Blanket Licensing: Some performance venues and online platforms pay for blanket licenses from major publishers or distributors. This means that they pay a certain fee to a PRO for permission to use anything that PRO controls. Towson University does pay for blanket licenses from the major PROs, but not all performance venues do this.
Mechanical Licensing: If you would like to make a recording of a composition by someone else, you will need a compulsory license, which is commonly called a “mechanical license.” You can obtain these from the copyright holder or from The Harry Fox Agency (HFA), which acts as an information source and clearing house for musical copyrights.
Synchronization Licensing: For video production where the moving images are timed in coordination, or synchronized, with music (as in movies, television, commercials, internet video, etc.), the user must obtain a synchronization license. This includes both taped dance choreography with music and audiovisual recordings of musical performances. There is no clearing house for these rights, so the performer must approach the copyright holder(s) directly. When a recording is used in the audiovisual work (as opposed to live musicians performing the music in a recorded performance), synchronization licenses must be obtained from the rights owners for both the musical composition and the sound recording. A synch license for a sound recording is also referred to as "master use rights."
Statutory Digital Recording License: allows the user to broadcast prerecorded music over the internet, radio, or loudspeakers assuming certain regulations are followed. These may be paid through SoundExchange. Their website contains detailed information about the requirements.
Grand Rights are for works that are under copyright and also contain literary or visual elements beyond the performance of music alone. Operas, musicals, ballets, choreographed dance, are all subject to grand rights. Unstaged performances where the music of an opera is performed without sets and movement are not subject to grand rights. There is no clearing house for grand rights, and performers must approach the copyright holder directly.
Kohn on Music Licensing by 
