Licensed music not registered with a PRO

[Dan P]

I wanted to bring up the issue surrounding licensing and getting paid from your pro.

I notice most of the non exclusive royalty fee sites like selling their music,our music really to users who wish not to register it with any PRO. This makes sense for youtube video’s, home use and corporate use. Nobody has to pay to post on the net in that way unless exposure is big.

There is confusion around the way programming is brought to the airwaves Those who license tracks for tv use could and should register those tracks so composers can get paid. For some reason those who bring the programming to TV think they must pay additional fees to the writers. There is a license/sync fee that would naturally be paid once.Exclusive deals do require additional licenses over time paid by the advertiser’s. I don’t seem many of those in the new world of licensing.

The TV Stations pay into the PRO”S and that’s how writers and publishers get paid. There are no additional fees paid out by the Marketing or production company for the music that’s played under programming so the cost factor keeps it affordable for the end user while still being registered with you PRO for back end royalties. So, stations pay into PRO’S to be able to play all the content provided to the station. Cue sheets turned into BMI account for how many times your tracks show up in the show and for how many minutes of music you are being paid for.

Biggest licensing problem that many here don’t run into is with big name acts: Where you have separate owners of the master, record companies usually,and a separate publisher or company who control the publishing. The writer is third on the list,thus the confusion when there are holdouts from one party or another. Its a logistical juggle to make this happen. Not so when you control your own writing and publishing but big companies have a very wide reach.

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