January 8, 2024 • 31 mins
Host, Sarah Harralson, shares her expertise of music royalties. Follow her and reach out to her about music royalty consultations and services below:
https://www.sarahharralson.com
https://www.instagram.com/sarahharralson
https://www.facebook.com/sarahharralsonmusic
https://www.instagram.com/indieroyalties
Email: info@sarahharralson.com
https://www.sarahharralson.com
https://www.instagram.com/sarahharralson
https://www.facebook.com/sarahharralsonmusic
https://www.instagram.com/indieroyalties
Email: info@sarahharralson.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Hi. My name is Sarah Harrelson, and you are listening to the Mind
Your Music Business podcast. I wantto thank everyone who's been tuning in to
season one. I never thought Iwould start a podcast, but I thought
it was interesting and needed to havea podcast that has different interviews showcasing different
(00:30):
people in the music industry, justto show each different facet that lies in
the music business and just different peoplein different ways. To find your role
and your path in the music industryif you are a creative or professional in
(00:51):
music. And today I want totalk about something that's more of my expertise
and something that I'm very passionate aboutout and that is music royalty collection.
So besides doing my own music andbeing a singer, songwriter and artist,
I also have a background in musicbusiness and royalties. So I went to
(01:15):
Beaumont for music business and then afterwardsI have been working in the music industry.
So I worked at BMI and musiclicensing for a year and I have
also worked an artist royalties for arecord label. So that's where my expertise
lies with music royalties. And somepeople know, at least for independent musicians,
(01:45):
they know about certain parts of musicroyalties and how to collect them.
But more often than not, andthis episode is definitely more geared towards independent
musicians, songwriters and artists because moreoften than not, I am finding that
(02:06):
these indie musicians are not collecting allof the music royalties that they are owed.
And so I'm going to dive inin this episode. I'm going to
dive into each different facet of musicroyalties, the different types. So some
of it you already might know,but some of it you may be surprised
(02:30):
to learn something because it can getquite complicated with royalties now that we are
in a streaming and digital world.So before I jump into this conversation,
I want to mention that if youneed help with music royalty collection, Let's
(02:52):
say you're someone who's maybe a littlebit newer to music, or you're just
strictly on the creative side, youdon't really know much about the business side.
I do royalty consultations. If youwant to reach out to me.
If you have music that is released, or your own music that's released,
(03:12):
or music you have written that's beenreleased by other artists, please reach out
to me. We can set upa consultation to talk about it. And
then there's other people who they justdon't have time for it. Maybe they're
busy with other projects or they're outon the road touring and they just don't
have time to register their whole catalogto collect their royalties. Reach out to
(03:36):
me too. I also have registrationservices for musicians, So if you have
any questions about royalty collection, justreach out to me. Or if you
have other writer friends co writers thatmight need help, let me know.
And then besides that, if youwant to be in season two, if
(04:00):
you know anyone or you are aperson that works in the music industry that
think you could be a good fitfor season two of the podcast, please
reach out to me too. I'llhave my email and website in the liner
notes, all right, So let'sdive in. When it comes to collecting
music royalties, there are so manymoving parts, as I mentioned, and
(04:25):
unfortunately, each different type of royaltyisn't streamlined, so you can't collect each
royalty type in one place. Andmaybe that'll be something in the future that
can be worked out, but it'sdefinitely hard when there's so many different laws
in each country when it comes tomusic royalty collection. So having the knowledge
(04:49):
of where to go to collect allthat you are owed as a songwriter and
artist. It's important to know itreally is. I know some artist and
songwriters say, well, if I'monly gonna collect pennies because of streaming,
then what's the point of even collectingmy mechanicals. It's still important because it
(05:11):
adds up if you have a bigcatalog and at the end of the day
you want to collect all that youare owed instead of nothing. So it's
important. It's also important in alegal aspect if an artist cuts your song,
to have everything properly registered and collecton your behalf. And you never
(05:31):
know what's going to become of asong as well, especially if you're pitching
to sync for film or TV,you want to make sure your song is
registered. Okay. So I findthat many independent songwriters and artists they know
how to collect performance royalties and artistsroyalties, but they're usually unsure about the
(05:56):
other types. And then a lotof them have a lot of independent songwriters
and artists have black box royalties,which means the money that is o to
them is currently sitting in this placecalled black box, and it can even
be up to ten years old.But they do at some point expire after
(06:20):
two to three years of being unclaimed. Usually your royalties are paid out to
major publishers and companies and they don'tneed the extra money. So definitely collect
your own money. I think everypenny counts, honestly, So let's start
(06:40):
talking about performance royalties, which Imentioned most writers and artists I already know
about this type of royalty, butthis, and this includes money that is
o to songwriters and publishers from broadcastslike terrestrial radio that when you turn on
the radio in your car, FMAM, and live performances. So, as
(07:06):
I mentioned, if you're a songwriteror a publisher or you're self published,
you're going to collect performance royalties.Unfortunately, artists are not currently paid in
the United States for terrestrial radio airplay, so songwriters can collect for songs that
