I thought this article at AdAge.com would show how indie musicians are finding money in advertising. After all, its title is "Indie Act Seeks Backup Brand." Sync licensing can go a long way in making up for slowing music sales and the overall challenge of being on an indie, so it makes for a good topic these days. The article showed me two things: The revenue can be pretty good, and people shouldn't confuse "business indie" and "music indie" in business articles.

A "business indie" is an artist on an independent label (or no label at all). A "music indie" is an artist that has an indie sound or fits in the indie lifestyle. There are tons of indie artists on major or major-owned labels. The problem with this article is that AdAge.com gave example after example of artists with relationships with major labels and mentioned only two true indie artists, Band of Horses and The Walkmen.

Any piece on music licensing should start with Apple commercials. A few were mentioned, but they're not indie. Sara Bareilles is on Epic. Feist is on Interscope-owned Cherry Tree Records. Yael Naim is on Atlantic. You may have read about how an Apple commercial pushed Yael Naim's into iTunes' Top 10 even though she didn't have an album out. I figured it was some kind of indie success story, the sort of thing people expect in the age of the dying major label and a more level playing field. Nope, just another major label artist using a superior marketing department to get cherished advertising placement. When people say major labels are going to die, they are seriously discounting these abilities.

Let's go back even further to the iPod commercials of yore (this page lists songs in all iPod commercials). Jet (major label), U2 (major label), Eminem (major label), Propellerheads (major label), Daft Punk (major label) etc etc. There are a few indies on the list, such as Ozomotli and Cut Chemist, and some major-owned indies (Caesars on EMI-owned Astralwerks, Wolfmother on Modular with a distribution deal with Interscope) but Apple advertising has not been nearly as indie as people think. It may sometimes sound indie, but it's rarely independent of the majors.

Side note: Brendan Benson, not mentioned in the article, has a song in a new iTouch commercial. That was released on indie label V2, and a song from his 2002 Startime International album Lapalco was in a VW commercial a while back.

On the plus side, the article does throw out some numbers. Songs by Feist and Bareilles, for example, each got only $80,000 from Apple for global master and sync rights (the overall benefits certainly made up for the low number).