Non-exclusive publishing question

[WeWillWriteUaSong]

I have a question about non-ex contracts. If the publisher is taking 100% of publishing in perp., then how am I able to still shop the song to other pubs? Wouldn't the new library ALSO want 100% of the publishing? Does this just mean 100% of publishing for the placements THEY get? It would be awesome if an experienced taxi rider could help me understand.

Also trying to understand "re-titling". If the title is changed and no longer matches the title sent to my PRO - then how is the song recognized by my PRO?

Thank you so much fellow forumeers, and I apologize if this has already been discussed.

Marcus

EDIT: I just saw in the contract it does say "on licenses we acquire" so that kind of answers my question, but I would still love a deeper understanding on how this is done. Does the library send their cue sheet to their PRO for each placement? How would one library get 100% pub on one placement and another library get 100% on another. How is this done? If the song is already registered with MY PRO, do I need to remove it or change the info? Or do they do that? Sorry for all the questions - I'm new to non-ex library contracts. Thanks again

[andygabrys]

here are some things I have learned regarding non-exclusive libraries.

First - whether its non-exclusive or exclusive, retitling a track is often done by the library depending on what the use of the track is. Exclusive stuff may show up in your PRO account several times under different titles. Lots of reasons why this happens.

But for non-exclusive libraries, each library that you sign the piece to will register it under their own title in your PRO account with them as the publisher. Since the library usually takes 50% of the track earnings, this is one of the duties that they carry out to facilitate both you and them earning money. You don't have to do the registration, and usually if you do it creates more work for everybody as you might not have your libraries correct PRO info and as the non-exclusive model relies on every track being named something distinctly different, if they see "dark hip hop banger" is already registered (even if you have put their publishing info in the registration) they might register it with another title.

So if its library X-Music - they may choose a totally different title for your piece "dark hip hop banger" or they might ad an identifying prefix or suffix like "dark hip hop banger XM". This is done so that not only in your PRO is their no other track called "dark hip hop banger XM" but in their library they don't have any duplicates. The accounting would get screwed up otherwise.

So usually non-exclusive signings result in your cue count in your PRO account being inflated.

Most uses of music are still accounted for via Cue Sheets - where somebody (could be an intern) fills out the track name, the use, length, writer info including PRO, and publisher info and this stuff gets sent into the PRO's via production companies and then is tabulated (attributing to the 6 month + delay in getting paid royalties).

As the industry moves more towards digital watermark / fingerprinting the pessimists say that the same "fingerprint" with many different titles will not work - but since Publishers make huge money and many production companies have their own libraries whey they earn the publishers share, you can bet that issue will cease to be an issue at some point. Somebody will devise a way to work around it.

The clause about "licenses we acquire" is meant to say this: "We get earnings on the placements that we make, and we know that you might have this track non-exclusively signed to other publishers, and we don't make any claim on earnings from placements those publishers acquire"

Which is the fundamental difference - as an exclusive contract means that the publisher will always earn, even in cases where you have pitched the track yourself (if that is even allowed under the contract).

So a visual example to try and make this clear:

X-Music and Awesome Trax both non-exclusively sign your piece "Dark Hip Hop Banger" which is an instrumental.

In your PRO account (lets say BMI) you will end up at some point with at least 2 registrations.

Dark Hip Hop Banger XM - writer Joe Composer BMI Share 100%, Publisher Music-X BMI share 100%

Inner City Bombast - writer Joe Composer BMI share 100%, Publishers Awesome Trax share 100%

Lets say X-Music and Awesome Music both pitch the track to HBO VICE and its used twice, coincidently one use of each track as the editor didn't realize it was the same piece of music and was in a hurry.

A cue sheet if prepared with the following:

Dark Hip Hop Banger XM - USE BI - duration 0:23 - writer Joe Composer BMI Share 100%, Publisher Music-X BMI share 100%

Inner City Bombast - USE BI - duration 0:16 - writer Joe Composer BMI share 100%, Publishers Awesome Trax share 100%

With the additional feature that if the track is misspelled on the cue sheet or the library hasn't gotten around to registering it, then a registration by "cue Sheet" is done. In BMI accounts this could lead to a third registration for the same track. ASCAP is similar but likely somewhat different there - I am a BMI writer so that is what I have experience with.

Then you get your royalties.

Make some sense?

[WeWillWriteUaSong]

Andy thank you so much for this. Really. This answers all my questions perfectly. So very kind!