Assuming you’re an independent songwriter with no record deal or publishing deal, this is what you need to do to collect all your music royalties….
Step 1- Join a Performance Rights Organization
Step 2- Register with an admin publishing company or mechanical royalty collections society
Step 3- Sign up with a digital music distributor
Step 4- Register with SoundExchange or a Neighbouring Rights Organization
Step 5- Check for unclaimed royalties in the AFM & SAG-AFTRA Fund
Step 6- Download and print your Music Royalties Cheat Sheet (reference CP014)
We’re going to cover each step in detail but first, let’s make sure we understand what you’re selling when you’re selling music.
— You’re selling two types of products —
Compositions
and
Sound Recordings
Now that’s clear, let’s have a look at how those two types of music copyright affect our music royalties…..
— Each product can be used in two different ways —
Performed in public
and
Copied for private use
2 products x 2 types of usage
=
4 royalty streams
⇓ ⇓ ⇓
Understanding the Music Royalties Breakdown Matrix
If your products are played in public, you’re entitled to performance royalties. Refer to boxes 1 and 4 above.
If your products are copied for private use, you’re entitled to mechanical royalties. Refer boxes 2 and 3 above.
If you want to make money from your SOUND RECORDINGS, focus on the YELLOW boxes above.
If you want to make money from your COMPOSITIONS, focus on the BLUE boxes above.
Make sense?
Ok, maybe not yet….
Let’s take it step by step.
STEP 1 – Collect performance royalties related to your compositions.
When can you collect performance royalties on your compositions?
You can collect performance royalties on your compositions when one of your compositions is played in public.
For example, during a live performance, on the radio, on TV or in movie theaters outside the U.S.
What do you need to do to collect performance royalties on your compositions?
Join a Performance Rights Organization and/or an admin publishing company.
For example, ASCAP or BMI in the US, SOCAN in Canada, PRS in the UK, SACEM in France, etc.
Pro tip: if you choose to work with an admin publishing company (see step 2), you can actually skip this part and let THEM handle this registration process.
STEP 2 – Collect mechanical royalties related to your compositions.
When can you collect mechanical royalties on your compositions?
You can collect mechanical royalties on your compositions every time a composition is copied for private use.
For example, every time it’s streamed on demand on Spotify or Apple Play, or purchased and downloaded on Amazon or iTunes, or pressed on a physical CD or DVD.
What do you need to do to collect mechanical royalties on your compositions?
If you’re outside the US, you’ll need to find out if there’s a local mechanical royalty collection society in your country.
Examples of mechanical royalty collection companies include MCPS in the UK, SOCAN in Canada and SACEM in France.
You’ll notice that the French and Canadians only have to register to one organization to collect both performance and mechanical royalties for songwriters and publishers.
Pro tip: if you’re not sure if there’s a mechanical royalty collection society in your country, ask your PRO. They should know!
If you’re in the US, you’ll want to use an admin publishing company.
Examples of music publishing administration companies:
Pro tip: if you have a publishing company, you may want to apply to The Harry Fox Agency instead. Just make sure you meet their requirements before you spend $100 on the application.
SIDE NOTE – for indie artists who want to license their music
If you work or want to work with production music libraries, consider this carefully.
When they place your music, some libraries take a portion of the synchronization fee but no publishing share.
For those libraries, there would be no conflict with an admin publishing company because they don’t care that a publishing admin takes 15-20% of your publishing.
HOWEVER, a lot of music libraries take a portion of the sync fee AND 100% of the publisher’s share when they place your music in a project.
You can’t work with THOSE music libraries AND an admin publishing company at the same time because you don’t have 115-120% of publishing to give away.
STEP 3 – Collect mechanical royalties related to your sound recordings.
When can you collect mechanical royalties on your sound recordings?
You can collect mechanical royalties on your sound recordings every time a sound recording is copied for private use.
For example, every time it’s streamed on demand on Spotify or Apple Play, or purchased and downloaded on Amazon or iTunes, or pressed on a physical CD or DVD.
What do you need to do to collect mechanical royalties on your compositions?
Signup with a digital music distributor. It will make your sound recordings available on multiple online stores and collect mechanical royalties and sales for you.
Examples of music distributors include CD Baby, Amuse and Distrokid.
Pro tip: you can opt in or out of YouTube Music, Facebook, Instagram directly through your digital music distributor.
STEP 4 – Collect performance royalties related to your sound recordings.
When can you collect performance royalties on your sound recordings?
You can collect performance royalties on your sound recordings when one of your sound recordings is played in public.
For example, during a live show, on the radio, on TV or in movie theaters outside the U.S.
What do you need to do to collect performance royalties on your sound recordings?
If you’re based in the U.S., head over to the SoundExchange website and register as an artist and copyright owner.
If you’re outside the U.S., research “neighbouring rights” in your country.
A quick online search should do the trick.
