For Olympic skaters, securing music rights can be tricky

The Winter Olympics are on. The men will take the ice for the figure skating short program on Tuesday.

Spanish skater Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté was initially told he couldn’t perform his signature routine, which featured a montage of songs and sounds from the animated movie “Minions,” due to copyright issues. Now, though, he said he has secured the rights.

For years, figure skaters tended to use a lot of classical music. But in 2014, the rules loosened, and skaters started picking some hits.

At the 2022 Olympics Games, for example, Nathan Chen skated to a remix of “Rocket Man” and “Bennie and the Jets.”

Thing is, “in order to use music outside of just listening to it for personal pleasure or in the background in a public venue, you need permission from the artists and all of the writers to use that music,” said Chantal Epp, CEO of ClicknClear, which helps athletes navigate this whole permission process.

Now, on average, a hit song can have nine different writers, plus one record label, meaning “at least 10 potential people to negotiate with,” she said.

Epp’s company has a library of pre-cleared music, including some of the Minions songs. Other songs are negotiated case by case (including other Minions songs).

“Lord, it's just too much for an athlete to handle on their own,” said Benom Plumb, a former licensing executive now at the University of the Pacific.

In many cases, Plumb said it might just come down to the rate.

“It could be as low as in the hundreds, or it could be as high as the thousands or hundreds of thousands,” he said.

But, Plumb added, the process is important because it ensures the creators and artists get paid for their work.