Publishing administrators (Songtrust, etc.)

[gpgallian]

Hello, there!
Hope you're doing fine.
My question is about publishing administrators, and their role once a publishing deal has been sealed through an accepted submission on taxi.
Very often I read something like 50/50 publishing deal, and I know what it means.
The thing is that I wonder if having my publishing administrator administering the rights for that piece would still be useful at that point, or if it would be more convenient to me to just keep my 50, without dividing it with Songtrust, which I work with. In this instance,I don't know the difference.
Thank you so much for any suggestion on the topic, which I think could picture some more people than just myself.

Gianpaolo

[Casey H]

Absolutely DO NOT give anyone such as SongTrust, CD Baby, TuneCore, etc. publishing administration. If you do this, music libraries will not sign your tracks as they have to have complete ownership of their 50%, unencumbered.

[gpgallian]

Thank you so much, Casey!
I've just sent an important e-mail to Songtrust asking them to opt out for the two pieces I'm going to submit.
I hope this gets the message across.
If you have further suggestions, feel free, as you can see, I'm a newbie.

Thank you so much,

Gianpaolo

[gpgallian]

Absolutely DO NOT give anyone such as SongTrust, CD Baby, TuneCore, etc. publishing administration. If you do this, music libraries will not sign your tracks as they have to have complete ownership of their 50%, unencumbered.

Dear Casey, do you mean that, even if I have CD Baby as my distributor, I do need to opt-out of the whole service because they will inherently act as my publishing administrators? Or the publishing administration is a service I can opt-out independently, without sacrificing their (or anybody else's) distribution service?

Thank you so much in advance,

Gianpaolo

[Casey H]

Absolutely DO NOT give anyone such as SongTrust, CD Baby, TuneCore, etc. publishing administration. If you do this, music libraries will not sign your tracks as they have to have complete ownership of their 50%, unencumbered.

Dear Casey, do you mean that, even if I have CD Baby as my distributor, I do need to opt-out of the whole service because they will inherently act as my publishing administrators? Or the publishing administration is a service I can opt-out independently, without sacrificing their (or anybody else's) distribution service?

Thank you so much in advance,

Gianpaolo

You can stay with companies like CD Baby for distribution but need to opt out ONLY as far as them administering publishing. (No, don't need to opt out of the whole service). I don't think it's optional with SongTrust, you either are with them or not for a track (not 100% sure). Whenever you set up a distribution deal, make sure you don't check any boxes that give publishing admin.

I just had an experience where a co-writer removed a song from SongTrust. There was no problem removing it but they left a PRO registration with them on it and we had to go back and ask them to remove that as well. They seem cooperative.

Casey

[gpgallian]

Thank you so much, Casey: you're so kind!
If you need a drummer for a collab, you can count on me.
I hope I don't need to opt-out of SoundExchange either...

[cosmicdolphin]

If you have further suggestions, feel free, as you can see, I'm a newbie.

My other suggestion is leave all your old songs behind and write new songs for the Listings. This is the best path to success and you will see it mentioned over and over again in theese forums.

Music for Sync is often not the same as music you might make for yourself or your fans and submitting those types of tracks often leads to frustration.

Mark

[gpgallian]

You can stay with companies like CD Baby for distribution but need to opt out ONLY as far as them administering publishing. (No, don't need to opt out of the whole service). I don't think it's optional with SongTrust, you either are with them or not for a track (not 100% sure). Whenever you set up a distribution deal, make sure you don't check any boxes that give publishing admin.

Dear Casey,
if CD Baby collects my money instead of my PRO (as it seems to be in my case, since I see no money from my albums from BMI), does it mean there is a publishing administration deal going on?

Of course, I just sent them an e-mail with the same question...

Thank you so much in advance,

Gianpaolo

[Casey H]

PROs (ASCAP, BMI, etc.) only collect performance royalties which apply to when your music is played on radio, TV, etc. (e.g. broadcast). (*)
Distributors like CD Baby collect mechanical royalties which apply to downloads and CD sales. So you could sell thousands of CDs and/or downloads and it would be normal not to see anything from your PRO.

I recommend you do a little Google/research on the various streams of music royalties.

Casey

(*) Applies to any public performance including gigs and concerts as well but unlikely we would have enough volume there to be detected.

[gpgallian]

I recommend you do a little Google/research on the various streams of music royalties.

Thank you, Casey,
I've done a little bit of research, and in the meantime, managed to opt-out of Songtrust definitely, with a letter of relinquishment that could be helpful with a future publisher.

I now wonder: could the MLC be an option, or would it be in the way of future publishing agreements? If so, should it be something I should stay away from as a music creator?

Thank you so much, there's a lot of information out there, and some confusion in here.