If not, your local PRO – who collects performance royalties for songwriters and publishers – should be able to tell you which organization collects performance royalties for artists and labels in your country.
Examples of Neighbouring Rights Organizations include:
STEP 5 – Collect performance royalties for non-featured performances on the digital performances of sound recordings.
When can you collect performance royalties for non-featured performances on the digital performance of sound recordings?
Every time a sound recording on which you have performed as a background singer or musician is played in public.
For example, when it is featured in a live show, on the radio or on television.
What do you need to do to collect performance royalties for non-featured performances on the digital performances of sound recordings?
Check the AFM & SAG-AFTRA IPRD Fund online and look for your name in the database.
It’s as simple as that. It’s free, you don’t have to sign up to anything and it will only take a couple of minutes.
Wait…. Isn’t SoundExchange Taking Care Of That?
Nope, SoundExchange pays out royalties to featured artists and copyright owners.
If you’ve performed on other people’s sound recordings, you may be a non-featured artist.
As such, you’d be entitled to a 5% share of performance royalties when a sound recording you’ve performed on is played.
It’ll only take a minute and it’s free to check so…. yeah, go for it!
Pro tip: outside the US, music royalties owed to back up musicians and singers are usually handled by the Neighbouring Rights Organizations mentioned in step 4.
Step 6 – Signup to the Creative & Productive Library!
Download your Music Royalties Cheat Sheet, reference CP014
Other Useful Stuff You Might Not Know About Music Royalties
Fun Fact #1
If you’re a BMI songwriter, BMI will automatically 100% of publishing performance royalties if there is no publishing information attached to your song.
Yep, you read that right. BMI say so right here.
That’s a Shame Fact #1
In the US, SoundExchange only collects performance royalties for artists and labels on DIGITAL performances.
Recording artists and labels don’t get paid performance royalties when music is played on terrestrial (AM/FM) radio.
That’s a Shame Fact #2
When a song is used in a movie and the movie is played in theaters in the US, songwriters and publishers don’t get any performance royalties.
BUT…. if that same movie is played in theaters outside the US or on TV, then the songwriter and publisher receive performance royalties.
Fun Fact #2
If you perform live, you can tell your PRO about it and upload your setlists.
Make it easy for your PRO to track and pay you those performance royalties on your live performances!
Now What?
Ok, that was a LOT of information!
Here’s a short recap for you.
As always, if you have a question…. I’ve got your back in the comments section!
Regarding your “SIDE NOTE – for indie artists who want to license their music”… I want to make sure I’m understanding this detail. If I have a song that I want to put into a library, I should avoid registering it with an admin publishing company? I have music specifically for libraries. I also have my “artist” music (to digitally distribute) that I’d also like to make available for library licensing. I want to make sure I handle it correctly. Thank you!
Hey Daniel,
It depends on the libraries you had in mind. Some libraries take a portion of the sync fee but no publishing share. For those libraries, there would be no conflict with an admin publishing company. Such libraries don’t care that a publishing admin takes 15-20% of your publishing.
But a lot of music libraries take 100% of the publisher’s share. You can’t work with THOSE music libraries AND an admin publishing company at the same time since you don’t have 120% of publishing to give away 🙂
Is that a little clearer? Don’t hesitate to push back if not, I need to update that section to make it clear!
Hi there
I am a singer songwriter working with a producer on a song currently. I wrote the lyrics and came up with the melody for the vocals and I’m also the artist singing the song. It will be released under my name. I am recording it myself and sending to producer who has come up with a beat and will be editing everything together etc. We are both just starting out so are both doing this for free at the moment. I’ve done a lot of research but I’m still not quite clear on what I’m entitled to and what my rights are. I am not signed up to a pro and the producer has a profile on distrokid and said he can release the song but I obviously want to make sure I own my share of the song and get the credit I deserve. Please could you clarify what I’m entitled to? What a normal split would be ? And the if I should sign up to a pro/ get myself a distrokid profile or is it ok for him to just release on his ? Sorry so many questions!
Hi Effie, there’s no one way to do things. It’s something you should discuss with your co-writer(s) and formalize in writing.
Here’s a post about music split sheets and music producer agreements that will hopefully clarify a few things and help you come to an agreement with your co-writer(s).
In any case, if you want to collect your performance royalties, you, as an individual, should be registered with a PRO. For mechanical royalties, some distributors allow one person to be in charge but you’ll want to check that your co-writer gave your information to the distributor so you get your share as well.
I should add that my “artist” music is typically being registered with Songtrust. Therein is the confusion about best practice for putting them into libraries too.
Joyce,
That explains it perfectly. You’re awesome. Thank you so much!
Daniel
Awesome! I’ve updated that section accordingly 🙂 Thanks a lot for your feedback on this, I really appreciate it!
Hi Joyce! I have a question regarding all these rights societies: Is it possible to register to them since I’m a Romanian citizen and not living in the U.S.?
