Music Reference Guide
Releasing your music / Collecting royalties owed to you
Album formats (products)
Digital distribution, cd’s, thumb drive’s, Record’s, Single, All the above?
Copyright. Library of Congress.
PA “Performing Arts” copyright all the songs.
SR “Sound Recording” copyright the full finished album.
Your song is copyrighted as soon as you make it tangible. On paper or recorded. Quality doesn't matter. Register copyright. It gives you protection. Allows you to prove copyright infringement in the event somebody steals your recording without a licenses from you. You can then sue them and get a certain amount of money for that. Its called statutory damages and could be $150,000 for each willful infringement. If a composition is not registered with the US copyright office, the music service technically does not need to pay any royalties for the compositions mechanical royalty. The new MMA will soon change that.
UPC Universal Product Code.
Digital distribution UPC needs one.
CD manufacturer UPC could need the same one or another.
Barcode size must be 1 1/4” wide by 1/2” tall placed anywhere. You must leave the proper space in your artwork. You can add it yourself from Disc Markers website if purchased through Disc Makers.
RBS Red Book Standard
ISRC International Standard Recording Code.
A unique identifier to track and collect royalties. Its issued free by your distributer but I bought mine out right. When I made my CD I needed the code earlier than when set up my distribution. It cost me about $95. to purchase on my own. Lead in areas, start times for album songs is also part of the RBS. Your mastering engineer can upload your full album to Disc Makers.
Nielsen Soundscan
The Nielsen SoundScan is the sales source for the Billboard music charts database to track album sales to see how many albums were sold in the week. Its also good for Publishing Administrators to have something to audit sales. You need your UPC, and your ISRC’s to register. Use the UPC code your digital distributor provides for digital sales. Use the UPC code (if different) your physical manufacturer provides for physical sales.
SRCO Sound recording copyright owner
Whoever owns the rights to the sound recording. If you record your song in a studio make sure you get a receipt for payment of services saying that the song recording belongs to you.
Digital Distributor aka Aggregator
Distrokid, CD Baby, Tunecore ect. They get your music to the DSP’s, The digital service providers such as Apple Music, Spotify, ect. I really recommend Distrokid. With them you get to keep 100% of your royalties. You can also do writer/band payment splits. A very forward thinking company keeping the artist best interests in mind.
Once your song is recorded you are the
*Self Published Songwriter.
*Songwriter, because you wrote the song.
*Publisher, because you own the copyright to the song.
*Publishing Administrator, because you have signing power. Your job is to collect the licenses and revenue that your licenses and copyright makes when it gets used.
PRO’s Performance Rights Organizations
ASCAP, BMI ect. PRO’s Performance Rights Organizations are in North America. Less so outside the US. They’re responsible for collecting revenue on behalf of songwriters and music publishers when a song is publicly performed. They come into play when there’s commerce involved. Restaurants, bars, concert venues, streaming services, anything music in public. The PRO’s pay songwriters, and publishers in the form of performance royalties. They always pay out the writers share of your royalty directly to the songwriter, but they differ on how they pay out the publishers share. CMO’s internationally, Collective Management Organizations Similar to PRO’s but work outside of NorthAmerica. You can only belong to one PRO as the songwriter but multiple PRO’s as the publisher. Collection societies as such take there slice of the pie and send the rest to you. E.g. If they have $1. they’ll pay .50 cents to the songwriter and .50 cents to the Pub Admin. If your the Pub Admin you get the full $1.
Affiliating and Registering your songs
You must do this with a collection society so that your songs can be tracked and earn royalties. When you affiliate yourself as a songwriter with a collection society you’ll receive an IPI number. Interested Parties Information number. This number identifies you as a songwriter and connects you with your songs so that you get your royalties.
- List any and all performers of the song.
- List any and all the writers and/or publishers with there correct shares.
- List any alternate titles.
- Updated writer/publisher contact info.
- Report any live performances with your collection society.
ISWC International Standard Work Code. A songs identifier, unique to the composition which allows it to be tracked, and for royalties to be mapped to it. You’ll get this free once you registered your songs to your PRO. ISRC International Standard Recording Code. A unique identifier, allows your publisher to track and collect royalties. Its issued by your distributer but you can buy them on your own.
