Beat Lease vs Exclusive Rights

The difference between leases and exclusive beat licenses. 

With more and more independent artists and producers on the rise, it is important to know the difference between leasing and buying beats to protect yourself from future possible legal problems. 

Whenever you try to purchase a beat from an online beat store, you will be requested to choose between a lease and an exclusive license. 

A Beat lease is a beat sale agreement that gives an artists/purchaser rights and permission to incorporate a producer’s instrumental beat into a new recording by the artist for a limited time or to only sell a limited number of units, however, the producer can still sell or lease the same beat 100 other artists. This is usually the cheaper version a prices ranges from R500. 

An exclusive beat license is a beat sale agreement that gives the music artist sole ownership of the beat, and unlimited use of it as well. The producer cannot sell this to anybody else. This is usually more costly as the producer will not be making any more sales from the beat.

So which one?

I really depends on your budget and the type of project that you are working on, for example. An mp3 lease would be suitable for soundcloud, audiomac and other free music streaming services. Unlimited Lease would be suitable for distribution to spotify, itunes, apple music etc, this is the best license because it does not have any limitations when it streaming and distribution. If you working on an album or a serious project then you need exclusive rights to have full control of the rights of the beat. This bring more flexibility.