(07:31):
are played on radio stations, butnot artists. And this is so astounding
to me and so backwards because theonly other countries that do not pay artists
for radio airplay are I ran inNorth Korea, so I hope this can
change one day. And obviously radioairplays and as popular, it's mostly popular
(07:57):
with country music, but you knoweveryone and mostly does streaming now and XM
radio. So if you're an independentsongwriter who is not signed to a publishing
company, so you own your publishingand you publish your songs yourself, you're
able to collect your publishing share too. Now you're going to collect these performance
(08:20):
royalties through a p r O,a performance rights organization. If you're in
the United States, this will beBMI, as CAP or CSAC. I
recommend if you're signing if you're startingout, to sign up with BMI or
as CAP. And if you're nota US citizen, you can find the
(08:41):
PR that's affiliated with your nationality justthrough a Google search. The reason every
country has their own PR is dueto different rights and tax laws. So
I always register my music on myBMI dashboard so I can get paid,
(09:03):
and then I also set up anLLC so I can collect my music publishing
too. Always remember what you're alwaysknow what your songwriting and publishing splits are
for your catalog, especially if you'rewriting with different co writers, it's important
to have split sheets, especially ifyou're pitching for SYNC. So another thing
(09:28):
is song View is a helpful toolto find information for other songwriters and publishers
and to see if your co writershave already registered a song for you on
your behalf, so you don't haveto duplicate a registration. And then once
your catalog is registered with your PIRO, you can begin submitting your live performances
(09:50):
and get paid for that, whichis also even if you're doing just write
arounds like in Nashville or non paidgigs, you can register your live performances
at the venue you played them atand get a little extra gas money,
which is always nice too. SoI will submit any of my own songs
that I have performed, and youcan submit performances for any artists that play
(10:16):
out songs you have written together too. And then so while we are on
the topic of performance royalties, Ido want to mention a little thing about
international royalties. So I wrote asong with an artist who is from Sweden,
and I am able to collect radioand audio visual performance royalties for that
(10:41):
song. So I see those onmy perform performance royalty statement from BMI,
so you'll that's where you'll see iton your dashboard. So that's pretty simple
for performance royalties. And the otherroyalty type that I mentioned that it's pretty
simple to collect that most people knowabout is artists royalties. So if you're
(11:05):
a recording artist who has released yourmusic on a streaming platform such as Spotify
and Apple Music, you are mostlikely already collecting this type of royalties.
So if you're set if you're setup with a distributor like Dito Music or
distro Kid or Tunecore or CD Baby, then you've already released your music,
(11:30):
so there should already be a royaltysection to collect on that one. So
let's move on to some of theroyalty types that are a little bit more
tricky. Okay, So the firstone of the trickier royalty types, as
I say one, is digital performanceroyalties. So digital performance royalties is not
(11:58):
to be confused with performance royalties likeI mentioned before. So with digital performance
royalties, featured artist and copyright holderscan collect this type of royalty. You
are a copyright holder of a songif you own any part of the sound
recording. In this case, soif you own the master and as an
(12:24):
artist, I typically own one hundredpercent of a sound recording, but it
could be different if you split productioncost with a co writer, or maybe
you have an alternative agreement with theproducer or publisher that states otherwise. So
through this royalty type you will getpaid for digital radio music services such as
(12:46):
Pandora or SiriusXM. Now you cancollect these digital performance royalties through sound Exchange
direct if you're a US citizen.Not a US citizen, you just need
to look up your applicable neighboring rightsorganization to collect these royalties. Now a
(13:07):
sound Exchange you must meet a tendollars threshold in one quarter to receive a
direct deposit payment and statement, andthat can be hard as an independent artist
and songwriter these days, just torack up ten dollars in this type of
royalty, just because all the streamsare pennies. But I think it's it's
(13:30):
still important to register your songs throughsound Exchange or whatever your rights organization is,
because the more songs you release thatare your own and the cuts you're
getting, it'll add up. Okay. So another point on this royalty type
(13:52):
is that I have recordings on soundExchange that are registered as a rights owner
and recordings that are registered as anartist. You can only register in one
of these categories, not both.So when I go to register a song
that has been released and in thisroyalty type it has to be a song
(14:16):
that's released, whereas performance royalties,maybe you haven't released the song, but
you played it out somewhere. That'skind of where the differences between these royalty
types. Okay, So let's sayI just released a song. I'm going
to register my song and sound Exchange, and then I will select the song
(14:37):
clean basis as copyright holder because Iown a percentage of the sound recording,
and then I select the authorized designee. If I'm a featured artist, so
some of my recordings, most ofmy recordings, I am the artist and
the copyright holder, so I'm alwaysgoing to register the song as a copyright
(15:01):
holder if I own some of thatcopyright, and the countries of the release
will always be marked as worldwide.But when I'm a featured artist, so
someone hired me on a song tosing on a song, and I'm the
featured artist on Apple Music, butI'm not the main artist and I don't
(15:24):
own any rights to the song.I didn't write the song, so I
can still collect featured artists royalties throughSound Exchange, which which is cool.
