Music Publishing 101

Music publishers are responsible for these basic areas:

ü  Song Registration (ASCAP, BMI, or PRS)

ü  Licensing

ü  Royalty Collection

ü  Creative Services

ASCAP (www.ascap.com) who is incorporated with BMI (www.bmi.com) are American performing rights societies, while Performing Right Society (www.prs.co.uk) is the equivalent in the U.K (United Kingdom).

The services include:

·      Monitoring

·      Collecting

·      Paying our performance royalties to publisher and songwriters

 

Whenever a song is played on the radio or TV the networks pay millions of dollars each year to ASCAP, BMI, and PRS for a “blanket license, which allows the to broadcast any song they wish as many times as they like. Once a publisher registers your music, the performing rights societies will pay out the performance royalties directly to the publisher and songwriters. A publisher can also help a songwriter choose to affiliate and register work within a society in the U.S or U.K to look out for your best interest.

Performing Rights/Royalties

The societies will pay equal shares of the performance royalties they receive to the songwriter and publisher. A songwriter has several types of royalties that they can potentially earn. A songwriter can get royalties when a song is included on another artist’s album that is commercially released in retail stores or made available online for downloading. These are called “mechanical royalties.”

Mechanical Royalties are given during the second phase of publishing, which is licensing. The procedures are different in the U.S and U.K. In the United States before mechanical royalties can’t be paid out unless your song is licensed to the record label you are reaching out to. Thereafter the publisher issues a license to the record label, which allows the song to be included and sold on a particular album.  The record company will pay out royalties according to how many copies of the album are sold. In the U.K, the record label which releases the albums in the U.K does not pay the publisher directly as they do in the U.S. Instead the record company label pays the (MCPS), Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (www.mcps.co.uk), they can collect mechanical income from sales in the U.K.

(HFA)  The Harry Fox Agency is also an organization that deals with the licensing and collection of mechanical royalties. For a commission, the HFA can collect mechanical royalties via record sales throughout the world.  The HFA is an optional service as publishers have the ability to collect mechanical royalties without the aid of HFA. New Technology and licensing of revenue streams such as ringtones- songwriters must have a publisher issue a separate license for ringtone use. USA publishers will issue a license to a phone carriers like Verizon and Sprint, for example. Income is 10 cents for 100 percent of the copyright in both the U.S and the U.K.

I hope this blog is informative and helpful for all. The website link is posted below for further rerference.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec05/articles/allaboutpublishing.htm

Information relevant to publishing and distribution in today's music industry

The music industry has faced challenges because of the way it is structured today. Music publishing is one the of many challenges that lyricist and songwriters face due to the fact that they are not educated about the importance of having a music publisher to represent their work.

As a recording artist and songwriter, I have found that publishing your lyrics and music is very essential to your success in the music industry. I found http://www.soundonsound.com to be a very informative website because the website gives good information about the importance of having a music publisher in relation to establishing successful career.  I am conducting a website review written by Scott Rubin, a music publisher who works with a songwriters, composes music and /or lyrics just as a book publisher does with an author.

Scott Rubin gives a comprehensive overview about how to find a publisher, the importance of having a music publisher, and the overall description of a music publisher. Scott stated, “If you want to make money in the music industry rather you are a songwriter, composer or lyricist, the obvious answer is to find a music publisher.” Due to the fact that people have a poor understanding of publishing, it becomes quite a daunting task to get a solid understanding of the field of music publishing. Scott Rubin brings some clarity to the complexities of music publishing.

Some of the key points Scott provided included what to do before you start to look for a publisher. In order to hire a publisher to represent your lyrics and/or music you first have to understand the three basic types of publishers.

1)   Administrative Publisher – An administrator is an individual or small company who provides a service for a small commission to the songwriter by handling all aspects of the registration, licensing, and collection. Administrators do not normally pay advances and usually don’t offer any creative services.

2)   Independent Publisher- Independent publishers offer the same administrative services however they provide creative services and offer competitive advances to songwriters. The client’s lists of both an administrative and independent publisher is normally made up of mid-level artist and talented songwriters.

3)   Major Publisher-Major publishers such as Universal Music, Warner Bros, Sony, BMG and EMI pay millions of dollars in advancements to songwriters and artists in order to maintain their market share. The clients that major publisher’s represent include big name stars like Jay-Z and Eminem. I hope the contents of this posts was helpful. For more information the websites link is posted below.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec05/articles/allaboutpublishing.htm