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Hello all,

So I just read the article "5 Things You Should Know About Music Supervisors" in the TAXI Transmitter and have a question-

I see that when you are doing a direct-to-supervisor pitch, you have to give them a publishing company name for the cue sheet so you can collect the publisher's share as well. How do you go about creating a personal publishing company for these scenarios, or how do you properly handle it?

Thank you!

Not sure how it works with ASCAP, but with BMI you can simply use your name as the publisher. It will show up as " EXCESS WRITER CLEARANCE" on your registration. Of course you can also set up as a corporation and have that be your publishing company.

guscave wrote:Not sure how it works with ASCAP, but with BMI you can simply use your name as the publisher. It will show up as " EXCESS WRITER CLEARANCE" on your registration. Of course you can also set up as a corporation and have that be your publishing company.

yes - I agree....with the following caveats:

using excess writers clearance through BMI (if that is your pro) works. You choose 200% of writers share.

where it is a little complicated is where you might have co-written the piece and co-published it with a writer from another pro (say ASCAP). Then it may show up was publishers share unaccounted for.

yes the next step is to set up a publishing company through BMI.

The cheapest of which is to do it as a sole proprietorship (if that is how you run your music business to begin with) and that is $150.

LLC et. al are more expensive.

YMMV but I set up my own publisher and easily recouped the money x 10 off of one ad placement where I owned both sides to the piece.

a personal decision which way to go.

Thank you both for the feedback! I am indeed with BMI. Currently I'm not doing any co-writing or collaborating, so for the time being I think I'll just claim the 200% and use the excess writer clearance.

Just a note that if you are with ASCAP, you can't collect publisher's share without creating a publishing company (unlike BMI).

Best of luck!
Casey

For Canadian writers: if there is no publisher specified, then the total monies automatically go to the writer. No need to setup a publishing company with SOCAN unless you want or need to for other reasons.

Doug s.