Lease Vs Exclusive Beats 101

If you found this post your probably having trouble picking between leasing a beat and purchasing exclusive rights to a beat. Either that or your tryin to understand what the difference is between the two. Lucky for you it’s alot easier to understand than it might seem.

Here's my promise to you:

if you actually follow what I say here, this advice will save you thousands of dollars early on in your music career, and help you progress faster than your competition.

Ok before we can compare, let's get on the same page:

Leasing is when you buy the non-exclusive rights to a beat for usually under $50.

Are you really "buying" it tho? nah, not really, more like "renting" it.

It’s like renting a beat, except instead of blockbuster, it’s the producer of the beat.

Just like any rental situation there's limits to it. There's also shared benefits.

Imagine if you were able to rent a movie from blockbuster but you were also able to release and sell your own remix of that movie and not get in trouble for doing that.

That's what leasing a beat is. You're able to make your own songs with a beat and release the song you make with the beat.

There is a set amount of copies you can sell and also a set amount of time you can do this for, but that is the basic idea here.

Pay small fee, and get opportunity to flip your song for greater than what you paid.

Meanwhile the producer still maintains their rights. It's a win win for everyone involved.

Exclusives is when you pay to be the only person to use the beat moving forward, for a certain amount of time.

So back to our blockbuster example:

Now you have made your remake of your movie rental, and your pretty confident in what you created.

You want to secure your creation, so now you arrange to have the movie you rented, taken off the shelf. The movie will be kept in the back for a few years while you go out and promote your remake to the world.

While you go out there and make it happen with your movie remake, no new people can make their own remake.

This is exactly how it is with buying exclusive beats.

An exclusive license basically allows the artist/label to be the only ones that can legally use the beat.

A lot of people think that buying exclusive rights to a beat means the artist can keep it forever now and they own it. This is wrong.

That is actually called BUYOUTS and that is a whole other thing.

If we go back to the blockbuster example. A buyout would be you contacting the movie studio that owns the movie and they would be transferring ownership to you, which mean the studio would lose any future profits that the movie would generate anywhere and you would receive the profit moving forward.

You could see how that would cost you a lot more than an exclusive license purchase.

In most cases you will find exclusives starting at $500 but there are exceptions where you’ll find beginner producers selling their exclusives for $25 even $50.

When your talking buyouts think closer to the tens of thousands if not more. Also keep in mind, some producers don't do buyouts at all.

So which is better, leases, exclusives or buyouts?

Obviously this depends on you, so I can't give you a one size fits all answer. What I can do is give you some examples of where you could use each.

What kind of person USUALLY buys a lease for a beat?

a) An artist or label on a tight budget and/or need to save money. They can get an entire album worth of production for $600 or so.

b) An artist or label planning on 3,000 copies or less of an album/mixtape. This artist would have a basic or zero marketing plan with no actual plan for sales, and only streaming available.

c) An artist or label who wants to test out a beat at a show to gauge fan reaction. A great way to find out if a song needs more money behind it without spending a lot upfront.

What kind of person USUALLY buys exclusive rights for a beat?

a) An artist or label who has tested out a beat/song and has received good feedback from sales, has made $3,000 or more with song.

b) An artist or label who sees great future potential for a song based off testing data. This artist wants to protect themselves legally in the event of virality.

c) An artist or label who is getting a custom beat created for them. These types of beats generally come with an exclusive agreement but sometimes with a work-for-hire/buyout situation.

d) An artist or label who imagines a great future potential for song. This artist wants to protect themselves based off of a feeling or hunch. No data, this is just what they believe they need to do if they like a beat.

What kind of person USUALLY purchases a buyout for a beat?

a) An artist or label who has had success with an exclusive license. Now they want to make sure they receive the most money for their song. Specifically all royalties, and publishing.

b) An artist or label who has had success with an exclusive license. Now they want to make sure they secure their asset and prevent any un-approved use of their song.

c) An artist or label who is trying to sell a false story. Often times artists or labels will use this for ghostwriting or ghost producing situations. This is done to boost their artist in the eyes of the public.

So which one of these is best for you?

If this was helpful for you, please let me know in the comments below. And of course if your an artist reading this head over to https://boigeniusbeats.com where I have beats with all of these licensing options.