He Saw a Need for Artistic Licensing, and Filled It

Marc Ferrari played guitar in a couple of hard-rock bands in the 1980s, touring the world, recording 10 albums and making seven music videos. But by the time his second band broke up in 1993, Ferrari realized that after years in the music industry he was still in debt to record companies. When a friend made a B movie and paid Ferrari to use one of his songs, a lightbulb went on. By researching his competitors and finding their weaknesses, Ferrari has established a thriving “indie” music publisher that has placed 750 songs in almost 50 movies and 100 network television shows. Ferrari was interviewed by freelance writer Karen E. Klein.

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I started out representing my own material, songs that I’d written, to film and TV companies. Then I got calls for other types of music that I wasn’t well-versed in, like country, R&B; and rap. So I put the word out to some friends that I would represent their material in the film and TV industry. Little by little I started getting breaks at various studios, starting with Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros. Television.

When I realized there might be a business here, I spent about six months doing market research to see if I really had the ability to go up against the more established music libraries. There are several dozen major music libraries out there that have been in business a long time. Many of them are corporate-owned, so they have deep pockets and solid track records. I got ahold of their names, went to their listening rooms and obtained their catalogs.

Then I made contacts in the music departments of the film and TV studios and asked them what type of music they needed and what I could do to help. After a while, I could see that the other music libraries didn’t have rap CDs or rock music or blues with vocals. In order to get that kind of music, the studios were having to go to recording companies to license songs from major recording artists, which is tremendously expensive.

I realized that if I focused on commercial-type music--staying away from classical, production-type music and ethnic music--I could fill a void. I found my competitors’ weaknesses and took advantage of them. Now, I’m licensing songs that are similar to major recordings in style but at a fraction of what it would cost a licensee to go to the major publishers.

Once I was convinced I was onto something, I pulled out my life’s savings and got a personal loan and called in lots of favors from friends in the industry and produced a boxed-CD collection that I mass-mailed to all the studios, music supervisors, advertising agencies, post-production houses and every other place I could think of where there’d be a need for music.

It was a hugely expensive project for me, doing the mastering, the artwork, replication, boxing and mailing. But I did what I needed to do and put all my eggs in one basket. I had to, and I knew I was doing the right thing.

The success of that first boxed set was overwhelming. I licensed more than 150 songs that year. Since then, we’ve grown 30% to 35% each year and had success in the realm of film and TV, corporate videos, trade shows, airlines, theme parks, advertisements and promotional background music.

I think the reason our library took off as quickly as it did, in the face of a lot of competition, is that we cornered a niche and did it well.

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At a Glance

* Company: Master Source Music Catalog Inc.

* Owner: Marc Ferrari

* Nature of business: Music publishing and licensing

* Location: 13903 Sherman Way, Suite 14, Van Nuys 91405

* Web site: https://www.home.earthlink.net/mastersource

* E-mail address: mastersource@earthlink.net

* Year founded: 1993

* Number of employees: 2

* Annual sales: $350,000

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