, much of your success often depends on your attention to details outside of the music. When you get an opportunity to create custom music, you simply can’t afford to make these simple mistakes. We’re all familiar with at least a few examples of artists getting into legal trouble after recording a song that closely resembles another. Recently we’ve heard about Led Zeppelin being accused of plagiarism by the band Spirit, Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” being compared with Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down,” and probably the most complex instance, Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” cutting it too close to Marvin Gaye’s “Gotta Give It Up.”

For this week’s blog we thought we’d take a look at an issue that’s equally important to music supervisors AND artist – copyright law. When it comes to music, how close is too close? We’re all familiar with at least a few examples of artists getting into legal trouble after recording a song that closely resembles another. Recently we’ve heard about Led Zeppelin being accused of plagiarism by the band Spirit, Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” being compared with Tom Petty’s “Won’t Back Down,” and probably the most complex instance, Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” cutting it too close to Marvin Gaye’s “Gotta Give It Up.”

It’s that time again! Oscar weekend is upon us, with this year’s show featuring a typically stellar lineup of nominees. But compared to previous years, music is in a more featured role this time around, primarily due to one film – Damien Chazelle’s colorful La La Land (whose music we’ve covered in more detail here). The last musical nominated for an Oscar was Les Miserables back in 2012 – and it seems that the genre was dearly missed by Oscar voters, given the 14 nominations that went to La La Land.

A few weeks ago, the Hollywood Foreign Press voters awarded a whopping 7 Golden Globes to Damien Chazelle’s Los Angeles musical romance, La La Land. The film has been a hit with audiences and critics alike, hitting over $130 million in sales (as of this writing) on a budget of only $30 million. La La Land proved that America still has an appetite for great music, original stories, and of course, two megastars with amazing chemistry.

Black Friday is changing. This year’s Black Friday, which falls on Nov. 25th, is certainly shaping up to be a big one – but if trends continue, we may be seeing a permanent shift away from the shopping chaos of years past. The number of shoppers taking part in Black Friday seems to have peaked around 2012, and has been dropping steadily since then – in fact the actual turnout has consistently fallen below projections for several years now. There are many factors at play – from Americans’ shift away from credit debt and towards savings, to the rise of Cyber Monday, to a trend towards digital goods rather than goods sold in brick-and-mortar stores.