an PRO brain-teaser

[deantaylor]

IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS THREAD ... AFTER READING THIS INITIAL POST .. YOU MAY WANT TO SKIP DOWN AND READ Reply #8 BELOW ... MY PLAN HAS CHANGED AND Reply #8 PRESENTS THE NEW PLANMy brain is fried on this one. I have a song, let's title it:YES, I LOVE YOUIt has been recorded by 2 vocalists. Me and my co-writer own both Masters. My co-writer sings the female version and we want to give the other singer, male, a cut of ALL of our backend profits (licencing fees, performance royalties, everything) from his version. But a different cut, depending on whether his pitch lands the deal or our pitch lands the deal. He gets no cut if we place the female version. My co-writer and I will collect all payments and then cut a check to the singer every year.It is a film-tv song, but I'd like to register it with our PROs so it will work for radio broadcasts too. My dilemma is .. how to register on ASCAP to make it easy for us to determine what cut to give the singer. If the song is placed in a library that re-titles, then we have no problem. I think this will work. We'll give the library 3 versions, with these titles.1. YES, I LOVE YOU (MALE) ... male singer gets percentageA2. YES, I LOVE YOU (FEMALE) ... male singer gets nothing3. YES, I LOVE YOU INSTRUMENTALThen, I assume when ASCAP sends us our checks, it will be accompanied by details as to how much was earned by each song and we can determine how much the male singer is entitled to.The problem comes if we self-publish to a tv show or film or place in a library that does not re-title. This method (following below) will work, I think, but it requires us to register the same 'song' 4 times with our PROs. Similar to 're-titling' used by libraries. I hear the PROs may not really like this, but I think I am gonna do it this way, unless someone convinces me it won't work or there is a better way (maybe there is, I hope so).Register 4 titles: For film-tv where we pitched the song:1. YES, I LOVE YOU (FEMALE) .... male singer gets nothing2. YES, I LOVE YOU (MALE) ... male singer gets percentageAFor radio where we pitched the song:3. YES, I LOVE YOU ... this will probably never happen, so we won't register unless it doesFor film-tv or radio where the singer pitched the song:4. LOVE YOU ... male version ... male singer gets percentageBThen when the PRO sends our check, it should be easy to see how much money to pay the singer.So complicated. Must be something simpler. What am I missing?Anybody really read this whole post and understand it ... lolThanks,DeanPS I have never received royalties from ASCAP, so I do not know what information I receive with the check .. detailing which performances acounted for how much of the total .. but I am assuming that at least I get details for each song title and how much that song earned.

[chriscarter]

In theory, you should be able to register different titles, as you have suggested you would. However, a small word of caution: sometimes if you have two titles that are really close, the a producer might list the wrong one. So I would avoid "Love You" and "I Love You" for example. I think your best best is the "Love You (FEMALE VERSION)," "Love You (MALE VERSION)" thing. It's a little more obvious.As far as statements go: yes, they break it down more than enough to figure out what to pay your singer.

[deantaylor]

Thanks Chris. Good idea on the titles. I edited my original post to match what you suggest.Dean

[matto]

In my opinion it makes little sense to register the song NOW in a number of different ways to cover all eventualities...before there are any deals offered.The song can't generate any royalties until some kind of deal is in place so why not wait to see what deals are offered and then proceed accordingly?The one thing you would want to do is to have a written agreement between all the involved parties which specifies who gets what under which circumstances...but I'm sure you already did this.

[deantaylor]

Jun 23, 2009, 9:16am, matto wrote:In my opinion it makes little sense to register the song NOW in a number of different ways to cover all eventualities...before there are any deals offered.The song can't generate any royalties until some kind of deal is in place so why not wait to see what deals are offered and then proceed accordingly?The one thing you would want to do is to have a written agreement between all the involved parties which specifies who gets what under which circumstances...but I'm sure you already did this.Of course, I am not going to actually register the song until deals are in place, but BEFORE I sign a written agreement with all the interested parties I want to make sure I can easily fulfill my end of the agreement. To know that, I'd like to know in advance how to register the song to cover all possible scenarios and to make sure ASCAP is not going to have a problem with my 're-titling-like' approach and to make sure there is not a simpler way.Do you think my solution above is a good one, assumming that all of the possible paths are taken ... The singer pitches his version to a tv-show ... Then my co-writer and I pitch it and it gets in a tv-show .. etc. Do I need all these different title registrations for the same song? I keep thinking there is an easier way or I need to think of a better way to compensate the vocalist.Thanks,Dean

[matto]

Dean, if you and the singer and the co-writer all pitch the song directly then you would know who pitched it where and therefore you can separate the money easily (without re-titling) by looking at your ASCAP statement which should always list the title of the production which generated a particular line of income.If the song is picked up by a publisher or library or two, it's also usually pretty simple to find out who placed it where because for one thing, any company that will do a non-exclusive deal will want to re-title so THEY can collect their share of the publishing; and even if this was somehow not the case and there was no upfront license fee and you were not told about a placement ahead of time, if you inquire after you see a placement on your statement a company would be happy to "fess up" if they got the placement for you. And once again as soon as you know who placed it in a particular production you'll know how to split the money.Yes, rarely there can be a problem such as a poor reporting from abroad where the title of a production may not be reported. But these are not usually large amounts of money, so what I'd suggest is to put a clause in your agreement whereby you give the male singer the lower of the two percentages for any line item the origin of which cannot be determined. I do think it's important to cover all bases with these things but it's also important not to get too anal about it. This is just ONE song and chances that all different versions of it will end up in different productions and each will make you gobs of money are VERY small.HTH...

