The King's Speech Is Alive With Music

In the ever shrinking film budget world, it makes sense that filmmakers/producers are now selling the music rights.  The NY Times has an article which focuses on the British company The Cutting Edge Group.  They can provide all the services needed to put music in a film from hiring music supervisors to selecting the film's composer. What they are now doing is buying the rights to the music from the producers.  Soundtracks don't sell like they used to, but there are many other ways Cutting Edge can reap monetary benefits. They usually buy the rights for a sum between $50,000 to $200,000. This enables them to collect royalties every time the film is played, sell soundtracks, etc.  The film producers give up any rights to future royalties on the music, but they more than likely get the music the way it should be, as opposed to having the music budget cut (I know from any music supervisor I've ever worked with that the music budget is the first to get cut in a film production).  As Iain Canning, the producer of The Kings Speech said, “What we wanted to do was get the music that would do the images justice.”  They were able to do this by selling the rights to Cutting Edge.  The infusion of money, allowed the producers to hire Alexandre Desplat to score the film. He is nominated for an Oscar for his work.