For most songwriters, non-exclusive for most of the catalog, and exclusive only for specific songs you would never pitch yourself, only with a reversion clause. The deciding question is not which deal pays more. It is whether you are willing to give up the right to pitch that song yourself, because that is what an exclusive deal takes. Once a song is signed exclusively, a brief you found on your own, for a show that would suit it perfectly, is off limits. You forward it to the library and hope.
Non-exclusive deals keep that right. You can place the same song with a library, pitch it directly to supervisors and answer briefs yourself. The trade off is that non-exclusive libraries usually push each song less, and spreading one song across many libraries creates real clearance and Content ID problems. So the honest answer is song by song, not catalog wide, and the rest of this post is how to make that call.
| Term | Exclusive | Non-exclusive |
|---|---|---|
| Who can license the song | Only the library | The library, you, and anyone else you sign with |
| Sync fee split | Commonly 50/50 | Commonly 50/50, sometimes 60/40 in your favour |
| Performance royalties | Library usually takes the publisher share. You keep the writer share through your PRO | You usually keep both, except on retitled versions the library registers |
| Ownership of the master | Often transferred or exclusively licensed | Stays with you |
| Length | Fixed term, or in perpetuity if there is no reversion clause | Usually cancellable with notice, often 30 to 90 days |
| Content ID | Library handles it, one claimant | Often banned or restricted, to avoid conflicts |
| Your right to pitch it directly | Gone for the term | Kept |
These are typical shapes, not rules. Contracts vary widely, and the numbers in yours are the only ones that matter. But if a deal labelled non-exclusive asks for your master or your publishing outright, it is not really non-exclusive, and it deserves the same scrutiny as an exclusive one.
Exclusive libraries have a reason to work a song hard, because they own the upside. The better ones have direct relationships with networks, trailer houses and ad agencies that do not take open submissions, they produce the edits and stems for you, and they can offer a buyer a one-stop clearance: one call clears both the composition and the master. For a supervisor on a two day deadline, one-stop is a strong selling point.
Exclusive makes sense when three things are true: the library has a track record of placements in the kind of media the song suits, you have no realistic route to those buyers yourself, and the contract gives the song back if it sits unused. Some exclusive deals also pay an upfront fee per track, which is real money for work that might otherwise earn nothing.
Non-exclusive keeps your options open, and for an independent writer who is actively answering briefs, options are the asset. You can put a song into a library for passive licensing income and still pitch it the day a perfect brief lands in your inbox. You can leave a library that is not placing anything. And you keep your publishing, which matters if you later sign a publishing or admin deal, because a clean catalog is easier to sign.
The costs are real, though. A non-exclusive library with ten thousand tracks is not pitching yours specifically. And the same audio sitting in several libraries leads to the two problems below.
Retitling is when a library registers your song with performing rights organisations under a new title, so it can trace and collect on the placements it arranged. It is legal, but put a song in four libraries that all retitle it and you have five registrations of one recording. Cue sheets get matched to the wrong one, royalties get delayed or lost, and many libraries have moved away from the practice for exactly that reason.
Content ID is worse. If two parties register the same audio with YouTube's Content ID system, each one claims videos that the other legitimately licensed. The client who paid for your song gets a copyright claim on their own video, and neither library looks good. The rule is simple: one Content ID claimant per recording, or none. Before signing a non-exclusive deal, ask whether the library registers with Content ID, and do not sign two that both do.
None of this is legal advice, and for any exclusive deal, or anything in perpetuity, an hour with a music lawyer costs far less than the song.
Sort your catalog into three groups. Keep direct: your strongest ten to twenty percent, the songs you actively pitch to briefs yourself. Keep these clean, or at most in one non-exclusive library with no Content ID. Non-exclusive: the solid middle of the catalog that you are not actively working, where passive licensing income beats nothing. Exclusive candidates: songs that suit a market you cannot reach, such as trailer cues or production music, offered to a library with a proven record there and a reversion clause.
Order matters too. You can move a song from non-exclusive to exclusive only after pulling it from every other library, and an exclusive library will want a warranty that no other deals exist. Going the other way usually means waiting out the term. So start conservative.
Whichever group a song is in, write it down. The most common mess is not a bad contract, it is forgetting which songs are tied up and pitching an exclusive track to a supervisor directly, which breaches your deal and embarrasses everyone. Libraries also ask for clean files with correct embedded tags, covered in what metadata your songs need before pitching, and many want instrumentals and cut-downs, covered in what alternate versions your song needs for sync.
Pitchkit is for the songs you keep direct. It indexes a local music folder, reading tempo, key, energy, brightness and danceability straight from the audio, optionally transcribing lyrics with Whisper on your own machine, then ranks your whole catalog against a brief you paste in and copies the songs you pick into a named pitch folder.
Because it only reads the folder you point it at, a simple habit keeps you out of trouble: move songs you have signed exclusively out of that folder, and they will never show up in a ranking for a brief you are not allowed to answer. It does not send pitches, find briefs or manage contracts. It answers which of your free songs fit the brief in front of you.
Related reading: how sync placements pay, how to find sync placements, how to get sync briefs, and music catalog management software.
An exclusive library becomes the only party allowed to license the song for sync, usually for years and sometimes forever, and typically takes the publisher share of the performance royalties as well as a share of every sync fee. A non-exclusive library gets the right to license the song alongside anyone else, including you and other libraries, and normally only takes a share of the fees it brings in. The practical difference is control: once a song is exclusive, you can no longer pitch it yourself, even to a brief you found on your own.
Contractually, usually yes, that is what non-exclusive means. In practice it causes two problems. If more than one library registers the song with YouTube Content ID, their systems claim each other's licensed videos and the client gets a copyright claim on something they paid for. And some supervisors will skip a track they have seen in several places, because they cannot be sure who can actually clear it. Two or three well chosen libraries per song, with Content ID handled by one party or none, is safer than ten.
Retitling is when a non-exclusive library registers your song with performing rights organisations under a new title, so that performance royalties from placements it arranged can be traced back to it and it can collect a publisher share on that version. Your original title stays yours. It is legal but it creates duplicate registrations of the same recording, which is why many libraries have moved away from it. If a contract allows retitling, ask exactly how the new title is registered and what happens to that registration when you leave.
Only if the contract says so. Look for a reversion clause: the rights return to you after a fixed term, or earlier if the song has not been placed within a set period, commonly somewhere between two and five years. Without one, many exclusive deals run in perpetuity. Even after reversion, licences the library already issued normally stay in force for their own terms, so a placement from year two can keep airing after you get the song back.
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