It's very complex, difficult, expensive, interesting and fun to be an independent music producer. Volume three covers my attempts to: make acoustic improvements to the studio; cut down my production times; learn the art of mastering in-house ad muc...
Royalties that are yours to get don't just come to you. You have to set things up so they work for you. If you do things the right way that's much better than doing it the wrong way, right?
In this chapter I am going to collect some valuable links to look into for those who want to plan their album release in order to put things in place so that you get all the royalties you are entitled to.
The subject is big and it will take some time to collect enough info but here goes. I will publish this one when I think I have covered everything important.
1. Register with a PRO
- In U.S.: BMI ASCAP etc.
- In Sweden STIM and SAMI
Register with SoundExchange
Register Your Catalogue With Music Reports
- (SOUNDEX)
In Sweden:
STIM
If you are an indie and you are both the songwriter and the publisher, don't forget to fill in the form that you are also a publisher. That way you get your royalties as a songwriter and your royalties as a publisher. If you forget to fill in the publishing one, you miss those royalties entirely.
Remember that it takes at least 5000 plays per month in order for you to get paid by STIM for Youtube.
P.S. I just joined Ari Herstand's Facebook group for the music business and already I am getting answers to my questions about collecting royalties. If you didn't get your answers here, check out that page or buy his book. I hear that a new version of the book is coming out in 2019 that includes what international artists like me need.
And, I just applied to SAMI. Yay! D.S.
June 3rd 2019 I added:
SONGTRUST:
Do I need it? I am going on a webinar next week (June 11th)
Let me just copy and paste a section of their blog here
4 Royalties You Are Missing, Even With a PRO
"So you've set yourself up as a member of a PRO.Congrats, you're off to a great start! However, there are still many different income sources that they ASCAP or BMI do not collect. Let's find out what you might be missing.
Mechanical Royalties: Performing rights organizations (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC) only collect performance royalties, not mechanical. When you join Songtrust, we will register your songs with (the US mechanical licensing agency) and other mechanical collection societies worldwide. With your music registered for mechanicals, artists we be able to obtain mechanical licenses to release cover versions of your songs.
Streaming: Interactive streaming services allow you to choose the songs you listen to (Spotify, Rdio, Beats etc). Most of the royalties generated from interactive streaming come in the form of mechanical royalties. (There are also a small fraction of performance royalties that will be collected by your PRO.) YouTube also generates interactive streaming royalties -- more on that here
International Sales: Outside of the US, music retailers (iTunes, Rhapsody, etc) are required to pay mechanical licensing societies (think Harry Fox Agency but in other areas of the world) around 9% of revenue earned from each download. This amounts to about 9 cents per digital download, owed to the songwriter. This money sits at the mechanical society until it is collected by a publishing administrator like Songtrust. If you have international sales, you are likely missing your international mechanical royalties.
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ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC are designed to collect performance royalties in the US. Songtrust registers your songs directly with international performing rights organziations worldwide and collects royalties directly from these sources. Our direct agreements function faster and more efficiently than ASCAP/BMI/SESAC's reciprocal agreements."
And this was an answer from Songtrust about if one needs to be registered with CDbaby and Songtrust at the same time:
It is important to know that there are two types of ownership when it comes to music. There is the 'recording' / 'master' side, and the 'composition' / 'publishing' side. Traditionally this is broken up by labels (recording), and publishers (composition). More recently, things have changed, and independent creators can now handle both sides of the ownership.
Labels and distributors like Distrokid and CDBaby handle the distribution of your music, placing your music in stores like Spotify, iTunes, etc. In general, distributors will pay you royalties from your ownership of the recording. Unless you enter a publishing agreement with your distributor, you are likely not collecting your royalties from the ownership of your composition, in other words your music publishing royalties.
Songtrust is not a distributor. Songtrust is a publishing administrator. We are a 1-stop-shop for collecting on all of your publishing rights. So, using a distributor to collect from your 'recording' ownership and using Songtrust to collect from your 'composition' ownership will cover all of your royalty collection needs."
But, can I register for CDBaby to collect the composition ownership earnings and let them do both?
CDBaby Pro vs. non-pro? CCLI - does it collect what Songtrust would but on a more limited scale?
