Also switching from ASCAP to BMI
Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 9:13 am
Following in my homie Marcus Cohen's footsteps on this one, as well as Desire Inspires, who both prompted me into finally making the jump.
I've submitted my resignation to ASCAP, and effective July 1 I will be moving to BMI. I'll leave my existing catalog with ASCAP, but all new works will be registered with BMI as of July 1. I've done this for two reasons, most of which has already been covered in Marcus' similar post, but maybe this will shed some additional insight for anyone thinking of switching, or who hasn't yet decided upon a PRO:
1) BMI pays about 2.5x what ASCAP pays for vocal placements. Around 5(ish) years ago, ASCAP nixed their "vocal" payment tier, and began paying vocal placements on the same pay scale as instrumental placements. Not a big deal if you rarely write vocal songs. But if you write a goodly amount of vocal songs, you're gonna get shafted by ASCAP.
ESPECIALLY if - like me - you need a vocalist to collaborate with. In that case, you're most likely splitting the royalties 50/50. Which means you'll get half the amount of money that you'd get by landing an instrumental placement on a cue you wrote yourself.
So, it's like this...... vocal songs take me about 4-5x the amount of time to create as an instrumental cue. Then they make me half as much money. WTF?!?!?! Why would I ever want to continue making vocal songs, when this is the payment model? That's just horrible business. And I love making vocal songs and working with my friends. But where's the motivation when remaining with ASCAP?
2) BMI also pays more from instrumental placements. I verified this by analyzing a track that Terrell Burt and I co-wrote about 5 years ago, which landed an instrumental placement on "Love & Hip Hop" about 3 years ago. Plenty of time has passed on that placement now to assume that most of the money has already come in on it. Terrell was kind enough to send me his BMI statements and we compared.
I've made lifetime earnings of $72 on that one instrumental placement through ASCAP. Terrell has made $89 through BMI. One the same freakin' placement. Now, that might not seem like much, heck it's only seventeen dollars. But that equates to a 23% difference in payouts. Extrapolate that over an annual royalty stream of $50-$100K, and we're talking a HUGE amount of money.
Yes, I realize I'm making a big leap in assuming this one single placement represents the entirety of the ASCAP vs. BMI instrumental pay scales. But it's such an apples-to-apples comparison, that it would be folly to think it doesn't speak for the lion's share.
Finally, to really make sure I was making the right decision, I spoke to four publishers about this. Two of them were adamant that I switch to BMI as soon as possible, saying that BMI pays better across the board (which will, in turn, make the publisher more money too); one was pretty convinced BMI was the better choice, but wasn't willing to go all-in on that assumption; and only one publisher recommended staying with ASCAP (but has since emailed me saying he's found a ton of mistakes in his latest ASCAP statement).
Having done my due-diligence, I decided to make the switch. And now I've done my due-diligence in sharing this with you all in attempts to pay it forward!
~~Matt
I've submitted my resignation to ASCAP, and effective July 1 I will be moving to BMI. I'll leave my existing catalog with ASCAP, but all new works will be registered with BMI as of July 1. I've done this for two reasons, most of which has already been covered in Marcus' similar post, but maybe this will shed some additional insight for anyone thinking of switching, or who hasn't yet decided upon a PRO:
1) BMI pays about 2.5x what ASCAP pays for vocal placements. Around 5(ish) years ago, ASCAP nixed their "vocal" payment tier, and began paying vocal placements on the same pay scale as instrumental placements. Not a big deal if you rarely write vocal songs. But if you write a goodly amount of vocal songs, you're gonna get shafted by ASCAP.
ESPECIALLY if - like me - you need a vocalist to collaborate with. In that case, you're most likely splitting the royalties 50/50. Which means you'll get half the amount of money that you'd get by landing an instrumental placement on a cue you wrote yourself.
So, it's like this...... vocal songs take me about 4-5x the amount of time to create as an instrumental cue. Then they make me half as much money. WTF?!?!?! Why would I ever want to continue making vocal songs, when this is the payment model? That's just horrible business. And I love making vocal songs and working with my friends. But where's the motivation when remaining with ASCAP?
2) BMI also pays more from instrumental placements. I verified this by analyzing a track that Terrell Burt and I co-wrote about 5 years ago, which landed an instrumental placement on "Love & Hip Hop" about 3 years ago. Plenty of time has passed on that placement now to assume that most of the money has already come in on it. Terrell was kind enough to send me his BMI statements and we compared.
I've made lifetime earnings of $72 on that one instrumental placement through ASCAP. Terrell has made $89 through BMI. One the same freakin' placement. Now, that might not seem like much, heck it's only seventeen dollars. But that equates to a 23% difference in payouts. Extrapolate that over an annual royalty stream of $50-$100K, and we're talking a HUGE amount of money.
Yes, I realize I'm making a big leap in assuming this one single placement represents the entirety of the ASCAP vs. BMI instrumental pay scales. But it's such an apples-to-apples comparison, that it would be folly to think it doesn't speak for the lion's share.
Finally, to really make sure I was making the right decision, I spoke to four publishers about this. Two of them were adamant that I switch to BMI as soon as possible, saying that BMI pays better across the board (which will, in turn, make the publisher more money too); one was pretty convinced BMI was the better choice, but wasn't willing to go all-in on that assumption; and only one publisher recommended staying with ASCAP (but has since emailed me saying he's found a ton of mistakes in his latest ASCAP statement).
Having done my due-diligence, I decided to make the switch. And now I've done my due-diligence in sharing this with you all in attempts to pay it forward!
~~Matt