Right On Cue

As much data as we produce within the music industry, there are other industries that play a direct part in providing key metadata that allows us to properly track and compensate artists, songwriters, and rights owners, for their work. A cue sheet is an example of this, but many in the music industry aren’t familiar with their importance.

What is a cue sheet?

Cue sheets are critical to proper representation of musical cues in audiovisual media (e.g. film/tv) - providing details like:

• song title

• composers

• rights owners

• timing of the use (timestamps of the music within the audiovisual, even if only a few seconds)

• type of use

  • VV - Visual Vocal

  • VI - Visual Instrumental

  • BV - Background Vocal

  • BI - Background Instrumental

  • MT - Main Title

  • ET - End Title

They protect the production house by establishing a record of the music they used, which can be verified against the licenses obtained, lowering their risk of content takedowns and other legal disputes.

In the early 2000s, when the industry was still releasing concert videos on DVD, I spent a lot of time reviewing old cue sheets to confirm the music usage ahead of negotiating synchronization licenses. A lot of the cue sheets were old, handwritten, and the usages were unclear. Fortunately, we now have companies such as Orfium or CueTrack (to name just a couple), who offer software that make generating cue sheets much easier, templatized, and in standard formats for database ingestion.

Music cue sheet prepared by Erno Rapee for William Fox production, Tom Mix in "The truble shooter" (Source: Library Of Congress)

How does one make sure it’s accurate?

As noted in many of my previous posts, a big part of maintaining data integrity is ensuring that good data is set-up at the beginning. This is trickier when you’re not responsible for the data input, but that doesn’t mean checks and balances aren’t possible.

If you’re negotiating a license for use of your music in an audiovisual format:

• provide the production team accurate data to use on the cue sheet

• embed precise metadata in the audio file

• negotiate a clause in the license that the production company must both create and submit cue sheets to the required entities (PROs and distributors)

• require a copy of the cue sheet and double check that the info contained on it is correct

It’s always a good plan to have some level of quality control, and the earlier you can request any necessary corrections, the better.

Metadata = money

Once again, the accuracy of the metadata directly impacts the ability for royalties to find their way back to the right parties. Beyond any initial licensing fee, additional royalties for the broadcast of a video containing music may be due via your Performing Rights Organization (PRO).

When cue sheet data is received by a PRO, the first step is usually to match the metadata against their database of registered works. Therefore, the goal is to take steps to improve the likelihood of matching of the metadata on the cue sheet to registered IP.

If you make sure that the metadata you’ve provided to the production company is consistent with how the work is registered with the PRO, there’s a much better chance of a match. This ensures timely royalty payments and helps avoid the dreaded ‘black box’.

Tracking that revenue!

The other great thing about a cue sheet is that you can use it to cross-check against your income statements to verify that expected income has been received. Companies like WioPro help track when a film or TV show has aired; and BMAT can help with monitoring audio used on TV broadcasts against your catalog of work. It’s the triangulation of this data that can help track down and confirm that anticipated payments are being made. While it’s impossible to track all public performance of music, there is more clarity when it comes to audiovisual broadcast because of the central scheduling of those channels.

Publishers have entire departments dedicated to conducting this kind of work, but that doesn’t mean they should be the only ones paying attention to it. It’s also important for individual composers to keep an eye on the accuracy of their expected reporting.

It’s worth noting that cue sheets include ALL cues, not just music that’s commercially released. Back in 2022, BMAT reported that Production Music “that production music represents over 46% of the music used on key networks.” So, for those catalogs and the composers that write for them, they bring incredible value.

To recap…

While cue sheet data is curated and delivered by another industry, thus seemingly out of your hands, you can still be prepared. Provide good data, and hold them accountable to correct it if they don’t represent it properly.

If you are reading this and find yourself responsible for preparing cue sheets, just remember that the integrity of the data you enter is the difference between a creator being paid on time or maybe not at all.

Properly maintained metadata is not just an administrative task - it’s an investment in getting paid for your creative work.

Having worked extensively with cue sheets and tracking tools over the years; Equalizer can help with review of your cue sheet practices. Let’s talk!