Publishing administrators (Songtrust, etc.)

[Casey H]

Gianpaolo
I don't want to answer regarding MLC, SoundExchange, etc. because I wouldn't be sure of my answers. Others can chime in. As someone who is not a performer writes primarily for music libraries, I haven't invested any time with these. My *guess* is there would be too little money to make it worth the effort (for me).

Casey

[gpgallian]

Well, Casey, no matter what, yours is indeed already an answer!
Keep coming back, for sure!
You're welcome,

Gianpaolo

[RPaul]

I've been reading through this thread and have been tempted to reply before, but either haven't had the time or ... Anyway, just to add my thoughts. WARNING: Some of this will not agree with the typical "TAXI gospel" on this topic. BUT it is going to depend heavily on what specifically you are doing, and how what YOU do does or does not conform to what seems to me to be the typical TAXI model, which MOSTLY seems oriented toward writing instrumental cues for sync, with a bit of other stuff here and there.

Oh, and just to also add up front that I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.

Let's start by stating the obvious: When you write a song (or instrumental composition), unless you sign the rights to it away to someone else, you are the publisher. Similarly, when you record a song, be it your song or someone else's, you are the owner of the recording. If you want to exploit these songs and recordings on your own, then you can collect some money on your own, but much of the money that can be obtained is not practical to collect on your own, so you need to get others to collect for you (assuming there is money to be collected in the first place). For example:

PROs (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, GMR in the USA -- for most DIY artists, only ASCAP and BMI will be applicable) collect performance royalties for songs from radio, TV, streaming, live performances (e.g. bars, restaurants, concert halls, etc.), and so on. Side note: Unless you're getting serious broadcast and/or streaming play, if you are a live performer doing your originals in your shows, the most money you're likely to get from your PRO is by submitting your set lists to them (e.g. ASCAP Onstage or BMI Live). Of the almost $110 I got from ASCAP last year, I'd be surprised if even $1 came from the combination of broadcast and satellite radio and Internet. (For example, just looking now at my publisher domestic distribution from March of last year I can see $9.61 was from live performances, which they call "additional categories", while a penny was from broadcast/satellite radio and 8 cents were from Internet.) Of course, if you're getting good sync placements that result in TV performances, that's going to be another story.

The closest equivalent for recordings is SoundExchange, who will collect from certain sources for recording uses. Terrestrial radio does not pay royalties for use of recordings in the USA, but SoundExchange can collect for use on satellite radio and a few other sources. Some distributors can collect some of your SoundExchange money, but not all of it, as SoundExchange pays certain parts directly to the featured artists.

The MLC is relatively new (2022, I think?), and they specifically collect mechanical royalties (for songs), only in the USA, for various online streaming platforms. For example, some of my recent MLC statements have included Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, YouTube, Amazon, and iHeartRadio. If you want to collect these royalties outside the USA, you'd either need to affiliate with the relevant organizations in other countries or get a publishing administrator (e.g. SongTrust) to do that for you. I haven't bothered with this because I'm not leaving much money on the table at this point.

One other area that keeps getting mentioned is collection from YouTube, Facebook, and other social media, which can often be done by the distributors (e.g. CD Baby, Tunecore). I think this is for the recording side of things -- not sure if it also includes the song side (or if that is coming from the PROs). Side note: I've actually gotten a decent amount from Facebook transactions through CD Baby for some strange reason (they seem to license things in units of 50 until there are a certain number of streams). But, then again, I've got one song that supposedly has over 150K plays on TikTok that has only earned maybe $1 for it (and most of those plays are zero, not even micro-pennies.

Okay, so far I've really been talking about what is out there (or at least the main things the come to mind -- I may well be forgetting some possibilities -- actually, Music Reports is another, and they collect for certain things). When talking about potential music library deals through TAXI (or otherwise), or even traditional publishing deals, especially exclusive deals, there can (or will, in the latter case) be a conflict). An exclusive sync library will want the exclusive rights to both the publishing side of the song and the entire recording, so, if you've got those rights tied up elsewhere, there would be an issue. For a non-exclusive deal, there might not be an issue, and this would get into alternate titles for the same song and recording to allow different parties to collect in different areas, but it could still complicate things. For example, I strongly suspect YouTube ContentID couldn't tell between "My Song" and "My Song-Sync Version" if the recording is the same, so, if you've given CD Baby permission to collect from YouTube on your recording, the sync library using the retitled version would probably run into copyright notices on any uses of that retitled version.

In general, if you are writing instrumental cues and such as per what I'm calling the "TAXI model", I don't see much reason to establish any of these channels for those cues because they probably aren't the sort of thing you'd put out there on your own for radio, Spotify, etc. On the other hand, if you are a singer-songwriter who's out there performing your original material, putting your recordings out there for streaming, etc., unless you do have music library relationships, you probably do want these organizations collecting for you. Should a song that you've got out there ever generate interest from a library you consider worth signing it to, you can always take it out of other agreements you had prior to that, and sign the relevant rights over to the library. Note, though, that some may have a minimum period before they'll let you do that. For example, if I'm remembering correctly (and I may not be), I think CD Baby's YouTube monetization agreement may specify a minimum of a year before you can get out of their agreement (which is exclusive, as it really needs to be due to ContentID).