So I'm going to register the songas an artist in this case, and
then to another point, a lotof this on this podcast episode. It's
(15:46):
a lot of information. You know, it's not really a casual conversation when
you're talking about all these different typesof royalties, and it can be a
headache and a lot of information.So if you you are a visual learner,
I know I am everything I'm talkingabout right now. I put into
a whole video royalty course with aslide show and visuals, which is so
(16:11):
much more helpful than just listening inmy opinion. So please email me and
reach out to me if you wantaccess to my royalty course and then mention
you heard about the royalty course throughmy podcast episode and I will give you
twenty percent off of the course.Okay, So next type of royalty we
(16:36):
are going to talk about is mechanicalroyalties. So if you're a songwriter and
a publisher, self published, youcan collect digital revenue from your released songs
and then so you can collect yourmechanicals from a few different places. If
you are a self administered songwriter whois not currently signed to a publishing company.
(17:02):
If you're signed to a publishing company, they are already collecting your mechanicals
for you. So the first optionif you're a US Citizen is the mechanical
licensing collective the MLC. At theminimum, I recommend you to sign up
for them if you're not collecting mechanicals. My only issue. If you're only
(17:29):
collecting your mechanicals with the MLC,you're only getting your United States your domestic
revenue. And for me, thisis an issue because I what if I
want to be collect my international revenueas well. And for independent songwriters and
(17:52):
artists, there's just not a wholelot of options out there to be able
to collect your worldwide digital revenue andyour mechanicals as a songwriter. And so
who I'm with right now is songTrust. I know they have a one
(18:14):
time setup fee of one hundred dollarsif it's still the same, and they
take a fifteen percent commission from thepublishing share of my mechanicals. But what
I do like about song Trust isthat they're not just collecting my domestic digital
revenue. They're also collecting my internationaldigital revenue these mechanicals for the songs I
(18:41):
have written. And since I'm withsong Trust, I don't need to be
a part of MLC. MLC isfree to sign up for and they don't
take a piece of the pie,but once again, they only collect us
digital revenue. So I've joyed beinga part of song Trust, but there
(19:02):
has been a lot of negative thingsgoing on about them, and what I
mean by that is people are claimingthat they are not collecting all of the
money they are owned. So Idid some digging in my own statement and
I have international royalties from the UKand Canada, but there's a lot of
(19:26):
countries in Europe that are missing formy statements. And I know, I
like, I've had streams and downloadsfrom all these European countries, and if
you're an artist who has music onSpotify, or or if you're a songwriter
(19:47):
you know who has cuts or songsyourself on Spotify, Apple Music, you
most likely have streams and multiple countries. Now. I reached out to song
Trust to inquire about why am Inot seeing all of these international countries on
my statement, and they just kindof gave me the go around, which
(20:08):
is why I think they're getting somebad reviews and negativity. And I think
the issue with that is a lotof the people that are using song trusts
to collect their mechanicals don't fully understandroyalty collection, which is why I wanted
to do some digging into this myself. And so what I think is that
(20:33):
there's a lot of discrepancies right nowwith international royalty collection, and it's not
just for mechanicals. For instance,I had a song that was placed in
a show in Norway and I onlygot a few bucks for it on my
statement for BMI for that audio visualperformance. And I try to reach out
(20:59):
and figure out why I was nevernotified that my song was used in this
European show and why it was onlya few dollars, And according to their
laws in that country, they aren'trequired to send a notice or send out
a deal saying this is how muchwe're negotiating to pay you. It's so
(21:21):
different from if you're trying to getyour song placed in the United States show,
where they do require that kind ofnotice. So it's important to know
that each country has their own musiclaws when it comes to this. So
I think a lot of these neighboringrights music organizations in each country are maybe
(21:45):
confused or blurred the lines a littlebit. Now that we are in a
streaming digital era where there's just there'sjust so much data to sift through that
it gets lost. I think that'snumber one the problem. But two it
makes me wonder, well, ifthere's so much data for them to report
(22:07):
on, maybe they're thinking some ofthese countries are thinking they can just slip
through the cracks when they're reporting,or the other option is that there has
to be a minimum threshold for howmany streams or downloads you have in this
country before they will report it toyour collection company. So I'm thinking,
(22:33):
Okay, well, i have allthese streams in Bulgaria, but it's not
being reported to song Druss because eitherit's the data hasn't been processed yet,
or it's just being slipped through thecracks for all this data, or there's
a minimum threshold. So there's justtoo many questions I think right now with
(22:55):
international royalties to be able to figureout what's going on, and it's definitely
an ongoing investigation. And then Ithink the other issue is that independent songwriters
and artists just they don't have alot to choose from, or let me
say, let me say this,independent songwriters don't have a lot of options
(23:21):
to choose from when they're trying tocollect their mechanicals because if you're signed to
a publishing company or a music admincompany. They are collecting all of your
international mechanicals for you, your digitalrevenue, and you know they're doing the
investigation with these international music rights organizations. But you know, if you if
(23:48):
you don't have the amount of streamsor revenue that's required to be signed with
a music admin company, you knowyour options are pretty much song Trusted.