However, I appreciate so much your work and I can’t believe how great and useful this website can be! Thank you 🙂
Hi Ciprian,
Yep!
For steps 1 and 2, as a foreign citizen living outside the US, you should be able to sign up with a PRO like BMI or ASCAP.
And you could work with an admin publishing company like Songtrust or Sentric if you wanted to.
For step 3, there’s a bunch of companies you can choose from.
For step 4, you’d probably want to go with SoundExchange.
And for step 5, you don’t need to register anywhere.
Very good. I think you are ready to pitch for a panel at SXSW, and expand your sphere of influence. You now have the credentials.
Thanks, Chuck! That means a lot coming from you 🙂
The live performance setlists reported to your PRO are not so much designed to get you paid your $1 or $2 as much as they are to sell yearly licensing to the venue.
Hehe…. never thought of it that way but I bet you’re right 😉
Hey Joyce,
I’m a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information involved with this process. All I’m trying to determine is this:
I’m a songwriter/composer who also happens to make and produce his own sound recordings. My compositions are not actually written down on any paper or digital note; it’s really just the sound recordings inside my DAW and in the final exported files.
I’m looking at registering with a PRO for the first time, and because I’m in the US I’m looking at ASCAP and BMI. I’m not sure if I should choose the option to register as just a writer, or register as a writer AND a publisher. I know you said BMI will give all publishing royalties back to you if there is no affiliated publisher on a particular piece, but I’d venture to guess some music libraries will want publishing credits while some others will not.
I’m really just looking to make money from getting my music licensed out on these production music libraries; I have no current desire or aspirations to distribute my music on Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, etc. I’m not trying to build a fanbase for myself per se.
I just want to make sure I choose the right option right from the start because these application fees are non-refundable. I’d hate to screw it up and not be able to fix it later.
Hi Danny,
Re PRO
Register as a songwriter with BMI.
Why?
1- There’s no application fee
2- When a library acts as a publisher for one of your songs, they’ll communicate with their PRO and get the publisher’s share of royalties, no problem.
3- When a tracks is licensed but for one reason or another, no publisher is attached to the song (for example, a music library like pond5 doesn’t take any publishing), then BMI will pay you the publisher’s share of royalties.
Re copyright
As long as it’s original, your music is copyrighted as soon as you write it down or record it on a tangible medium. On paper or in an audio file for example.
A sound recording of a composition is one way to fix the composition on a tangible medium.
Here’s post on how to copyright music
Hi Joyce, just stumbled across your site whilst trying to find out some info on sync fees online. I currently compose for a couple of mid sized libraries and am a member of The PRS & I receive performance and some mechanical through them. I also sign to a sub publisher or “middle man” in fairness who also takes a share. This is not ideal I know but it has got me experience in this industry. My question is if the library pays a share of the sync fee where and how is this paid? Thank you in advance if you get time to respond – C
Hey Craig, when you work with a music library, you’ll share your bank/Paypal details with them so they can pay you.
Some pay every time they collect a sync fee for one of your tracks, others pay once a month, others wait until you’ve earned a minimum amount (say $50). It depends.
Hi Joyce, GREAT information, very clearly stated! But, this is confusing to me:
“Pro tip: if you have a publishing company, you may want to apply to The Harry Fox Agency instead. ”
Did you mean: “…if you DO NOT have a publishing company…..?”
I am releasing a CD of all original songs, have copyrighted them, will register with BMI, but have not signed up yet with an Admin Publishing Company.
Since I do not have a Publishing Company yet, should I sign up with Harry Fox rather than Songtrust, CD Baby Pro, etc?
And if YES….why? What is the benefit of signing with Harry Fox rather than the other publishing companies?
Thanks again for the fantastic blog!
Hi Elaine!
No, I meant if you DO have a music publisher / publishing company.
Songtrust and CD Baby PRO are not music publishers. They are ADMIN publishing companies. Meaning that they can collect publishing royalties for you (if you don’t already have a music publisher) but they will not promote your songs as a traditional music publisher would.
The Harry Fox Agency, on the other hand, describe themselves as “a provider of rights management and collector and distributor of mechanical license fees on behalf of music publishers in the United States”, meaning they can help music publishers collect publishing royalties.
What are MECHANICAL ROYALTIES related to your sound recording ???
I thought all MECHANICAL ROYALTIES were related to your compositions.
In other words, when your music is downloaded on a streaming service , there is only one Mechanical Royalty owed to composers, not another Mechanical Royalty owed to the artists on the sound recording, correct ???
For example DistroKids sends the artist Sound Recording Royalties from Spotify, but these are not Mechanical Royalties, correct ???
You’re right, back when I first wrote the post I thought it made it easier to understand this way but a more proper term would be “Master Recording Royalties” or “Master Recording Revenues” or “Sound Recording Royalties” to refer to the payments made by streaming platforms to recording artists.