THIS IS THE ROYALTIES CHAPTER, OUR GIFT TO THE WORLD
PREORDER THE BOOK HERE
Imagine getting a job where you don’t know how much you’re getting paid, and your money is split up and buried somewhere in the world in locked boxes and the key is an algebra equation. Music royalties are complicated. Some would say overly complicated on purpose, but that conspiracy theory is just ridiculous because who would want to be responsible for holding vast sums of unclaimed squeaky-clean cash? Not an organization that most musicians find by accident, if they ever find it at all. There are companies that know where your cash is buried and the maths to unlock it, but they take their cut of every payment.
Music royalties are the monies paid when a song is sold, streamed, downloaded, played live, etc. There are a few types of royalties that are owed to rightsholders (songwriters, publishers, performers, labels, artists, etc.). This chapter gives a basic understanding of terms you need to know, and a step-by-step guide for new and existing artists to register and check that their works are properly registered. Each musician has a unique situation and song splits to consider.
COLLECTION SOCIETIES
Collection societies collect money from various sources on your behalf, and registering with them is the only way to access that money. They take a cut but there’s no way around that. You don’t have to be a citizen of the country these societies are located in to become a member. You can only be a member of one PRO but can be a member of multiple MRO’s and CMO’s. You just have to make sure they are all collecting from different areas and there’s no overlap, or else that can lead to delays in payment.
TYPES OF ROYALTIES
There’s a difference between a song (composition) and the recording of a song. Both can have different owners and
royalty splits. Royalties are collected from different sources for copyright ownership, songwriting, performance, sales of physical product and mechanical licensing of the music.
PRO – PERFORMING RIGHTS ORGANIZATION
PRO’s collect performance royalties. “Performance” means playing your music in a retail or commercial space.
Think of it as a rental fee for your music. ASCAP, BMI, SESAC*, GMR *are PRO’s. *Invite only
MRO – MECHANICAL RIGHTS ORGANIZATION
MRO’s collect mechanical rights royalties, which is a fee for every time a copy of music is made, paid to the copyright
owner(s). A stream/download is considered a “copy”. TheMLC will collect your mechanical rights in the US.
TheMLC (MRO)
CMO – COLLECTIVE MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION
These collect both performance and mechanical rights royalties. PRO+MRO=CMO.
SACEM (France), GEMA (Germany).
TheMLC has a list of global CMO’s here:
SACEM (OR OTHER CMO’S)
Collects the remaining mechanical royalties.
NRO – NEIGHBORING RIGHTS ORGANIZATION
NRO’s collect royalties for the performers on the recordings and the copyright holders of the songs. SoundExchange is an NRO. They collect digital performance royalties from worldwide NRO’s. SoundExchange Direct is where artists and labels manage their catalogs on SoundExchange.
SOUNDEXCHANGE (NRO)
RECORD LABELS & DIGITAL DISTIBUTORS
These collect from the music distributors or DSP’s that carry the product (recordings).
AFM SAG-AFTRA
(Non-featured Artists via IPRD Fund)
If you’ve ever had music on a tv show or a movie, search your name on their site. If you do, your name will come up. If nothing appears, you don’t have any.
Link below, or search AFM SAG-AFTRA Unclaimed.
www.afmsagaftrafund.org/Search/Unclaimed
TERMS TO KNOW
SONGWRITER
Writer of a song (composition)
PUBLISHER
Publishes a written song. Think of a publisher as an agent of a songwriter. You are your own publisher unless you are working with a publishing administrator. At some point, the powers that be realized that publishers were ripping off the songwriters they represent, so they mandated that fifty percent of publishing royalties go to the songwriter, and fifty percent go to the publisher. If you’re self-published, you get 100% of those royalties.
DSP – DIGITAL SERVICE PROVIDER
(Streaming Service)
Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, Pandora, Qobuz, Spotify, Tidal, YouTube Music
SONG CODES
ISRC – International Standard Recording Code
ID given to a recording
ISWC – International Standard Music Work Code
ID given to a work / composition
The ISRC is the code that represents the recording, and ISWC represents the composition. If I write and record a song, then record a live version, those recordings would have different ISRC’s but the same ISWC’s. ISWC’s always start with the letter T.
BOWI – Best Open Works Identifier
Another work ID. I’ve never seen any other mention of a BOWI code outside of the music database site called Quansic which I highly recommend exploring (it’s free).