Publishing administrators
You are automatically your own Pub Admin unless you sign that right to another Pub Admin company like Songtrust. Once you sign that right away you no longer control the licenses of your lyric and melody copyright. If you do a deal with Songrtrust you have just assigned to them the exclusive rights to be the publishing administrator. They’re going to license and collect the money for the six rights or as we say the six slices of copyright. Pub Admin’s like Songtrust have relationships with performance and mechanical collection societies around the world that make royalty collection much simpler than a songwriter doing it on there own. Pub Admin’s don't own any percentage of or take creative control of your copyright at any point during or after the term of the agreement. They take around 15% fee. You really don't need one in the US and Canada. Where you do need it is outside the US and Canada. If you can do a Pub Admin deal with an organization who can mop up your money from the rest of the world, so be it. In the US and Canada you really should do it on your own because all your doing Is hiring someone to do the work for you for public performance and reproduction rights. If you have a significant presents overseas, it may help to sign up with a pub admin. One thing to point out with a publishing admin like Songtrust is that they also charge $100 setup fee per writer.
Determining Songwriter Ownership
The writers share is 50%. That’s the percentage of ownership by the creator, typically paid by the collection society. The publishers share is 50%. That’s the percentage of ownership of a work owned by the creator until they enter a deal with a publishing situation.
Original Song two licenses
1. Composition (Lyric & Melody), Publishing.
Performance Royalties 50% to PRO, and 50% to the Pub Admin, or you.
Mechanical Streaming Royalties 100% to Pub Admin or you.
2. Phonogram Master Recording.
Performance royalties, Digital Performance Royalties to Sound Exchange.
Performance Neighboring royalties (must be recorded in affiliated region)
Master Recording Revenues goes to distributor then you.
Mechanical royalties Revenues goes to distributor then you.
6 Slices of copyright
Controlled by the Publishing administer sometimes outsourced to the PRO for just the right of public performance.
1. Right of public performance.
The PRO’s one job. An Admin can do that job if hired. Collections from live venues, broadcasts, movie theater outside of US, elevators, grocery store’s, noodle shops in Japan, all over the world, stream on Youtube, websites.
2. Right of reproduction.
AKA Mechanical Royalty’s are regulated by the US government. Digital would be downloads, streams. Physical would be vinyl, cd’s, cassettes. Every time there is a reproduction of the lyric and melody the entity doing that needs a mechanical license and needs to make a payment.
3. Right of derivatives.
Sampling “Cant touch this,” or transfer a song into another language.
4.Right of public display.
Lyrics. Would need a license to display.
5.Right of distribution.
To commercially distribute the sound recording that embodies the composition.
6.Digital transmission.
Takes a recording that embodies a composition and distributes it digitally like Pandora, Cable, Satellite.
Digital performance royalties “Mechanical” in the UK and the rest of Europe.
You are a songwriter and you want to collect your money from the UK and the rest of Europe when Spotify is playing it. You want to collect your digital performance royalties, aka mechanical royalties. You can hire a Pub Admin like Song trust. They control the 6 rights of copyright. They do a deal with an MRA Music Rights Association like Sacem out of France which is like ASCAP for the US. You wont make nothing overseas unless you have a huge following like David Hasselhoff.
Sound Exchange
Nothing to do with lyric and melody. It has to do with the sound recording. For any digital transmission of a sound recording, theres a rate that has to be paid to Sound Exchange. Sound Exchange will pay out money for the public performance of the sound recording where as ASCAP pays out money for the public performance of the composition. It pays when a sound recording is played in a digital way, not AM-FM, non-interactive, DMCA compliant, internet radio (Old Pandora) ect. They remit the payment to you. It pays the entity that controls the sound recording. The musicians that played on the sound recording can get paid too if there name is in the Meta Data. When a record is played on digital radio, or even streamed on a service such as Spotify, revenue is generated through airtime and plays. These are digital performance royalties, and they are earned over ‘non-interactive digital transmissions.”
Spotify
When they use the lyric and melody they have to get all the rights but there are two big ones. Reproduction and public performance. For them to get the right of recording it calls up the record label or distributor and it gets the rights. For it to get the right for lyric and melody it doesn't have to have a direct contract it can follow rules that the US government created called the compulsory license. Spotify will get a performance license from the PRO for the performance rights. Spotify gets the rights of reproduction from the SPS self published songwriter or the Pub Admin, or a company called Audiam. When the money comes from Spotify it gets split 50/50 for the two sources performance and reproduction aka mechanical.
