4) What “exploitation” means (in industry language)
In entertainment, exploitation doesn’t mean unethical behavior—it means commercial use of an asset.
So when professionals say:
- “How is the work being exploited?”
- “We need to exploit this catalog.”
- “They’re exploiting the rights.”
They mean: “How is it being used to generate value?”
A single musical moment can be exploited in multiple ways:
- By being recorded,
- By being distributed,
- By being performed,
- By being paired with visuals,
- By being adapted or sampled,
- By being reproduced in copies,
- By being played publicly in a venue,
- By being communicated to an audience through a service.
You do not need the detailed licensing categories yet. The conceptual point is this:
Rights exist to control exploitation, and royalties exist to pay for exploitation.