And I'll see. I know tuonCore offers publishing collective services, and there's
a couple other ones, but theyall kind of have bad reviews. And
(24:10):
I think it's one because they takea piece of the pie and just two
because they're not collecting everything. AndI think that's where the issue lies,
is that there's just too much investigationto be done to worry about, you
know, being with a not asgood collection society show. I just say,
take what you can right now.Sign up with song Trust, sign
(24:32):
up with tuon Core, whomever,to at least begin collecting these royalties while
a lot of these international countries arebeing investigated for digital revenue. And then
again, if you need help registeringyour songs to collect with one of these
(24:52):
societies, please reach out to me. But I will say the other thing
I like about song Trust is thatyou can collect your YouTube mechanicals through them.
If you're eligible for YouTube monetization,maybe you have one thousand subscribers on
your YouTube channel and four thousand hoursof watch time in the past year,
you can collect on those. Andthen if you don't collect with song Trust,
(25:17):
YouTube also has a partner program andyou can collect your YouTube royalties with
them. And then finally, Imentioned a little bit about sink income,
so I'm going to hit on that, which is the last royalty type we're
going to talk about today in thisepisode. So this income is generated when
(25:38):
your song is placed in film,TV or an audio visual form of some
sort a commercial. If you're signedto a label or publisher, there's usually
a clause in your contract that stateshow much you should collect for sink income
on a song versus the label publishedproducer. And if you're an independent songwriter
(26:03):
and also own the master of therecording, you're going to collect the income
and split it with any applicable cowriters and their publishers. So, as
I mentioned before, if you havea catalog and want to start pitching for
sync placements with your demos, doesn'thave to be released music it's important to
(26:26):
have your songs registered with your performingrights organization and mechanical collection company. At
the least a lot of music supervisorswill want this so they can check the
songs registration before drafting an agreement forSINK usage. So having full metadata on
hand for your songs is very importantwhen you're pitching music to be used in
(26:48):
film and TV. I also providea SYNC metadata consulting course with my personalized
sync metadata breadsheet, so if you'reinterested, contact me again so I can
help you with this. I've doneSINC pitching for other independent writers too.
(27:11):
And then Disco is a great platformthat's important to utilize when pitching music to
SINK supervisors too, just great metadatatagging for moods and genres to sort through
your catalog. And then SYNC isa little bit different because it's instead of
(27:32):
collecting like every few months, onceyour song is like it's all, you
have your agreement, it's going tobe used in a show. You get
that you get a one time feeinstead of instead of keep collecting. So
uh, you'll sign the agreement,then you'll be issue to check or electronic
payment, and then uh, there'sthis thing called a one stop shop with
(27:57):
sync usage. So usually if you'reindependent on your own publishing and everything,
they'll just give you a lump sumand then it's your responsibility to pay out
your co writers and applicable publishers ofthe song on your own. But you
can also collect residuals from a sinkplacement. So if your songs used in
(28:18):
a cable TV show that it keepsbeing re aired, you can receive this
residual income through your proro or mechanicalcollection company. So for instance, that
song I had in the Norwegian showthat was on streaming, and then I
had a song that was placed ona Hulu show also streaming. So you
(28:41):
usually don't see residuals unless it's onlike a cable network TV, like you're
watching Friends on Comedy Central. That'susually when you'll see residuals. So this
was my whole overview on royalties.It's a lot of information, but I
hope maybe some parts of it willhelp independent songwriters and artists. It's definitely
(29:07):
my goal and mission to help morepeople understand music royalty so that they can
collect money that they are owed.It's so hard to make a living as
a songwriter and artist. Nowadays,So if people can collect just a little
bit more, I want I wantto help them. There's too many black
box royalties sitting out there for peopleto collect, and you know it's time
(29:32):
to get that paid out to peoplenow. If you still if you still
feel like extremely confused after listening toall this, I don't blame you.
Again. I have a visual courseif you're interested in taking that and watching
(29:52):
that so you can begin registering yourcatalog and collecting your own royalties. If
you're do it yourself kind person,or again, if you don't have time
to register your catalog, or youjust need additional royalty consulting and catalog management
for the future, just reach outto me. Contact me at info at
(30:17):
Sarah Harrelson dot com, or justfind me on my website Sarah Harrelson dot
com. My Instagram is at SarahHarrelson. Just DM me and then let's
talk about royalties and get your catalogregistered organized so you can start collecting.
