Bjorn Lynne music appearing in thousands of productions - what's up with that?

Today I received an email from Assad, who had come across my music in a game called SolarMax (I've never even heard of this game before, but that's not unusual) and he had done a little bit of research and found that the same music tracks were up for sale / licensing via the royalty-free music website Shockwave-Sound.com for only $30. So he was wondering - is this really the case? Can people really take my music and put it in their game... and pay only $30??

I wrote him an answer and I thought I'd share it here, since I'm often asked about this.

Hi Assad,

It's true, it is possible to legally license my music, for use in games and other commercial products, for prices starting from only $30. I have made my living on this for many years now. For the last 12 years I have made myself a good income with this business model. Actually, prices start from $30 but if you want to use the music for “bigger” projects, you have to buy the Mass Market License, which costs 2.5 x the amount of the Standard License. So if you see $30, that means the Standard License costs $30 and the Mass Market License costs $30 x 2.5 = $75.

SolarMax - Just one of thousands of
games and apps with Bjorn Lynne music

I own and manage Shockwave-Sound.com and we are working with about 300 composers who have their music sold via this site. We sell many, many licenses each day. After 12 years of having my music licensed like this, I have got my music used in maybe over 50,000 different projects (films, games, commercials, web sites, YouTube videos, installation, trade show / corporate videos, etc. etc.). Most of them, I don’t even know about. Sometimes I surprisingly come across my own music in some video game, iPhone / Android App, etc.

It may sound like $30 is a very small price to license music, but remember, it’s the same music that gets licensed by several hundred other customers, so this customer is not getting unique music. He/she only gets to use the music that potentially hundreds of other people are also using in their projects. I’m making a lot of money on this and I’ve made great success. So… I’m pretty happy with that!

Plus, it's kind of cool to come across my own music here and there, whether I'm watching a film like Respire (where I surprisingly heard some of my music in the background to one of the scenes in the movie) or playing a game like Vertigo on the Wii, where I also surprisingly recognized my own music.

All the best,
Bjorn Lynne

Some new music from Bjorn Lynne

Hi people !

It's been a while since I posted anything on this blog. I have been guilty of neglecting this blog a little bit, I think partially because I've started to use my Facebook profile page to just post little messages, quick news etc. I don't know, for some reason it kind of feels that I need to have some kind of big important news, before I'll make a new post on my email newsletter mailing list or on this blog. So, if you're interested in quick, non-important news from me, feel free to hook me up as a friend on Facebook.

By the way, here is a recent photo of me and my daughter. I hadn't posted any new photos of myself for years, so just to connect a bit better, I decided to put this photo here, to show you guys what I, and my little girl, look like in 2010. :-)

New music tracks

These days, when I compose new music tracks, the purpose is mostly to license them out through my stock music (royalty-free music) catalogue. I don't think so much in terms of "albums" or "CD's" any more. It's more about adding the new tracks to my ever growing collection of "library music" - in other words, music that can be licensed for use in games, videos, film, websites, multimedia etc.

None of these tracks are available to buy on any Bjorn Lynne CD yet, but some of them may appear on future Bjorn Lynne CD releases, who knows...

First up is Ice Planet - I guess you could say that this is a track in the old-school electronic style of music like in my early years (1988-1995?). The track is quite long and has a very synth / fantasy / scifi sound and it's a little bit similar in style to the music I used to make on the Amiga and Protracker, all those years ago. In fact, back in 1992 or so I made a track on Amiga called "Father Nature" and in this track, Ice Planet, the main theme from that old 1992 track Father Nature makes a visit. :-)



Next out is Spectral Waves where I've also tried to go for a sort of "cold", "icy" sound but with a bit more "tech" feel to it:



Then we have Dreamy Days where I wanted to go for a sort of "friendly, light pop" sound because in my experience, this type of music is quite often licensed for use in commercials, corporate video, video presentations and other multimedia presentations:



The next track, Synchro Express, I guess is a little bit back to the old-school electronic / techno style, but not really too hard techno. Kind of like the music we used to make on the Amiga back in the day. :-) Again, I find that this kind of music is regularly licensed for use in casual video games, on-screen presentations and animations of various types etc., so I wanted to create a track that could be a success within a stock music catalogue and be licensed many times to customers making various forms of multimedia:



And last out today is a new track that I literally finished this morning, it's called Fantasy Exploration #2 and it's pretty much directly made to be used within fantasy games, adventure games, RPG games and similar productions. The music is not too light, not too dark, not too loud, not too quiet, not too sad, not too happy, and otherwise I guess fairly "neutral" :-) It's made with the purpose of just creating a general background atmosphere / mood while exploring new lands and new areas in adventure / fantasy games. The track plays for 7 minutes and contains no repetition at all during this time, so you can play this track in a loop (for example, within a game) for quite a long time without it becoming too repetitive:



And yes, if you guessed from the "#2" in the title of this track, you may have guessed that I have in fact previously made a "Fantasy Exploration #1", and you would be correct. :-) That track is also available.

If you or somebody you know should be interested in licensing any of these tracks for use in YouTube videos, games, websites, multimedia etc., then just go to www.Shockwave-Sound.com where you can buy a license for $29.95 (less for shortened versions) and for that money you get to download the track, and you get a license document that proves your right to exploit that music track commercially and in-public, and to distribute the track within your own creation (video, film, game, etc.). Take note though, that the license does not give you a right to distribute the music by itself, as music. It only gives you a right to use the music within some kind of project like a film, game, animation etc., and then to distribute that final product. I hope you all understand the difference between that, and simply re-distributing the music itself.

Thanks for reading!

- Bjorn (October 9, 2010)