PUBLISHING ADMINISTRATORS
There are companies who will collect publishing royalties on your behalf called Publishing Administrators. They collect
publishing royalties from most of the world and take 15-20% of all the royalties they collect, on top of membership fees.
SongTrust, Sentric, CD Baby Pro Publishing, TuneCore Publishing
TIP: Publishing administrators require that your royalties from TheMLC get funneled through them. If you have a back catalog and are thinking about joining a publishing administrator, I’d sign up for TheMLC first, get the initial backlogged chunk of change and then sign up for the publishing administrator to collect everything moving forward.
ARTIST ID CODES
Knowing your codes and ID numbers helps with more accurate reporting and distribution by the whole chain.
ISNI – INTERNATIONAL STANDARD NAME IDENTIFIER
ISNI codes generally apply to credits for songs rather than royalties. Each member of a band AND the band should have their own ISNI. For example, I have my own ISNI, Julia has her own ISNI, and Soft Palms has its own ISNI.
To see if you have an ISNI, search the database at www.isni.org/page/search-database/.
You should also search your own name using the free Quansic database at explorer.quansic.com.
If you don’t have an ISNI, you can get one for free through Veva Collect, a free music collaboration app where you can keep tracks of credits and get a free ISNI, very useful.
www.vevacollect.com
IPI – INTERESTED PARTY INFORMATION
This number is assigned to you when you sign up with a CMO, MRO or PRO.
IPN – INTERNATIONAL PERFORMER NUMBER
Another musician identifier, similar to an IPI.
HOW TO REGISTER
Songwriters are responsible for registering their portion of a composition with their own PRO. For example, if Writer A is on ASCAP and Writer B on BMI, each must be register independently with their own PRO for both parties to get paid their royalty shares. Once both parties have registered, ASCAP and/or BMI will create an ISWC for the track, but only after every writer is accounted for. Make sure you coordinate your efforts when registering. The two companies share a public database called SongView, where they get info on the tracks like ASCAP and BMI work ID’s and the ISWC’s.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to set your royalties up and keep track of your tracks:
I. CREATE A DISCOGRAPHY SPREADSHEET
This can be done on a spreadsheet program like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. Make columns with Artist, Album Title, Track Title, Track Number, ISRC, ISWC, Song Split %, Release Date, ASCAP Work ID, BMI Work ID, MCL Song Code. Fill that sheet in! Other things to know are BPM, Key, Catalog Number, Label, Credits, Descriptors, anything else about the track you can possibly think of. I organize mine by album and track number, with the albums color-coded. Here’s an example:
Here’s a few template downloads:
Google Sheets Track List Template
And an Illustrator template for web content:
II. REGISTER FOR ASCAP OR BMI
1. If you don’t have one, create an ASCAP or BMI account (not both). Pick one and search for Free ASCAP writer and publisher or Free BMI account.
• If you join ASCAP, create a writer account AND a publisher account. You should have two IPI’s, one for your writer account and one for your publisher account.
• BMI collects writing and publishing royalties with one account. They use 200% to represent this.
• IPI’s will be given to you right away, make sure you copy/paste those on your discography spreadsheet.
2. If you already have these accounts, double check your works to see if anything is missing and the percentages are correct.
3. Register your tracks. If you are registering a track that has both ASCAP and BMI members, enter your percentage and use writer unknown for the remainder. The other parties will have to register with their own PRO. There won’t be an ISWC code created for the track without 100% of the publishing accounted for. This may cause problems when registering for TheMLC and SoundExchange. Coordinate your efforts! It takes a few days to get an ISWC after registering with ASCAP/BMI.
EXAMPLE: Writer A is an ASCAP member and writer B is a BMI member. Writer A should register the track and put their percentage, and the remainder as unknown writer and unknown publisher for the percentages that are not theirs. Writer B should register the same track with BMI and enter unknown writer and unknown publisher. An ISWC code will be issued for the work once both Writer A and Writer B have registered their shares and 100% of the publishing is registered. An ISWC code will show up on the work’s page in the ASCAP and BMI catalog in a few days. Wait times vary.
III. REGISTER FOR TheMLC
1. Sign up for a free account at TheMLC.com using your ISNI and IPI number (For ASCAP members, use your publishing IPI. For BMI, use either your writer or publisher IPI). It takes a couple days to verify your account.
