The PRO Pseudonym Problem & how to stop someone else getting your royalties

[DavidSharp]

I call this the PPP or pianississimo. It’s quiet and you won’t notice it unless your looking for it !!!

Recently I did a search on some of my titles in my PRO database and found similarly titled pieces registered under a different writer. Not remarkable in itself because many pieces share the same title.

But on further analysis, there were 18 similarly titled pieces registered under one specific person – so more than a coincidence?

What was remarkable was that this other person only had 24 pieces registered in total and 18 of these had the same titles as my pieces

I was also able to ascertain that my PRO had been paying royalties for those pieces to the other writer – Gulp !, for the last 6 years – WTF !!!

To protect the parties concerned, let’s assume my name is John Doe and this other writer’s name is Barrington Womble

So there’s no apparent connection between our names. But look further and both of us had the same pseudonym ie “Johnny Doe”

For me, Johnny Doe was a different version of my real name and it had appeared on some of my CDs so I created the pseudonym because I didn’t want to miss out on any royalties. For Barrington Womble, Johnny Doe was his stage name.

My publisher confirmed to my PRO that the titles were indeed mine and my PRO paid me the money back. But not all of it. The policy of my PRO is that they only pay back the last 3 years. These pieces had been registered incorrectly for about 6 years. Let’s assume I was owed $100 in total, $30 was for the last 3 years and the other $70 was for the proceeding 3 years !! So I only got back 30% of my earnings.

SO HOW DID THIS PROBLEM HAPPEN?

Through further work with my PRO, it appears that people from other countries filled out Cue Sheets for my works incorrectly. Let assume the title of the track was “Money Gone Missing”. So someone fills out a Cue Sheet including the title “Money Gone Missing” but they get the wrong Johnny Doe. On the Cue sheet they have to enter the IPI/CAE number of the writer and so they searched on their database, found Johnny Doe (that’s Barrington) and copied his IPI/CAE into the sheet.

When the Cue sheet came to my PRO an automated process looked for the IPI/CAE (it got a match with Barrington) but couldn’t find the title “Money Gone Missing” under his IPI/CAE, so it created one in the database under his IPI/CAE and paid him the money.

I had no idea this was going one – indeed there is no way I could know at that time.

What the automated process should have done, given that it couldn’t find the title, was to look for other writers with the same name and/or pseudonym to see if they had the title. If it had done this, it would have found me (Johnny Doe) and my title (Money Gone Missing).

By the way, after getting back my $30, I started checking the database more thoroughly and about 3 months later a new piece appeared called “Money Gone Missing” under Barrington Womble’s IPI/CAE. I later discovered that this was a repeat fee and the Cue Sheet had been re-actioned.

SO WHAT CAN YOU DO TO STOP IT HAPPENING TO YOU ?

The simple answer is that you can’t stop it happening but you can see if it has happened.

My suggestion is to find out all the writers that have a similar name as you, or a similar pseudonym, and look through their titles looking for similarities with yours and if you are suspicious then inform your publisher/PRO.

The ASCAP and BMI PROs are a great resource for doing writer searches as they display pseudonym information. Unfortunately my PRO doesn’t

Personally, I also check my most profitable titles, looking for any other writers who have registered the title to see if anything looks suspicious

[woodsdenis]

You should have used Barrington Womble as a pseudonym LOL (a UK thing). Seriously, thanks for the info.

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