ABSTRACT
Most of the major television and radio commercials evolve as a result of a product manufacturer and an advertising agency getting together to develop a marketing concept for a new campaign. The ad agency solicits various independent music houses to submit demos based on the concept. Sometimes a copy writer at the agency has written the lyric. In other instances, they simply have a number of phases or product keys that they want the composer to insert into the lyric. As is the case with film composers and their studio contracts, most ad agencies employ “work-for-hire” agreements in their contracts with composers. In much the same way that studios seek to own and control the songs that are used in their productions, ad agencies-or the companies which manufacture the product being advertisedseek to control how the songs identified with their products will be licensed in the future. In addition to controlling future uses of the song, work-for-hire owners are quite aware that they will earn the public performance royalties, as publishers, from airplay. For the composer and the work-for-hire owner/publisher, even though advertising royalties are a fraction of what radio songs earn, popular commercials and infomercials can air repeatedly, and generate significant income.