My own general practice in this area is that, when I write a song (and I do VERY few instrumentals of any sort) for a TAXI listing, I pitch it to that listing and don't tie it up with any agreements except my PRO (ASCAP) because I do want to get paid for performing it live. If I get a forward, I'll give it some grace period, maybe a few months, before I do something else with it, just in case something comes of it. But if it is rejected, or enough time passes that I doubt anything will come of the forward, I put it out there as I would normally do (possibly after having taken into account any feedback from the screener). I also count on being able to take songs out of the applicable channels if something more worthwhile comes up in the future (especially traditional song publishing opportunities that might have the potential of getting big cuts, where they'd only be using my recording as a demo, if even that).

To date I haven't had to "worry" about changing any registrations in the direction of a library, I have gone in the other direction, for example switching the recordings CD Baby was collecting for me from SoundExchange to being directly on my SoundExchange copyright owner account (I already had to have them representing the artist side for me since CD Baby never collected that part). It was a relatively simple matter, and I think took less than a week of elapsed time.

I do actually have some of my songs in a non-exclusive library oriented at sync, but the only placements they've gotten for me to date are for in-store music services. In general, I am very cautious about considering agreements, and whether there may be conflicts with other agreements. For example, I don't let the sync-oriented library I use do anything that would allow the songs to be used on YouTube since CD Baby is collecting for me there. I also consider the terms in any TAXI listings before I decide whether it is something I would pitch (or could pitch if it is an existing song that would be applicable). For the most part, I tend to write/record to listings, rather than attempting to pitch existing songs. The main exception is with traditional song publisher pitches in cases where one of my existing songs might be a fit and the terms of the listing don't prohibit already-released songs.

Anyway, I hope this helps in some way. This stuff can be complex, but it's useful to try and get a handle on, especially if you're going to put your music out into the world, one way or another, not depending on someone else to do it for you, even if you might be hoping you will get some help in that area at some point. I have had some publishing deals in the past, but they never ended up netting any activity, and I had reversion clauses. I got cuts of a few of those songs by other artists, and I have, of course, put most of them out on my own by this point. I have this thing against songs sitting on a shelf, be it mine or someone else's.

[gpgallian]

Thank you, RPaul, for your extensive and exhaustive answer: I actually printed it to have it at hand for reference, also.
It was one of the most complete answers I could get, and I wasn't hoping for anything like that. Therefore, thank you from the bottom of the heart for taking your time through!
Once again, if you needed drums, I can be at your disposal.
Blessings and greetings from Italy!

[Casey H]

Great explanation, Rick (RPaul). It's a confusing mess. And there's also Content ID such as use on YouTube, etc! It's important to have only ONE company handling your content ID for a track. If you give permission to multiple libraries to handle Content ID, there will be conflicts. If you sign with an exclusive library, theoretically as your publisher, they should handle it, though I'm not sure all do. You'd have to ask the library.

As Rick said, if you write mainly instrumental cues for Film/TV, there really isn't much or anything to collect and it's not worth all the admin effort. The exception there could be Content ID but just be careful not to create conflicts.

If you are an artist releasing songs for CDs and downloads, there are a few bucks to collect, but if you don't have a large volume of songs out there, it may not be much.

I welcome corrections/additions here.

Best,
Casey

[RPaul]

One correction:

Terrestrial radio does not pay royalties for use of recordings in the USA

I think you meant non-terrestrial such as satellite, etc. PRO does cover old fashioned radio broadcasts (AM, FM). However, unless the volume of use is large, you won't see any money. ASCAP pays by survey and a small number of plays on other than the big network radio stations won't get picked up. I'm not sure how BMI does it, but my guess is you also wouldn't see any money for smaller stuff.

No, I actually meant what I said. Terrestrial radio (i.e. the radio stations that have been around for a very long time, such as KIIS in LA) do not pay royalties for use of recordings (emphasis added). They do pay for use of songs. Satellite radio, and other forms of digital radio, do actually pay for the use of recordings, too, and that is where SoundExchange comes in for USA-based collections. The difference I was highlighting is that the recordings also earn royalties in most other countries when played on terrestrial radio, though US musicians may not be able to collect due to "material reciprocity" (which, as I understand it, means, because US radio doesn't pay European musicians when their songs play here, European radio doesn't pay US musicians when their musicians are played there). Here's a Billboard article that gives some info on that front:

https://www.billboard.com/business/radi ... 235513985/

(I actually learned from this article, that the distinction here isn't just terrestrial radio, but also recordings played in business establishments. Our songwriting PROs, of course, collect royalties on both, albeit with some carve outs from relatively, as in the last few decades, laws relating to physical business size and various other parameters.)

I do think the PROs may be starting to get more comprehensive on how they pick up radio plays as technology advances, but it is still a "follow the money" scenario, where the more money a station pays, the more likely it is to get complete coverage on song use. A really big station might have 100% tracking of song use, where a small community station may only have a short survey from a few days' period a few times a year. In some cases in the past, I've known about reasonably extensive plays of my songs on some small stations, and in one case back in the late 90s even a not-so-small station but it was a Christmas song, so was only playing for a few weeks, and not once have I received any terrestrial radio play royalties from ASCAP. The same was true of European radio play (which gets paid from the European PROs through ASCAP for me) on small community-based stations.

[Casey H]

Thanks for addressing that, Rick. I was still thinking PRO when I wrote it. I will edit my post.

Good job helping us all!

Casey