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SYNC LICENSINGAn incoming request becomes a process you can follow.
When a production company, agency or brand wants to use a work from your catalogue in a series, a film or a commercial, the request is opened as a numbered record and moves through an eleven-state process from approval to collection.
From a demo environment prepared with sample data. Click to enlarge.
The problem it solves
Sync requests arrive by email, by phone, sometimes in a message. Tracking usually starts in a spreadsheet: which project, which work, who approved it, what did we quote. After a handful of requests the spreadsheet stops matching reality — because the real information stays inside the correspondence.
The problem grows when the money arrives. To work out what the rights holder is owed you need that day’s contract rate, their share within the work, and the exchange rate at the moment of the quote. None of these is remembered six months later. MEDUSA Rights binds every step to a record and, at the moment of collection, calculates the share and freezes it.
How it works
Open the request
Company, project, work and terms are entered; the request receives an LT-YYYY-NNN number. The work is searched in uploaded distribution files; rights holders with a contract in force become rows automatically.
Collect the approvals
A decision is recorded for each rights holder: approved, conditionally approved or rejected. The quote stage cannot be reached until all of them are in — the system names whoever is missing.
Make the offer
Every offer gets a version number; a new one withdraws the previous. For foreign-currency offers that day’s exchange rate is stamped onto the offer — if the rate moves later, the calculation does not.
Grant the licence, collect
The licence start and term are entered and the end date is calculated. When collection is recorded, the rights holder share is calculated automatically from the sync rate in the contract and locked.
The request card — where you are in the process
The bar at the top of the card shows which stage the request is at; the buttons on the right carry only the transitions permitted from that state. If information required for a step is missing, the transition does not happen and the system names what is absent.
From a demo environment prepared with sample data. Click to enlarge.
The approval gate
The quote stage cannot be reached until a decision exists for every rights holder on the work. In the screen below one of two rights holders has approved and one is still pending — why the gate is closed is stated by name.
From a demo environment prepared with sample data. Click to enlarge.
Offer, exchange rate and share
Offers stand version by version; the accepted one is marked and the previous withdrawn. On a foreign-currency offer the rate is stamped. After collection the rights holder share is calculated — the share within the work read from the distribution data — and frozen; each row can be marked as paid.
From a demo environment prepared with sample data. Click to enlarge.
Input and output
WHAT YOU PROVIDE
- Details of the incoming request: company, project, work, terms
- Rights holder decisions, taken outside the system and entered by hand
- Offer amount and currency
- Sync rates held in the contracts
- Invoice and collection details
WHAT YOU GET
- A numbered request record with a tracked state
- Versioned offer history with the stamped exchange rate
- The locked rights holder share and the amount retained by the publisher
- An in-app warning 90 days before the licence ends
- Annual licence income report in PDF and Excel
- A document archive: contracts, offers, correspondence
What it does not do
Knowing the limits of a tool matters as much as knowing its capabilities.
- It does not produce a licence agreement, an offer letter or a licence certificate. Those documents are only uploaded.
- It does not issue invoices; it only records the invoice number and date.
- It does not send email. There is no approval request to the rights holder and no offer delivery to the company; decisions are taken outside the system and entered by hand.
- It does not licence master rights — publishing is the only right type.
- One request holds one work; for a package licence a separate request is opened per work.
- It does not suggest a price or calculate an amount. The offer figure is entered by hand.
- It does not pay the rights holder. A share row can only be marked as paid; no amount or bank record is held.
- Expense items are recorded for reference and are not deducted from the base of the rights holder share.
See sync licensing on a live system.
In a half-hour call we can run it on your own catalogue.