Audiam
A North-American Reproduction Collection Agency. Rights of Reproduction are different from public performance. Streaming mechanical royalties are every time a recording of your composition streams in the US it generates a royalty owed to the songwriter publisher. Audiam licenses and collects that money from Apple music, Spotify ect. They work just like ASCAP who’s a Music Rights Organization, but for the right of reproduction for streaming mechanical royalties in the US and Canada. If you have a Pub Admin deal with companies like SongTrust, CD Baby Pro, or Tunecore you can not work with Audiam because the Pub Admin deal has your rights. If you do a deal as a SPS with Audiam, all you’ve done is hire them to collect and license just one of the six rights which is the reproduction. They do work for some Pub Admin companies such as Round Hill music, Rough Trade, Mute Song, Clear Box, Blue Water Music. Audiam didn't create there digital rights service to plug into existing structures. They’re challenging and changing existing structures for the better. This is why they’ve been hired to represent catalogs like Metallica, Jason Mraz, Red Hot Chili Peppers and more. By signing up with Audiam, you would maintain your publishing rights-they only work on your behalf. This leaves you room to signup with PRO’s like ASCAP or BMI in the US.
Harry Fox Agency
HFA does mechanical licensing. HFA created a way for anyone to show up and get a mechanical license. Spotify pays HFA a whole lot of money to go out and deal with licensing and to make deals with the PRO’s. In other words HFO works for the DSP’s like Spotify, and not you the PRO’s. HFA is a back office agency, a third party company. These agencies collect and distribute mechanical royalties and are responsible for the tracking and collection when your song is reproduced. In the US, the HFA Harry Fox Agency and Music Reports take on this responsibility. In Europe there is ICE services. You don't need to have your music on HFA or MRI. They don't work for the you the SPS, they work for them the DSP’s. You haven't granted them any rights. You don’t need to register with them in order to get paid.
Royalties
A royalty is a percentage of profit entitled to a creator or owner for the use of there intellectual property.
Licenses To Royalties
Collection societies issue licenses, electronically track the usage of music registered with them, and pay out royalties.
Performance royalties.
“Performance” has a broad meaning in the word of music. In this context, it means the broadcast of a song. TV, (not confused with sync), radio, live venues, restaurants, bars, elevator music, clothing stores, gyms, jukeboxes, internet radio non interactive (Old Pandora), online interactive (Apple Music, Spotify), terrestrial radio (AM, FM). They’re collected by collection societies like PRO’s Performance Rights Organizations and CMO’s Collective Management Organizations internationally. These collection societies will typically collect both the writers share and the publishers share of the performance royalties and pay to the songwriter and publisher respectively. They’re paid out to you by your PRO’s such as ASCAP.
Interactive digital streams
Listeners can choose the song, fast forward, rewind, add a song to a playlist like Spotify, or Apple Music. Non Interactive streams are digital transmissions are like old Pandora, Sirius XM, AM / FM radio where you don't have as much control over a song.
Right Of Communication
Public performance royalty of a download outside of the US, from the EU, and UK.
Master Recording Royalties
Collected by your distributor and/or your label e.g. Distrokid.
Money goes to the Artist on the master recording.
Mechanical royalties
They’re generated by the mechanical reproduction of a song, such as on physical copies of vinyl albums or CD’s or in digital downloads like MP3’s or (streams, mostly).
Online interactive streams, (Spotify), ringtones, recorded cover songs, film soundtracks. The CRB Copyright Royalty Board determine the set rates.
LP’s, CD’s, and Digital downloads are 9.1cent for a recording of 5 minutes or shorter, and 1.75 cents per minute or fraction thereof over 5 minutes. This money is owed to the Publishing Admin or (You) if you don't have one. Interactive streaming services such as Amazon music, Apple Music, Youtube, Spotify, Pandora, Tidal all need to pay mechanical royalties. The CRB set an all-in royalty 10.5 percent of music services revenue based on the previous month. Performance royalties then get deducted from the pool to come up with the Payable Royalty Pool. Thats what gives you e.g. $.004 cents per play on Spotify. Some platforms more and some less.
