Whether you’re an independent artist looking to make an income from your music, or an organisation looking for great quality music at hugely reduced fees, please give me a few minutes of your time. Here at the IMLC we are connecting independent artists and content creators directly to change the face of music licensing.

I’m Ketsa, an independent producer who’s managed to go from doing nothing with my music to providing music for many hundreds of commercial projects in 5 years, including a Volvo TV advert, National Geographic documentary, The Times newspaper’s podcast, the UN’s podcast, promotional pieces for The Atlantic, Forbes, Nissan, Arezzo, Riachuelo, Konami, Fred Perry, Grace Ormonde and many more plus documentaries shown on National TV in Italy, Germany, USA and Canada. And I did it without any help from record labels or publishers.

How did I do it?

We are in a new age where traditional methods of doing things are rapidly changing. It’s important to be in the right place and have the relevant knowledge to take advantage of this new era.

For years I was a struggling producer, making plenty of music with absolutely no idea what to do with it. I always believed ‘making it’ meant becoming really well known, selling millions of records, being played on mainstream radio etc etc. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I understand now that you don’t have to do any of those things to make a good career doing what you love doing. Best of all, you can fully control your own art, take home all the profit and never have to sign a dodgy contract with a publishing agency or music label. Once you start on this journey, you’ll have something that will grow as much as you feed it and something you will never need to retire from.

Change your music making approach

Let’s firstly begin with our mindset and approach. Making music is NOT just a hobby. It’s a refined skill you’ve put years into mastering that the majority of the population do not possess. Try imagine watching a promotional video or film without any music. It would absolutely suck. Music can make or break any advertising campaign, video, podcast or film. Therefore what we do holds great value. Instead of seeing the making of music as a fun past time, start seeing the importance and value of your art and where its place in the world could be.

This was the first major breakthrough for me and it is definitely one of the most important. How you value your work and your art will directly determine how prepared you are to earn from it. Trust me, I’ve had years of self doubt that a major traumatic experience erased in a night. Life is too short to doubt yourself and too precious for you to not do what you are here to do. Start trusting your talents, you have them for a special reason and purpose. With the right focus your talents can become your career.

The future is one without middlemen. There will be the people who make the music dealing directly with those that need it, with no publishing house or music labels involvement whatsoever. 20 years ago when I wanted to release a record, other people needed to be involved at every stage, from labels, mastering, promotion, licensing etc etc. We can now do all these things ourselves, all the tools are there. Mastering a record used to be a hugely expensive experience. Now online services like Emastered and Landr are replacing the traditional mastering services for a fraction of the price…and I guarantee the majority of the population won’t know the difference.

So why shouldn’t we do the same? Why should companies pay ridiculous sums to license music when the publishers and/or labels take such a huge cut? Why shouldn’t these companies approach us the artists directly and save themselves huge fees?

Independent royalty free music licensing

And this is where we come in. This is the model I’ve been working on for over 5 years, and I now have my very own licensing website earning me a passive income of thousands each month doing what I absolutely love doing. And I know that it’ll grow even more.

The IMLC is committed to connecting independent artists and content creators directly to lower costs and increase quality.

So if any of this reverberates with you, I really hope you’ll join us for the second part, where I’ll reveal more of how this can be achieved.