Sync Licensing for Musicians: Kristina Benson of Sweet On Top (Episode 98)

Make Music Your Business.

Kristina Benson is the founder of Sweet On Top, a sync licensing agency and publishing company. She started with a degree in opera and piano lessons on the side, worked as a promoter, DJ and brand specialist, then ran day-to-day operations as music director at a licensing agency before opening her own. Sweet On Top has landed placements with brands like Apple, Michael Kors and Vogue, and in shows including Grey's Anatomy, Station 19, Ray Donovan and The Blacklist.

In Episode 98 of The Career Musician, Kristina breaks down sync licensing for musicians in plain language: what you own, how you get paid, why most songs get lost in the middle, and how to work with an agency. Take notes.

Nobody taught her the business either

Kristina grew up in Orange County taking piano lessons, studied opera, and played keyboards in bands while working a bank job. In one of her first bands, she doesn't think they even knew about ASCAP or BMI. She did not know anyone who made a living through music, or how the industry worked. She had a naive idea that someone would just discover a good band.

Then she met her husband, a music journalist, and started learning how coverage actually happens. From music journalism she moved into A&R for licensing agencies, ended up running the day to day at one, and then started her own. That is the TCM positioning in one life story: you learned how to make music, and then you had to go learn how to make a living making music.

Her opera training still pays off. She can read a full score and sit down at a piano to write. She also made a point every producer should hear.

"The tool is not neutral. It shapes what you are going to write."

Kristina Benson, 7:32

Sync 101: the master and the composition

Sync means synchronizing music to picture: a TV show, promo, trailer or ad. If you don't own the music, you need the rights, and there are usually two sets: the recording (the master) and the song (the composition). Kristina used the classic example. To use Whitney Houston's recording of "I Will Always Love You," you need permission for her recording and permission from Dolly Parton's side for the composition, usually through representatives and publishers.

"One stop" means one party controls all the rights, master and publishing. Kristina says the industry is a little fixated on it. Two-stop can be fine if you know who the other party is, how to reach them, and that they will pull their weight.

Register your songs and know your splits

When you write a song, register it with your performing rights organization (PRO). Kristina is with SESAC. Her co-writer was with ASCAP. They each registered their share. Writers at different PROs, even in different countries, can collaborate freely. Why bother? Because when your song plays on television, you get paid on the back end, usually six months to a year later. Streaming services pay very little by comparison.

She also explained the two sides of the pie: the writer's share and the publisher's share. On a work for hire, the company usually owns the master and the publishing, but you generally still get credit, and back-end royalties, on the writer's side. And copyright registration? You really should, Kristina says, even if not everybody does. One tip from the table: you can register a whole body of work at once. This is Savvy from the ETHOS code: know what you own before someone asks.

Get out of the mushy middle

The reality check came fast.

"You're not just competing with the other indie artists of today. You're competing with every indie artist that ever was."

Kristina Benson, 12:09

Supervisors may listen to a thousand songs a day, and most of them are very good. So the days of whistling over a ukulele for a big check are gone. If you write music for sync, you had better be really good at it. If you are an artist first, keep a strong artist identity and write sync-friendly songs.

"You can't be in that 80 percent. You've got to stand out somehow."

Kristina Benson, 32:56

Her favorite exercise for indie friends who want to write for sync: go sit in the food court of a suburban mall and watch who is there and what they are buying. That is who you are making music for. Her other tip: pair a weird artist type with a straight-down-the-middle sync writer to get sync-friendly lyrics and production with a twist.

Let a real agency do the selling

Kristina calls her job a sales job, and a legal one: knowing the catalog, knowing what supervisors need, reading and negotiating licenses. Her advice to independent artists is to find a bona fide sync agency or publisher, not a friend who just started one, and not cold emails to supervisors. An artist should stay an artist. She once told a proactive topliner she would gladly switch jobs with him if he wanted, but they would be more successful if she did the emails and he did the songs.

Two warnings. First, beware of what she calls "pan selling": in a gold rush, the people selling the pans make the money. Think carefully about who you pay and what they promise. Second, a deal is a deal. Non-exclusive deals created problems, like an artist landing an exclusive car ad elsewhere and forgetting to tell the agency. Be clear about your rights up front, and tell your agency when you release music, since TV searches often want songs released in the last six months. That is Low maintenance / no drama on the business side.

Play the long game

Sync takes time. Kristina recently got a quote request for a song she pitched about two and a half years earlier. On follow-ups, she says it is about frequency: don't email someone every day, but a polite check-in every month can work. People are buried in email. Prepare yourself for a lot of disappointment, and keep going. Luck = preparation + opportunity.

The takeaway

Know what you own and register it. Make music that stands out of the middle. Let professionals sell it, honor your deals, and give it time. If you are building more than one income stream as a musician, start with the free Get the Gig Guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

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