Question about signing with International Libraries

[henryvan4444]

Hi gang!
Quick question. I'm a member of BMI. I'm being contacted by a library in Australia and one in England. As I'm reviewing the Australia contract it mentions "...the composer shall be a member of APRA..." (their PRO). I have a note into the publisher but thought I'd get a 'sanity check' from my Taxi amigos....Does my BMI membership somehow extend to international PROs or do I have to become a member of foreign PROs as well?

Thanks in advance everyone!
Henry

[MBantle]

Hi gang!
Quick question. I'm a member of BMI. I'm being contacted by a library in Australia and one in England. As I'm reviewing the Australia contract it mentions "...the composer shall be a member of APRA..." (their PRO). I have a note into the publisher but thought I'd get a 'sanity check' from my Taxi amigos....Does my BMI membership somehow extend to international PROs or do I have to become a member of foreign PROs as well?

Thanks in advance everyone!
Henry

Hi Henry,
I had the same (I am a BMI member) and just asked them to change it. The way they changed it was 'a member of APRA or their affiliates' and they included my BMI and CAE/IPI number at the top of the contract. I think as long as the CAE/IPI number is captured correctly, it should be fine (I will have better information if something signed with the Australian publisher comes up on TuneSat but later does not show up in my royalty statement ). If you read the FAQs at bmi.com it says that BMI have agreements with all local PROs, i.e. the local PROs need to report any placements to them, so, in theory, this should work but I could show you a rather long correspondence with the Polish local PRO who only after a LOT of reminders finally forwarded everything I earned in 2017 (!) to BMI (still haven't seen it in my royalty statements though).
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Matt

[henryvan4444]

Thanks Matt. That makes sense. Best of luck!!

[JIMUSIC]

Hi interesting thread..

I think you've received a good answer already but it reminds me of a kind of similar situation I find myself in.

If you sign with the Australian or English Publisher please let me know if they register your tracks with your local PRO BMI, and whether these publishers have sub publishers in the US or not.

I am a PRS member (UK), and I am working with a US library who don't seem to have sub-publishers outside the US. Therefore there is some confusion about whether I need to register the tracks myself with PRS or not (The publisher have already registered the tracks with BMI, but not with PRS).

If anyone recognises this situation please let me know

Thanks,

J

[MBantle]

Hi interesting thread..

I think you've received a good answer already but it reminds me of a kind of similar situation I find myself in.

If you sign with the Australian or English Publisher please let me know if they register your tracks with your local PRO BMI, and whether these publishers have sub publishers in the US or not.

I am a PRS member (UK), and I am working with a US library who don't seem to have sub-publishers outside the US. Therefore there is some confusion about whether I need to register the tracks myself with PRS or not (The publisher have already registered the tracks with BMI, but not with PRS).

If anyone recognises this situation please let me know

Thanks,

J

It would be great if one of the more experienced members could confirm what I am about to say but I think it depends on where the publisher distributes the tracks (i.e. where the company distributing the music is incorporated). If they distribute through their own local company I would assume they only register locally (identifying you as a writer using your IPI/CAE number). Some of the 'foreign' publishers I am working with distribute through an American distributor (e.g. Universal) and use a US sub-publisher who registers the tracks in the US. The way I understand it is that as long as the song is registered and you are correctly identified with your IPI/CAE number, that should suffice as there are international agreements in place to make sure that the royalties 'find' you.
Cheers,
Matt

[gitanosoy]

Hi gang!
Quick question. I'm a member of BMI. I'm being contacted by a library in Australia and one in England. As I'm reviewing the Australia contract it mentions "...the composer shall be a member of APRA..." (their PRO). I have a note into the publisher but thought I'd get a 'sanity check' from my Taxi amigos....Does my BMI membership somehow extend to international PROs or do I have to become a member of foreign PROs as well?

Thanks in advance everyone!
Henry

Hi Henry,
I am glad you mentioned this library from Australia, I have received a contract as well from them, wrote them back with a few questions concerning other matters and waiting for a response...I was wondering about your question as well. I wrote under another topic asking others about this library.


cheers,

Andre

[henryvan4444]

Just following up from my initial post/question. The Australian publisher did confirm that BMI has relationship with their PRO...no need for additional memberships. Just sharing info.

[andygabrys]

This might help clarify your concerns:

Reciprocal Agreements:

BMI (and ASCAP and SESAC) have reciprocal agreements with PROs the world over. As does every PRO with every other one in foreign territories.

When a piece is broadcast in any territory, there is a long chain of money passing from broadcast territory to your PRO in your country and then to you. It can take several years for the entire process. So if it played yesterday in the Czech Republic for example it might be 2022 until you actually see payment for this.

The quickest link is when your piece is broadcast in your own country. For example if my piece "awesome piece" plays on NBC today - then there will usually be a 6-9 month period until I am paid by BMI.

The farther away the broadcast is, the longer it takes.

Registering your piece:

In 99.9% of cases when you work with a library, they take care of properly registering the piece. The only time they don't is the few cases that want you to register the piece to verify ownership, and once the library is in possession of that "paperwork" they will register your piece with a unique title usually by adding a prefix or a suffix.

If you live in the US, and your PRO is BMI, then the piece will get registered with BMI. There is often some delay if you have co-written a piece with an ASCAP writer (why I am not sure but its likely due to how often records are sent back and forth) but at some point its going to show up in the ASCAP and the BMI records.

This removes any responsibility for you to register the piece - the library does it. They earn their half of the money by making sure this is done. This happens in domestic as well as foreign signings.

The ONLY case in which you will EVER have to register your own pieces is when you are working directly with a music supervisor or ad agency or a production company who will not take any share of the song in return for using it. In this case you usually will get the entire writers and publishers share of the money as well as 100% of the sync / master use fee. In this case you better work on registering it fairly soon to make sure you get all your money.

Last thing on registering:

Some libraries / publishers do not register the pieces before they are used. In these cases the piece will end up registered in your account via "cue sheet registration". Every program has a cue sheet that details the pieces, lengths, writers and publishers of every placement in the program. If pieces have not been already registered, this cue sheet does the trick.

Make sense?

Its a messy system but you have to have some faith that it works and just keep on producing the content. In the end, having lots of music out there is the way to make $$$. You can't sweat the little details.

[henryvan4444]

Thank Andy! That was helpful. The libraries in England and Australia explained as much. I panicked a bit when I was contacted by those libraries wanting to sign some tracks and wasn't sure about this foreign registry issue. They were the 1st libraries I've signed with and had no clue. Anyway, thank again for helping me be a little less clueless!