So thank you again for listening listeningto this music royalty episode on the Mind
(30:42):
Your Music Business podcast. I hopeyou learned. I hope you learned something
from someone this season and next season. I can't wait to have more people
in the music industry to talk aboutjust even more fun stuff. It's alway,
it's always great, even when you'vebeen in this music industry for a
(31:03):
while, to keep learning from otherpeople and just learning about what other people
do. I think it's very humblingtoo, So again, thank you,
and do not hesitate to reach outand remember mind your music business.
Hi. My name is Sarah Harrelson, and you are listening to the Mind
Your Music Business podcast. I wantto thank everyone who's been tuning in to
season one. I never thought Iwould start a podcast, but I thought
it was interesting and needed to havea podcast that has different interviews showcasing different
(00:30):
people in the music industry, justto show each different facet that lies in
the music business and just different peoplein different ways. To find your role
and your path in the music industryif you are a creative or professional in
(00:51):
music. And today I want totalk about something that's more of my expertise
and something that I'm very passionate aboutout and that is music royalty collection.
So besides doing my own music andbeing a singer, songwriter and artist,
I also have a background in musicbusiness and royalties. So I went to
(01:15):
Beaumont for music business and then afterwardsI have been working in the music industry.
So I worked at BMI and musiclicensing for a year and I have
also worked an artist royalties for arecord label. So that's where my expertise
lies with music royalties. And somepeople know, at least for independent musicians,
(01:45):
they know about certain parts of musicroyalties and how to collect them.
But more often than not, andthis episode is definitely more geared towards independent
musicians, songwriters and artists because moreoften than not, I am finding that
(02:06):
these indie musicians are not collecting allof the music royalties that they are owed.
And so I'm going to dive inin this episode. I'm going to
dive into each different facet of musicroyalties, the different types. So some
of it you already might know,but some of it you may be surprised
(02:30):
to learn something because it can getquite complicated with royalties now that we are
in a streaming and digital world.So before I jump into this conversation,
I want to mention that if youneed help with music royalty collection, Let's
(02:52):
say you're someone who's maybe a littlebit newer to music, or you're just
strictly on the creative side, youdon't really know much about the business side.
I do royalty consultations. If youwant to reach out to me.
If you have music that is released, or your own music that's released,
(03:12):
or music you have written that's beenreleased by other artists, please reach out
to me. We can set upa consultation to talk about it. And
then there's other people who they justdon't have time for it. Maybe they're
busy with other projects or they're outon the road touring and they just don't
have time to register their whole catalogto collect their royalties. Reach out to
(03:36):
me too. I also have registrationservices for musicians, So if you have
any questions about royalty collection, justreach out to me. Or if you
have other writer friends co writers thatmight need help, let me know.
And then besides that, if youwant to be in season two, if
(04:00):
you know anyone or you are aperson that works in the music industry that
think you could be a good fitfor season two of the podcast, please
reach out to me too. I'llhave my email and website in the liner
notes, all right, So let'sdive in. When it comes to collecting
music royalties, there are so manymoving parts, as I mentioned, and
(04:25):
unfortunately, each different type of royaltyisn't streamlined, so you can't collect each
royalty type in one place. Andmaybe that'll be something in the future that
can be worked out, but it'sdefinitely hard when there's so many different laws
in each country when it comes tomusic royalty collection. So having the knowledge
(04:49):
of where to go to collect allthat you are owed as a songwriter and
artist. It's important to know itreally is. I know some artist and
songwriters say, well, if I'monly gonna collect pennies because of streaming,
then what's the point of even collectingmy mechanicals. It's still important because it
(05:11):
adds up if you have a bigcatalog and at the end of the day
you want to collect all that youare owed instead of nothing. So it's
important. It's also important in alegal aspect if an artist cuts your song,
to have everything properly registered and collecton your behalf. And you never
(05:31):
know what's going to become of asong as well, especially if you're pitching
to sync for film or TV,you want to make sure your song is
registered. Okay. So I findthat many independent songwriters and artists they know
how to collect performance royalties and artistsroyalties, but they're usually unsure about the
(05:56):
other types. And then a lotof them have a lot of independent songwriters
and artists have black box royalties,which means the money that is o to
them is currently sitting in this placecalled black box, and it can even
be up to ten years old.But they do at some point expire after
(06:20):
two to three years of being unclaimed. Usually your royalties are paid out to
major publishers and companies and they don'tneed the extra money. So definitely collect
your own money. I think everypenny counts, honestly, So let's start
(06:40):
talking about performance royalties, which Imentioned most writers and artists I already know
about this type of royalty, butthis, and this includes money that is
o to songwriters and publishers from broadcastslike terrestrial radio that when you turn on
the radio in your car, FMAM, and live performances. So, as
(07:06):
I mentioned, if you're a songwriteror a publisher or you're self published,
you're going to collect performance royalties.Unfortunately, artists are not currently paid in
the United States for terrestrial radio airplay, so songwriters can collect for songs that
