It's no secret that to survive musicians need to cultivate multiple income sources. But revenue from synch licensing has usually been unobtainable for d.i.y. artists. Today's announcement today that CD Baby paid out $400,000 in synch licensing in the last quarter of 2013, offers an indicator that some of this revenue is possible for more musicians.

Most of the revenue comes from YouTube; and to be clear, no one should quit their day jobs based on today's news.

Divide $400,000 by 300,000 CD Baby artists and each would get a check for $1.33. But The CD Baby payouts represent a 70% increase over the previous quarter and 150% more than the same period in 2012. It also pushes the total that CD Baby has paid in sync royalties beyond $1 million.

More Revenue Ahead

This is just the beginning,” says Kevin Breuner, CD Baby’s director of marketing. “It’s gone far beyond ‘found money’; this is legitimate income. When YouTube begins it streaming service it’s just going to grow exponentially. We did a test, seeding out YouTube channels with a subset of album artwork videos. Within a few days we had over 50,000 views and hundreds of channel subscriptions. That’s huge."

"In the past, artists waited until fans made a purchase,” Breuner observes. “Now there is value in what your fans do with your music in the social space."