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Beat lease vs exclusive rights: what you're actually selling

An artist asks what your lease includes, or how much for the exclusive, and you're not sure what to answer. Here is what each one gives the buyer, and what your licence should spell out before you sell.

Updated September 25, 20265 min read

This page explains; it is not legal advice. For your own situation, ask a lawyer.

Hands signing a contract with a blue pen in sunlight.

What a lease is, and what an exclusive changes

A lease is a non-exclusive licence. The artist pays to use your beat in a song, within the limits the licence sets, and you keep selling the same beat to other artists.

An exclusive licence reserves the beat for one buyer: once the exclusive is sold, you can't sell the beat to anyone else. It usually comes with the fewest limits: Airbit's licensing guide says an exclusive tends to have no restrictions, apart from reselling the beat itself.

  • Lease: many buyers, each within their own limits
  • Exclusive: one buyer, and the beat comes off sale
  • What each one includes is written in your contract
A pen finishing a signature on white paper.

A typical set of tiers

Many producers sell the same beat in a few tiers, from a cheap lease up to the exclusive. Airbit's licensing guide says most producers offer two to four leases, with better files and more room the more the artist pays. This is what that often looks like.

LicenceFilesLimitsDo you keep selling the beat?
MP3 leaseMP3Capped: streams, sales, videosYes, to other artists
WAV leaseMP3 and WAVCapped, sometimes higher than the MP3 leaseYes, to other artists
Stems (trackout) leaseMP3, WAV and the stemsCapped, sometimes higher againYes, to other artists
ExclusiveMP3, WAV and the stemsUsually noneNo, it comes off sale

A typical example, not a standard. Every producer sets their own files, limits and prices, and some add tiers, like an unlimited lease. On prices, Airbit's guide says low-end leases generally sell for $10 to $40, and high-end ones for $70 to $150.

Before you sell

There's no standard beat licence

No law says what an “MP3 lease” must include: it's whatever your contract says. Every producer writes their own terms, so two licences with the same name can give very different rights.

The law does step in when a contract transfers rights. In the United States, an exclusive licence counts as a transfer of copyright ownership, and a lease doesn't (17 U.S.C. § 101). A transfer is only valid in writing, signed by the owner of the rights (§ 204(a)). In France, a contract that transfers an author's rights has to list each right it transfers, and set how far, for what use, where and for how long (article L131-3 of the intellectual property code).

Read your own licence as if you were the buyer, and read anything an artist or a label asks you to sign before you sign it.

“A ‘transfer of copyright ownership’ is an assignment, mortgage, exclusive license, or any other conveyance […] of a copyright or of any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright […] but not including a nonexclusive license.”
US Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 101. Read it on copyright.gov

What your licence should answer

Whatever you call your tiers, each licence should answer these questions in writing. Most of them are blanks BeatStars fills in on every contract it generates (its licence FAQ).

Which files?

MP3, WAV, or the stems (the beat split into separate tracks, so the artist's engineer can mix it). Name exactly what the buyer gets.

How far can the song go?

Streams, sales, music videos, radio, live shows: how much the song can do before the artist needs a new licence. A number, like “one monetised video”, is clearer than “videos allowed”.

What do you keep?

The credit the artist must give you, like “prod. by” and your name, and your share of the song's publishing and royalties. Write it down for the exclusive too.

For how long, and where?

The term, a number of years or no end date, what happens when it runs out, and the territory: the whole world or only some countries. And which country's law applies if there's a dispute.

What happens to your leases when you sell the exclusive

Selling the exclusive doesn't cancel the leases you sold before. Each one is a contract that keeps running on its own terms, until its term ends or the artist reaches its limits, unless it says otherwise. BeatStars and Airbit both say so for the leases sold on their platforms.

In the United States, the law backs this up: a lease in writing, signed by you before the exclusive was signed, takes priority over the exclusive (17 U.S.C. § 205(e)).

So the exclusive buyer may be getting a beat that's already on other artists' songs. Tell them how many leases are out there before they pay, and write it in the contract. From the sale on, stop selling the beat everywhere you listed it.

If an artist wants a beat nobody else has ever used, the only way to offer that is a beat you never leased.

How to set your licence tiers

Whatever tiers you choose, the step from one to the next should make sense to an artist reading them side by side.

  1. Pick the files for each tier

    A common ladder: MP3, then WAV, then the stems, then the exclusive with every file. Keep it or change it, but say what each tier delivers.

  2. Put numbers on the limits

    Streams, sales, videos, shows. Raise them from one tier to the next, or keep the same numbers and let the files make the difference. Either works if it's written down.

  3. Keep the rest the same in every tier

    Your credit line, your publishing share, the term, the territory and the law that applies. The same wording everywhere leaves less room for arguments later.

  4. Have a lawyer read them once

    Before you rely on your licences for real sales, have a lawyer in your country read them. Then reuse them, and ask again for any deal that changes who owns what.

On vvault

Selling your beats on vvault

On Pro and Ultra (see pricing), you sell beats, packs and kits from your own vvault pages, with your own licence terms: the files, the limits, the term, the territory, your credit line and the shares you keep.

vvault gives you templates to start from. Nobody at vvault is a lawyer and your contract isn't reviewed, so have a lawyer in your country read it before you rely on it.

  • MP3, WAV, stems and exclusive licences
  • 0% commission: only Stripe's card fees apply
  • A licence PDF for every sale, naming the buyer
  • The beat comes off sale when someone buys the exclusive
A vvault sale page for a preset bank: its cover, its title, the producer's handle, a Buy button with the price, Add to cart, and a line saying payment goes through Stripe.

Questions

Can I sell the exclusive after I've sold leases?

Yes, unless one of your lease contracts says otherwise. The leases you sold keep running on their own terms, so tell the buyer how many there are before they pay.

Does selling an exclusive mean the artist owns my beat?

It depends on your contract. BeatStars' default exclusive, for example, gives the buyer ownership of the beat's master recording, while the producer keeps the composition and a share of the publishing on the new song. If a contract transfers more than that, read it closely and have a lawyer read it too.

What's the difference between stems and trackouts?

In beat licences, usually none: both mean the beat split into separate tracks, like drums, bass and melody, so the engineer can mix the song. If it matters to you, list the tracks you deliver in the licence.

What happens when a lease runs out or hits a limit?

It depends on the contract, which is why yours should say: whether the artist has to stop, or can buy a new licence, or a bigger one, to keep going.

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Photos: Kindel Media, Muhammed Shafiqul Islam, cottonbro studio, cottonbro studio and mali maeder on Pexels