(07:31):
are played on radio stations, butnot artists. And this is so astounding
to me and so backwards because theonly other countries that do not pay artists
for radio airplay are I ran inNorth Korea, so I hope this can
change one day. And obviously radioairplays and as popular, it's mostly popular
(07:57):
with country music, but you knoweveryone and mostly does streaming now and XM
radio. So if you're an independentsongwriter who is not signed to a publishing
company, so you own your publishingand you publish your songs yourself, you're
able to collect your publishing share too. Now you're going to collect these performance
(08:20):
royalties through a p r O,a performance rights organization. If you're in
the United States, this will beBMI, as CAP or CSAC. I
recommend if you're signing if you're startingout, to sign up with BMI or
as CAP. And if you're nota US citizen, you can find the
(08:41):
PR that's affiliated with your nationality justthrough a Google search. The reason every
country has their own PR is dueto different rights and tax laws. So
I always register my music on myBMI dashboard so I can get paid,
(09:03):
and then I also set up anLLC so I can collect my music publishing
too. Always remember what you're alwaysknow what your songwriting and publishing splits are
for your catalog, especially if you'rewriting with different co writers, it's important
to have split sheets, especially ifyou're pitching for SYNC. So another thing
(09:28):
is song View is a helpful toolto find information for other songwriters and publishers
and to see if your co writershave already registered a song for you on
your behalf, so you don't haveto duplicate a registration. And then once
your catalog is registered with your PIRO, you can begin submitting your live performances
(09:50):
and get paid for that, whichis also even if you're doing just write
arounds like in Nashville or non paidgigs, you can register your live performances
at the venue you played them atand get a little extra gas money,
which is always nice too. SoI will submit any of my own songs
that I have performed, and youcan submit performances for any artists that play
(10:16):
out songs you have written together too. And then so while we are on
the topic of performance royalties, Ido want to mention a little thing about
international royalties. So I wrote asong with an artist who is from Sweden,
and I am able to collect radioand audio visual performance royalties for that
(10:41):
song. So I see those onmy perform performance royalty statement from BMI,
so you'll that's where you'll see iton your dashboard. So that's pretty simple
for performance royalties. And the otherroyalty type that I mentioned that it's pretty
simple to collect that most people knowabout is artists royalties. So if you're
(11:05):
a recording artist who has released yourmusic on a streaming platform such as Spotify
and Apple Music, you are mostlikely already collecting this type of royalties.
So if you're set if you're setup with a distributor like Dito Music or
distro Kid or Tunecore or CD Baby, then you've already released your music,
(11:30):
so there should already be a royaltysection to collect on that one. So
let's move on to some of theroyalty types that are a little bit more
tricky. Okay, So the firstone of the trickier royalty types, as
I say one, is digital performanceroyalties. So digital performance royalties is not
(11:58):
to be confused with performance royalties likeI mentioned before. So with digital performance
royalties, featured artist and copyright holderscan collect this type of royalty. You
are a copyright holder of a songif you own any part of the sound
recording. In this case, soif you own the master and as an
(12:24):
artist, I typically own one hundredpercent of a sound recording, but it
could be different if you split productioncost with a co writer, or maybe
you have an alternative agreement with theproducer or publisher that states otherwise. So
through this royalty type you will getpaid for digital radio music services such as
(12:46):
Pandora or SiriusXM. Now you cancollect these digital performance royalties through sound Exchange
direct if you're a US citizen.Not a US citizen, you just need
to look up your applicable neighboring rightsorganization to collect these royalties. Now a
(13:07):
sound Exchange you must meet a tendollars threshold in one quarter to receive a
direct deposit payment and statement, andthat can be hard as an independent artist
and songwriter these days, just torack up ten dollars in this type of
royalty, just because all the streamsare pennies. But I think it's it's
(13:30):
still important to register your songs throughsound Exchange or whatever your rights organization is,
because the more songs you release thatare your own and the cuts you're
getting, it'll add up. Okay. So another point on this royalty type
(13:52):
is that I have recordings on soundExchange that are registered as a rights owner
and recordings that are registered as anartist. You can only register in one
of these categories, not both.So when I go to register a song
that has been released and in thisroyalty type it has to be a song
(14:16):
that's released, whereas performance royalties,maybe you haven't released the song, but
you played it out somewhere. That'skind of where the differences between these royalty
types. Okay, So let's sayI just released a song. I'm going
to register my song and sound Exchange, and then I will select the song
(14:37):
clean basis as copyright holder because Iown a percentage of the sound recording,
and then I select the authorized designee. If I'm a featured artist, so
some of my recordings, most ofmy recordings, I am the artist and
the copyright holder, so I'm alwaysgoing to register the song as a copyright
(15:01):
holder if I own some of thatcopyright, and the countries of the release
will always be marked as worldwide.But when I'm a featured artist, so
someone hired me on a song tosing on a song, and I'm the
featured artist on Apple Music, butI'm not the main artist and I don't
(15:24):
own any rights to the song.I didn't write the song, so I
can still collect featured artists royalties throughSound Exchange, which which is cool.
