Reference

Sync Licence Quantum

Quantum is the fee which would have been payable had the music been licensed properly. It is the number at the centre of most sync disputes, and it is not the number on the claim letter.

What does quantum mean in a music copyright claim?

Quantum is the size of the claim rather than the fact of it. Liability asks whether the use was unlicensed. Quantum asks what that use was worth.

In sync the standard formulation is the fee which would have been payable: what a willing licensor and a willing licensee, both properly informed and neither under compulsion, would have agreed for that recording and composition, in that medium, in that territory, for that term, at that time. Courts across our nine working jurisdictions reach for some version of this hypothetical negotiation, whether it is framed as a reasonable royalty, a notional licence fee or a Lizenzanalogie.

How is sync licence quantum calculated?

By reference to comparable transactions, adjusted for the ways in which the disputed use differs from them. There is no published rate card in sync, so the work is evidential rather than arithmetic: identify deals that are genuinely comparable, establish what was paid, then adjust in a way that can be explained and defended line by line.

The xSV™ framework exists to make that process repeatable. It fixes the order in which factors are assessed, states the adjustment applied at each step, and produces a range rather than a single figure, because a range is what an honest reading of the comparables supports.

What moves the number most?

Artist standing

Catalogue value, chart and streaming history, and how readily the rights holder licenses at all. A track that is rarely cleared commands a premium the comparables have to reflect.

Media and territory

Paid social alone, all digital, broadcast, cinema, in-store. One territory or worldwide. The spread between the narrowest and broadest grant is routinely a factor of ten or more.

Term and exclusivity

Three months, one year, perpetuity. Non-exclusive, or category exclusivity that blocks the rights holder from licensing to a competitor for the duration.

Prominence in the edit

A recognisable hook over the hero moment is not the same licence as three seconds of instrumental bed, even where the track and the runtime are identical.

Commercial weight

Media spend behind the campaign, brand category, and whether the music carries the creative idea or merely accompanies it.

Timing

Market rates move. A comparable from four years ago needs adjusting to the point at which the hypothetical negotiation would have taken place.

Quantum, damages and an account of profits: what is the difference?

They answer different questions and they are not interchangeable.

Licence fee quantum. What the use would have cost had it been cleared. This is our work.

Damages more broadly. May include the licence fee plus additional heads such as loss of exclusivity, harm to the rights holder’s licensing market, or in some jurisdictions an uplift for flagrancy.

Account of profits. What the infringer earned from the use. This is accounting work and a forensic accountant is the right expert for it.

Where a claim runs licence fee and profits in the alternative, the two experts sit side by side. They are not substitutes: a profits analysis cannot tell a tribunal what the licence was worth, and a licence valuation cannot tell it what the campaign earned.

What evidence supports a quantum figure in court?

Comparables that a tribunal can inspect, adjustments it can follow, and an expert who can be cross-examined on both.

A quantum opinion is challenged in three predictable places: whether the comparables are genuinely comparable, whether the adjustments are principled or reverse-engineered, and whether the expert has actually transacted in this market. A report that anticipates all three, states its assumptions openly and gives a range with reasoning rather than a single confident number, is the one that survives.

Where the other side has already filed a valuation, the fastest route is usually a rebuttal: test their comparables and their adjustments before commissioning a competing figure.

Who can give quantum evidence on sync?

Someone who has priced these deals. Sync quantum is a market question, and market knowledge comes from having negotiated in that market rather than from having read about it.

Sync Valuations was founded by two sync practitioners with more than twenty years each in commercial sync deals, and we have assessed over one hundred cases across nine jurisdictions. We act for claimants and defendants, and we decline instructions where the answer is already fixed before the analysis starts.

Need a quantum figure you can stand behind?

Send us the usage details and the claim. You get a scope assessment and a fixed fee, normally within one business day.

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