Should I become a Harry Fox Publishing Affiliate?

[MichaelL]

How are you all handling HFA’s “third party” requirement?

[Music1234]

I applied as publisher and they accepted me in. Additionally my “label” told me to affiliate as publisher. Still learning these waters. If Mark P can chime in, we may get more info.

https://www.harryfox.com/publishers/become_affiliate_publisher.html

If I knew then what I know now I suppose I’d do this: create your own “record label” so you can “commercially release” your albums to all streaming sites. Then affiliate as publisher with HFA.

HFA is doing a big money grab some how, some way. They seem to pocket 11.5% of all they collect, but if folks are not doing the paperwork properly, there probably is a truckload of unclaimed royalties sitting in their coffers. I am convinced that it’s probably time to attend some conferences that they participate in so one can get face time with someone working for HFA who can explain literally, what they do. How they collect? From whom exactly? when they collect? and when they distribute? and how many streams are required for it to make sense. The physical product scenario is all but history I’d think so the 9 cents a unit sold seems to be a thing of the past.

I’d also love to know what “rumblefish is, does, and how they fit in. Clearly with SESAC, HFA, and Rumblefish being married as one company with 3 divisions, some executive has figured out a sweet money grabbing scheme. It just seems like these 3 entities combined creates some kind of conflict of interests somewhere in the royalty collection and distribution food chain. Just my opinion.

Rumblefish does quite a bit when you read about their services, but it is quite overwhelming.

About Rumblefish

[Art Munson]

How are you all handling HFA’s “third party” requirement?

Don’t know what that means. I have two publishing companies registered with them but I did this many years ago so the rules may have changed.

If I knew then what I know now I suppose I’d do this: create your own “record label” so you can “commercially release” your albums to all streaming sites.

That’s what I, inadvertently, have done. So I will be “releasing” more albums going forward. 🙂

[MichaelL]

Don’t know what that means. I have two publishing companies registered with them but I did this many years ago so the rules may have changed.

From the HFA website:

“Self-released recordings aren’t considered commercially released by a U.S. based third party (a record label) and don’t qualify a publishing company for affiliation with HFA.”

(Their typo, not mine)

[Art Munson]

Thanks MichaelL. I don’t seem to be having an issue with it. It may be that I registered my two publishing companies with them years ago. My account is also under my LLC so that may make the difference.

[MichaelL]

It may well be that having a publishing “company,” rather than just releasing DIY, content is sufficient. It’s easy enough to just ask.

[ENW1]

I think some of this “Record Label” stuff is just a hold-over from older days. I registered my publishing company with ASCAP. I use that name when people ask about my “Label”. When a Library licenses your track for use on a Compilation Release, doesn’t that qualify as a 3rd party release anyhow? The Bottom Line should be: Is the track getting played somewhere where royalties are collected?

[Music1234]

Anyone can create a “record Label”. I do not see any barriers or red tape to creating a “record label”. In fact it seems to be in all of our interests to create our own record labels for our own music to commercially release whatever we want to streaming platforms. Anyway, releasing music (on CD Baby for example) is one issue, getting the music heard (streamed) is the real battle. There has to be a strategy there too because just releasing music is not good enough.

All this amounts to a lot of work. The strategy needs to be: have a label, be the publisher, be the songwriter, and be the artist. Stream our music everywhere, including pandora, satelite radio, and on music choice (TV radio essentially). There are clever folks out there that figure out how to do this stuff and profit from it, I wish I was one of them but I am not.

Art if you know of a clean payout chart that describes what percentages the parties above take in from HFA please advise. This part of the biz is still very confusing. It’s just not as clean cut as our normal work where we split 50/50 with publishers for film, tv, advertising, and stock music licensing sites. I suppose sometimes we collect 100% as writer and publisher.

I’d like to be in a world where I am collecting all the royalties from Spotify, google play, youtube red, pandora, music choice, apple music, i-tunes, deezer, schazam, beats…or whatever…but I am not in that world because it is a complicated world and always seems to involve middle men who get their hands on the money before the songwriter/ artist/ composer does. It’s a shame, really.

Check these very confusing rate charts out…How can we possibly make any sense out of this?

https://www.harryfox.com/find_out/rate_charts.html

How can we all rid ourselves of “middle men” once and for all in today’s digital age?

[Art Munson]

How can we all rid ourselves of “middle men” once and for all in today’s digital age?

Not sure that is possible after looking at all those charts on HFA. I don’t really mind if there is a middle man at this point. Why? Because it incentivizes them to make sure every penny is being collected (that’s how they make their money). I don’t have the the time or energy to chase every cent down. They will probably always know more than I do about such matters and I can spend time writing. It’s under the heading of “it takes money to make money”.

[MichaelL]

How can we all rid ourselves of “middle men” once and for all in today’s digital age?

If you hire other writers or publish other writers’ works, you are a middle man.

Sell and/or license your music directly to producers, music supervisors, and consumers from only your own website and through your own marketing efforts, which, as Art pointed out, will leave precious little time for composing and producing music

[Author]

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