So I'm going to register the songas an artist in this case, and
then to another point, a lotof this on this podcast episode. It's
(15:46):
a lot of information. You know, it's not really a casual conversation when
you're talking about all these different typesof royalties, and it can be a
headache and a lot of information.So if you you are a visual learner,
I know I am everything I'm talkingabout right now. I put into
a whole video royalty course with aslide show and visuals, which is so
(16:11):
much more helpful than just listening inmy opinion. So please email me and
reach out to me if you wantaccess to my royalty course and then mention
you heard about the royalty course throughmy podcast episode and I will give you
twenty percent off of the course.Okay, So next type of royalty we
(16:36):
are going to talk about is mechanicalroyalties. So if you're a songwriter and
a publisher, self published, youcan collect digital revenue from your released songs
and then so you can collect yourmechanicals from a few different places. If
you are a self administered songwriter whois not currently signed to a publishing company.
(17:02):
If you're signed to a publishing company, they are already collecting your mechanicals
for you. So the first optionif you're a US Citizen is the mechanical
licensing collective the MLC. At theminimum, I recommend you to sign up
for them if you're not collecting mechanicals. My only issue. If you're only
(17:29):
collecting your mechanicals with the MLC,you're only getting your United States your domestic
revenue. And for me, thisis an issue because I what if I
want to be collect my international revenueas well. And for independent songwriters and
(17:52):
artists, there's just not a wholelot of options out there to be able
to collect your worldwide digital revenue andyour mechanicals as a songwriter. And so
who I'm with right now is songTrust. I know they have a one
(18:14):
time setup fee of one hundred dollarsif it's still the same, and they
take a fifteen percent commission from thepublishing share of my mechanicals. But what
I do like about song Trust isthat they're not just collecting my domestic digital
revenue. They're also collecting my internationaldigital revenue these mechanicals for the songs I
(18:41):
have written. And since I'm withsong Trust, I don't need to be
a part of MLC. MLC isfree to sign up for and they don't
take a piece of the pie,but once again, they only collect us
digital revenue. So I've joyed beinga part of song Trust, but there
(19:02):
has been a lot of negative thingsgoing on about them, and what I
mean by that is people are claimingthat they are not collecting all of the
money they are owned. So Idid some digging in my own statement and
I have international royalties from the UKand Canada, but there's a lot of
(19:26):
countries in Europe that are missing formy statements. And I know, I
like, I've had streams and downloadsfrom all these European countries, and if
you're an artist who has music onSpotify, or or if you're a songwriter
(19:47):
you know who has cuts or songsyourself on Spotify, Apple Music, you
most likely have streams and multiple countries. Now. I reached out to song
Trust to inquire about why am Inot seeing all of these international countries on
my statement, and they just kindof gave me the go around, which
(20:08):
is why I think they're getting somebad reviews and negativity. And I think
the issue with that is a lotof the people that are using song trusts
to collect their mechanicals don't fully understandroyalty collection, which is why I wanted
to do some digging into this myself. And so what I think is that
(20:33):
there's a lot of discrepancies right nowwith international royalty collection, and it's not
just for mechanicals. For instance,I had a song that was placed in
a show in Norway and I onlygot a few bucks for it on my
statement for BMI for that audio visualperformance. And I try to reach out
(20:59):
and figure out why I was nevernotified that my song was used in this
European show and why it was onlya few dollars, And according to their
laws in that country, they aren'trequired to send a notice or send out
a deal saying this is how muchwe're negotiating to pay you. It's so
(21:21):
different from if you're trying to getyour song placed in the United States show,
where they do require that kind ofnotice. So it's important to know
that each country has their own musiclaws when it comes to this. So
I think a lot of these neighboringrights music organizations in each country are maybe
(21:45):
confused or blurred the lines a littlebit. Now that we are in a
streaming digital era where there's just there'sjust so much data to sift through that
it gets lost. I think that'snumber one the problem. But two it
makes me wonder, well, ifthere's so much data for them to report
(22:07):
on, maybe they're thinking some ofthese countries are thinking they can just slip
through the cracks when they're reporting,or the other option is that there has
to be a minimum threshold for howmany streams or downloads you have in this
country before they will report it toyour collection company. So I'm thinking,
(22:33):
Okay, well, i have allthese streams in Bulgaria, but it's not
being reported to song Druss because eitherit's the data hasn't been processed yet,
or it's just being slipped through thecracks for all this data, or there's
a minimum threshold. So there's justtoo many questions I think right now with
(22:55):
international royalties to be able to figureout what's going on, and it's definitely
an ongoing investigation. And then Ithink the other issue is that independent songwriters
and artists just they don't have alot to choose from, or let me
say, let me say this,independent songwriters don't have a lot of options
(23:21):
to choose from when they're trying tocollect their mechanicals because if you're signed to
a publishing company or a music admincompany. They are collecting all of your
international mechanicals for you, your digitalrevenue, and you know they're doing the
investigation with these international music rights organizations. But you know, if you if
(23:48):
you don't have the amount of streamsor revenue that's required to be signed with
a music admin company, you knowyour options are pretty much song Trusted.