MMA Music Modernization Act
Established in October 2018. Considered the most significant reform to US copyright impacting song righters in over a century. The MMA was started based on companies like Spotify not getting licenses to use your music. They had billions of dollars invested in them. They quickly got public and ran to the stock market. Spotify got caught and they got sued. Audiam untangled the mess and figured out what was happening. At the same time this was going on Warner, Universal, and Sony all owned equity positions in Spotify and literally owned stock in Spotify and were trying to get the company public. They eventually went public and made billions of dollars which they were able to keep without having to pay royalties on. The problem was that companies other then Warner, Universal, and Sony were having there rights infringed upon. People that owned stock in Spotify worked really hard to keep them from getting sued. After the dust settled, The NMPA National Music Publishing Association worked with these organizations and created the MMA which is a new bill that has become law. Part of this new law states that Spotify will instantly have a license to every song, the lyric and melody on the planet starting Jan 9, 2021. This includes songs from the past, present, and future. Its called a blanket license, Now they can no longer get accused of infringement for not using a license.
MLC Mechanical Licensing Collective
It is crucial to sign up with them, and give them your information as soon as there established. Spotify will now give all the money for mechanical royalties to the MLC. Now the MLC is responsible for paying all of you. If the MLC cant figure out who to pay because they cant find you, or you don't register with them, they get to keep your money. They wrote into the law that after a period of time, they get to pay it to the board of directors of the MLC. That board consists of Warner, Universal, Sony who are the very same people that helped get the law passed. Another thing about the MLC is that it’s only allowed under the law to collect mechanical royalties for the streaming and nothing else. On of the mandates of the MMA it will collect digital mechanical royalties, yet it’s mandate will only cover a limited scope of rights specifically streaming services. In the first quarter of 2021 you will no longer need to register your copyright with the US copyright office to be able to be eligible to be paid to earn mechanical royalties on streams. Instead you will proactively go to the MLC website which at this point doesn't exist and register with that. If you register with that you are eligible to get paid. Of course you need to know about this and we hope that they communicate this with you. It appears that no one kept track of this anyway with streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify. If you write a song whether you recorded it or not that song goes live in the US and it streams on interactive devices, the rules of the US will apply. The recording of your song will generate those songwriter royalties called mechanical royalties. How do those royalties get paid to you? Starting in Jan 2021 you will have to register with the MLC to get that money. Prior to 2021 they’re suppose to be paying you directly no matter where you are in the world.
Compulsory Licence
They compel you to have to license after you’ve made a sound recording.
You can’t say no. Anyone can cover/use your song. US government says you have no choice but to let people use your work. Once your music is in the world you’ve lost the right to say no. If your composition is not released there is no compulsory license and you can negotiate anything you want. If you’re not getting a payment and they have this license they’ve breached the license. To get a license they need a NOI Notice of intent. That is they send you get a letter saying I intend to use your sound recording and manufacture it and commercially release it. If you receive that NOI, they have a license.
NOI Notice of intent
Prior to the sound recording that embodies your lyric and melody going live to a service. If you don't get that they’re infringing on your copyright.
Direct licence
Instead of a compulsory license you can negotiate mechanical royalties.
Publishing
The publisher is responsible for maximizing the commercial potential of those compositions through licenses in films, television programs, advertisements, or other opportunities. Why work with a publisher? Traditionally publishers can find outlets for your music that you may be unaware of. They help you find sync deals that might otherwise be difficult to obtain. These days there are more options then just traditional publishing deals.
Publishing deal or agreement
Essentially an agreement with a publishing company to provide administrative, and sometimes creative, support for your catalog so that you can focus on what you do best, songwriting. Administration Agreement. The songwriter keeps 100% ownership of there copyright and pays somewhere between 10-25% of royalties, depending on the term. Typical one to three years. Co-Publishing Agreement. Also know as a traditional publishing deal, you typically assign 50 percent ownership of your publisher share to your co-publisher. This leaves you with 100% of your writers share and 50%of your publishers share. All negotiable. There are many benefits to a traditional Publishing deal. Pitching your songs to music supervisors, submitting demos to labels, ect.
Work-For-Hire
Your paid a flat fee and forfeit ownership and administration rights for the life of the copyright. It could be beneficial. You will be paid immediately. You can meet/work with established creators.
Exclusive Songwriter Agreements
A songwriter generally assigns the entire publishing share of any songs written during the agreement to a publishing company. A benefit is that the songwriter can get an advance weekly, monthly, but the money still must be recouped.
Using other songwriters works
Using pre-existing copyrighted work is a possible starting point. E.g covering or sampling a song. If you want to release a cover song you’ll need to obtain a compulsory mechanical licenses. You’ll most likely do this through there publisher or a third party such as the Harry Fox Agency or Easy song agency. You can also search for the publisher in the databases of collection societies
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