2. Once you get verified, create a member profile.
3. Follow the directions on this page to register your work: www.help.themlc.com/en/support/how-to-register-works-in-the-mlc-portal
IV. REGISTER FOR SOUNDEXCHANGE DIRECT
SoundExchange Direct is the most confusing one. Take it slow, and if you get lost they have links to video tutorials for each step on the corresponding pages. If you’ve released music on a record label, communicate with your label to see if they have uploaded your tracks to SoundExchange. If you’ve self-released, you’re most likely going to have to upload mp3s or WAVs of your music to register. Make sure the metadata (ISRC’s artist name, track title) is embedded before uploading.
1. Visit www.register.soundexchange.com/ to register for a free account.
2. If you’re starting fresh, to go My Catalog > Submit Recordings and start adding recordings. Make sure you have the track’s ISRC codes and other metadata embedded in the audio files before you upload them. Enter as much info as you can on the Recording Entry page for each track (all this info should be stored on your discography spreadsheet we talked about a couple pages ago). If you’re confused, they have links to videos on how to do this.
3. To check to see if your tracks are already submitted to SoundExchange. Go to My Catalog > Search & Claim to start searching and claiming. Best to use your ISRC code, but you can search by artist and song title. Claim as an Artist if you performed on a track, and Claim as an RO (Rights Owner) if you own the masters.
You will need to know what percentage of the song you have ownership of and claim that accordingly.
Note: All the performers on the record should be represented on the Claim as an Artist section of SoundExchange. Everyone in the band should have their own SoundExchange Direct account.
4. To allow SoundExchange to collect your worldwide royalties, go to your dashboard, and on the menu that says: Account Settings, Payment Summary, View Statements, Payment History, More, Click “More”, then on the dropdown menu click Membership Summary. Under Mandate Territories, make sure it says Worldwide. If it doesn’t, click Update to the left and update it on the next screen.
• SoundExchange gives 5 percent of the royalties they collect to the AFM SAG-AFTRA (American Federation of Musicians & Screen Actors Guild American Federation of Television & Radio Artists) fund for “non-featured artists” (session musicians). They don’t collect for every track, only the top 100 SoundScan recordings on the AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act) list, and the top 25,000 sound recording titles from the DPRA (Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Digital Millenium Copyright Act) list. These are the big tracks, or tracks on TV or movies only. To see if any of your tracks are on this list, go to www.afmsagaftrafund.org/ and explore the “Unclaimed Royalties” and the “Covered Royalties” pages.
COPYRIGHTING YOUR WORK
Your work is technically “yours” once you create it but if you want the ability to challenge someone who steals it, you have to register your work with the US Copyright office. The fee is $65 for published albums and $85 for unpublished albums. $65 for individual tracks.
www..copyright.gov/registration/
THE BLACK BOX
Somehow a term came into being that makes people think there’s a large sum of money in a black box somewhere. If you have been making music for a long time and haven’t been collecting your royalties, then yes, your money most likely still there because nobody else can collect it for you. Follow the How to Register step-by-step instructions that start on page 72 to get your money from THE BLACK BOX.
COMEDY, SPOKEN WORD AND PODCASTS
Non-musical works do not generate the same royalties as musical works because they are not represented by organizations that issue licenses (ASCAP/BMI, TheMLC).
Two organizations that collect for non-musical works are:
SoundExchange “…collects royalties for ALL sound recordings played on non-interactive digital radio. This includes recordings and soundtracks made by actors, comedians, and spoken word artists in addition to musicians.”
Tell any comedian, poet, spoken word artist friends of yours to sign up for SoundExchange Direct .
Spoken Giants is the “first global rights administration company for the owners and creators of Spoken Word copyrights” They represent comedy, speeches, public readings and podcasts.
www..spokengiants.com
CONCLUSION
Royalties are confusing for everyone, so don’t get discouraged if you don’t get it right away. If you’re taking it upon yourself to research royalties, go straight to the source. TheMLC has a great way of explaining the process on their site, and you can call TheMLC, ASCAP and BMI with questions, they’re very helpful. I recommend avoiding publishing administrators’ websites for your research because information on those sites is a bit more confusing. Remember, they are trying to sell you a service. Getting your royalties straightened out takes a few months to complete so be patient with it but don’t let it fall through the cracks!
NO AI WAS USED IN THE CREATION OF THIS BOOK