And I'll see. I know tuonCore offers publishing collective services, and there's
a couple other ones, but theyall kind of have bad reviews. And
(24:10):
I think it's one because they takea piece of the pie and just two
because they're not collecting everything. AndI think that's where the issue lies,
is that there's just too much investigationto be done to worry about, you
know, being with a not asgood collection society show. I just say,
take what you can right now.Sign up with song Trust, sign
(24:32):
up with tuon Core, whomever,to at least begin collecting these royalties while
a lot of these international countries arebeing investigated for digital revenue. And then
again, if you need help registeringyour songs to collect with one of these
(24:52):
societies, please reach out to me. But I will say the other thing
I like about song Trust is thatyou can collect your YouTube mechanicals through them.
If you're eligible for YouTube monetization,maybe you have one thousand subscribers on
your YouTube channel and four thousand hoursof watch time in the past year,
you can collect on those. Andthen if you don't collect with song Trust,
(25:17):
YouTube also has a partner program andyou can collect your YouTube royalties with
them. And then finally, Imentioned a little bit about sink income,
so I'm going to hit on that, which is the last royalty type we're
going to talk about today in thisepisode. So this income is generated when
(25:38):
your song is placed in film,TV or an audio visual form of some
sort a commercial. If you're signedto a label or publisher, there's usually
a clause in your contract that stateshow much you should collect for sink income
on a song versus the label publishedproducer. And if you're an independent songwriter
(26:03):
and also own the master of therecording, you're going to collect the income
and split it with any applicable cowriters and their publishers. So, as
I mentioned before, if you havea catalog and want to start pitching for
sync placements with your demos, doesn'thave to be released music it's important to
(26:26):
have your songs registered with your performingrights organization and mechanical collection company. At
the least a lot of music supervisorswill want this so they can check the
songs registration before drafting an agreement forSINK usage. So having full metadata on
hand for your songs is very importantwhen you're pitching music to be used in
(26:48):
film and TV. I also providea SYNC metadata consulting course with my personalized
sync metadata breadsheet, so if you'reinterested, contact me again so I can
help you with this. I've doneSINC pitching for other independent writers too.
(27:11):
And then Disco is a great platformthat's important to utilize when pitching music to
SINK supervisors too, just great metadatatagging for moods and genres to sort through
your catalog. And then SYNC isa little bit different because it's instead of
(27:32):
collecting like every few months, onceyour song is like it's all, you
have your agreement, it's going tobe used in a show. You get
that you get a one time feeinstead of instead of keep collecting. So
uh, you'll sign the agreement,then you'll be issue to check or electronic
payment, and then uh, there'sthis thing called a one stop shop with
(27:57):
sync usage. So usually if you'reindependent on your own publishing and everything,
they'll just give you a lump sumand then it's your responsibility to pay out
your co writers and applicable publishers ofthe song on your own. But you
can also collect residuals from a sinkplacement. So if your songs used in
(28:18):
a cable TV show that it keepsbeing re aired, you can receive this
residual income through your proro or mechanicalcollection company. So for instance, that
song I had in the Norwegian showthat was on streaming, and then I
had a song that was placed ona Hulu show also streaming. So you
(28:41):
usually don't see residuals unless it's onlike a cable network TV, like you're
watching Friends on Comedy Central. That'susually when you'll see residuals. So this
was my whole overview on royalties.It's a lot of information, but I
hope maybe some parts of it willhelp independent songwriters and artists. It's definitely
(29:07):
my goal and mission to help morepeople understand music royalty so that they can
collect money that they are owed.It's so hard to make a living as
a songwriter and artist. Nowadays,So if people can collect just a little
bit more, I want I wantto help them. There's too many black
box royalties sitting out there for peopleto collect, and you know it's time
(29:32):
to get that paid out to peoplenow. If you still if you still
feel like extremely confused after listening toall this, I don't blame you.
Again. I have a visual courseif you're interested in taking that and watching
(29:52):
that so you can begin registering yourcatalog and collecting your own royalties. If
you're do it yourself kind person,or again, if you don't have time
to register your catalog, or youjust need additional royalty consulting and catalog management
for the future, just reach outto me. Contact me at info at
(30:17):
Sarah Harrelson dot com, or justfind me on my website Sarah Harrelson dot
com. My Instagram is at SarahHarrelson. Just DM me and then let's
talk about royalties and get your catalogregistered organized so you can start collecting.
So thank you again for listening listeningto this music royalty episode on the Mind
(30:42):
Your Music Business podcast. I hopeyou learned. I hope you learned something
from someone this season and next season. I can't wait to have more people
in the music industry to talk aboutjust even more fun stuff. It's alway,
it's always great, even when you'vebeen in this music industry for a
(31:03):
while, to keep learning from otherpeople and just learning about what other people
do. I think it's very humblingtoo, So again, thank you,
and do not hesitate to reach outand remember mind your music business.
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