[deantaylor]

Jun 24, 2009, 8:56am, matto wrote:Dean, if you and the singer and the co-writer all pitch the song directly then you would know who pitched it where and therefore you can separate the money easily (without re-titling) by looking at your ASCAP statement which should always list the title of the production which generated a particular line of income.If the song is picked up by a publisher or library or two, it's also usually pretty simple to find out who placed it where because for one thing, any company that will do a non-exclusive deal will want to re-title so THEY can collect their share of the publishing; and even if this was somehow not the case and there was no upfront license fee and you were not told about a placement ahead of time, if you inquire after you see a placement on your statement a company would be happy to "fess up" if they got the placement for you. And once again as soon as you know who placed it in a particular production you'll know how to split the money.Yes, rarely there can be a problem such as a poor reporting from abroad where the title of a production may not be reported. But these are not usually large amounts of money, so what I'd suggest is to put a clause in your agreement whereby you give the male singer the lower of the two percentages for any line item the origin of which cannot be determined. I do think it's important to cover all bases with these things but it's also important not to get too anal about it. This is just ONE song and chances that all different versions of it will end up in different productions and each will make you gobs of money are VERY small.HTH...Yes, that helps. Line item is a great idea, I hadn't thought of that. I assumed I might be able to pick it all up from the ASCAP statement ... but I've never had real experience there, so ... I have 8 songs signed to 2 different non-exclusive libraries that DO NOT re-title ... so maybe I am sensitive to this possiblity.Agreed about being too anal ... lol ... but when you have no actual experience with something ... you never know what you are missing. And I am using this brain teaser to learn more about how the royalty system works.It occured to me today that I will need 3 titles anyway:For film-tv if the song is in a non-re-titling library:1. YES, I LOVE YOU (FEMALE) .... male singer gets nothing2. YES, I LOVE YOU (MALE) ... male singer gets percentageAFor radio where we pitched the song:3. YES, I LOVE YOU ... this will probably never happen, but it would 'protect' our original title from re-titling librariesSo adding a fourth is maybe not so big a deal, just for clarity:For film-tv or radio where the singer pitched the song:4. LOVE YOU ... male version ... male singer gets percentageBAlso, it occured to me that these 4 titles could be all one ASCAP registration .. 3 being alternate titles. I assume alternate titles can be used for this purpose? That would simplify things and seems pretty 'clean' to me.Dean

[matto]

Jun 24, 2009, 2:38pm, deantaylor wrote:Also, it occured to me that these 4 titles could be all one ASCAP registration .. 3 being alternate titles. I assume alternate titles can be used for this purpose? That would simplify things and seems pretty 'clean' to me.If the purpose of retitling is to separate income streams (such as with non-exclusice retitling libraries) then the titles CANNOT be alternate titles because otherwise the income streams are not separated. Alternate titles would be ones that could be used interchangably.

[deantaylor]

Jun 24, 2009, 3:28pm, matto wrote:Jun 24, 2009, 2:38pm, deantaylor wrote:Also, it occured to me that these 4 titles could be all one ASCAP registration .. 3 being alternate titles. I assume alternate titles can be used for this purpose? That would simplify things and seems pretty 'clean' to me.If the purpose of retitling is to separate income streams (such as with non-exclusice retitling libraries) then the titles CANNOT be alternate titles because otherwise the income streams are not separated. Alternate titles would be ones that could be used interchangably.I think you forgot this from my original post: My co-writer and I will collect all royalty payments and then cut a check to the singer every year. So, the splits on each title's ASCAP registration would be the same. So, why not make them all one registration, with alternate titles?--------------------------------------------------------To have both versions of the song in the same library (non-retitling library), I need 2 titles .. YES, I LOVE YOU (MALE).. YES, I LOVE YOU (FEMALE)Then, if we pitch the song directly or if the singer pitches the song directly, we need this title:.. YES, I LOVE YOUSo my plan works like this. If we place the 2 Masters in a non-retitling library, we register it like this:ASCAP song registration:---------------------------------------Title: YES, I LOVE YOUWriters: John Doe, Jane DoePublishers: John Music, Jane MusicAlternate Titles: YES, I LOVE YOU (MALE), YES, I LOVE YOU (FEMALE)Performers: Bill Doe, Jane Doe----------------------------------------Then if a cue sheet is filed like this:--------------------------------------------Title: YES, I LOVE YOU (MALE)Writers: John Doe, Jane DoePublishers: John Music, Jane Music-------------------------------------------ASCAP will match this cue sheet to the above registration, by the alternate title, and we will get paid .. correct? I assume this is how alternate titles work.Then the title itself from the ASCAP statement will give me almost all I need to determine what percentage to pay the singer. PS I decided to do away with one title .. LOVE YOU .. and depend on other information from the ASCAP statement to provide details I need. This would be for if the singer pitches the song directly.

[Casey H]

DeanI assume when you speak of registering multiple titles you are NOT referencing the alternate title field of a single registration, you are talking about completely separate title registrations. As matto mentioned, the alternate title field would not help in separating income streams.Overall, IMO, this whole thing is way too complicated and the complications could even cause risk. For example, if a library saw you had so many variant registrations, they could be concerned as to whether it was safe to sign your track.I would not worry about all theses registrations. PRO statements do provide enough detail that you should be able to figure out which track was placed by whom. Also, the odds that you will sign with a library that does not re-title are very small, since (for better or worse!) there are tons more re-title libraries out there than non-re-title-- usually those are the exclusive ones. And, if you signed with an exclusive library, they would not be happy to find all this complication.Tease your brain on something else, LOL... Best,Casey