PRO, re-titling and publishing – confused foreign newbie.

[MartinH]

As a relative newbie to this licensing business I’ve gotten kind of confused about PRO registering and whatnot.

I live in Finland, and I’m thus registered with the Finnish PRO, TEOSTO. I have tracks with a bunch of  libraries in the US, and I know that several tracks have been placed and aired on TV in USA.  The libraries that have placed these tracks have obviously re-titled and registered them with ASCAP, I know that because when I search the ASCAP database for my own name I find all these tracks that libraries have registered.

So what I’m confused about is this: do I need to register these tracks with my own PRO to be able to get paid, eventually? And do I in that case register them with the exact same re-titles that the libraries have used to register the tracks with ASCAP? ASCAP collects the royalties and distributes them to my PRO, but is that distribution track-specific, in other words do I have to register every single re-title myself also? Or is the ASCAP-collected royalties tied to my name – and therefor no need for me to register all the re-titles?

Sorry if these are stupid questions, but I haven’t been able to find the answer antwhere and I sure have been doing a lot of googleing…

I would be very thankful if some of you non-US composers with more experience could help me with this. Thanks!

Martin

[Emlyn Addison]

I launched into this part of the “biz” recently, so I can point to a few things, as I understand it:

You’re probably registered as writer with your PRO but unless you’re registered (separately) as a publisher (for your own or even others’ music) you don’t receive any publishing royalties.
When a library licenses a track of yours that is non-exclusive they can register it under a new title (usually the original title with their own code) with the PRO and set themselves as publisher to earn 50%-100% of the publishing. That’s how they make part of their revenue.
You still hold the rights to the “original” titled work, even if it isn’t technically published, because you didn’t give anyone an exclusive right to license it.
But if you also register as a publisher with your PRO (using whatever biz name/dba name you want) and then submit that track to be licensed exclusively by a single library, if it gets picked up, you can register that track with your PRO as both the writer and publisher, letting you collect both the writer and publisher percentages, for whatever that library’s contract stipulated.

 

[Emlyn Addison]

My own question with exclusive vs non-exclusive with regard to publishing/retitling is perhaps less certain:

Is there any logic to submitting a full track (for example) to one library as exclusive, but saving all of the variations (30, 60, drums only, etc.) for non-exclusive use by more than one library?

Maybe this is a no-no, since those variations would technically be derivatives of the exclusive work, but I figured I’d ask if anyone knew. Seems like a shame to lock up a track, along with all of its really useful variations, for 3-5 years when those variations could do a lot of side business… Hmm.

 

[Art Munson]

Is there any logic to submitting a full track (for example) to one library as exclusive, but saving all of the variations (30, 60, drums only, etc.) for non-exclusive use by more than one library?

I think the library you had the exclusive deal would take issue with that. Most contracts would cover any variations of a track.

[scottcampbellmusic]

Also a newbie with a ‘re-titling’ question:

So, I’ve got a couple ‘exclusive’ piles and then the ‘non-exclusive/RF’ pile. As I write, I’ll submit to the exclusives, and filter down rejections to nons and RF.

I’m unclear as how to register/rename the tracks for non/RF distribution as I’ll be submitting the same track to multiple libraries.

Do I register with my PRO, then add alternate titles (in the PRO) as I submit to the various nons/RFs?

Am I even allowed to do this? 🙂

Thanks for any tips!

 

btw, great site and great community here..

[Michael]

I’m wondering if a vocal version would constitute a variation or is it an entirely separate entity?

[Harrison]

Hello MartinH! I’m in a similar situation. I’ve tried to register my re-titled ASCAP songs to Teosto, but it has proven to be challenging. To be honest, I’m not even sure what is Teosto’s view on the whole re-titling thing in the first place.

(Jos kiinnostaa, niin voit ottaa yhteyttä harrison.hawkes@gmail.com, voisi olla ihan mielenkiintoista vaihtaa ajatuksia.)

[andrej]

I am with spanish pro SGAE  and  the tracks I have with pump started to apear retitled in my SGAE database with publishing split  to pump,that makes me wonder if they also register them in other countries PRO’s.

However my tracks from other retitling libs. don’t appear in my spanish PRO.

 

 

 

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