[MichaelL]

So how much would it cost to register 100 songs with them? Am I seeing right its “group of unpublished works” which allows only 10 songs and is 85$ a pop? Does this mean 850$ for 100 songs? or 6000$ for my 500 songs?

As Art said, $85 for an unpublished group of 10 songs, so $850 for 100, and $4,250 for 500 songs. Also, as Art said, if you have cowriters they must be the same for all 10 songs. If you have uploaded your songs and offered them for sale, they have been published and group registration is not available. You would then need to register each song individually. The current fee is $65, so $32,500 for 500 songs!

It appears that you are from Denmark. Why do you want to register your works with the US Copyright Office? Why not enforce your copyrights through Denmark’s legal system and/or the CJEU?

[MichaelL]

it’s a company wins and profits no matter what situation, while writers lose big time, and see the value of a “music license” crumble to about $1 or $3 per download (if that)

New composers enter the market every day and “established” composers upload new content every day. We have, unfortunately, reached the point where, on certain tiers and models, there is an endless supply of music, especially corporate/business music and “Zimmer-inspired” cues. Value is not sustainable under those circumstances.

[MichaelL]

I started composing when I was 9 or 10. Making money wasn’t part of the picture. Yes, I would still write. If you only write for money, there’s a lot of music that you’ll never write and there’s a good chance that you’ll write a lot of music that you don’t care about. That said, if you’ve chosen this path find a way to be passionate about it.

[MichaelL]

Too bad the US never signed on to the Geneva convention or we would be earning a lot more.

That would be the Rome Convention.

https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/rome/

[MichaelL]

To cover a song that isn’t in the public domain for sync purposes you have to negotiate a license directly with the copyright owner. In this case, that would possibly be estate of Jerome Kern, his publisher, or even an investor who may have purchase the rights to the song.

[MichaelL]

Works from 1924 entered the public domain this year. If all of the copyright formalities were followed, works from 1946 will not enter the public domain in the U.S. until 2042.

[MichaelL]

Oh, yeah… and please avoid so-called “royalty free” libraries. They have a portion (or all) of their music they license for free, and you get nothing but what is usually a very small piece of the back-end. These libraries devalue music for all of us and make it difficult to obtain fair rates for the use of our music.

I think you may be confusing “royalty free” with “performance free,” which truly is a problem. Most of us here have music in RF libraries like Pond5 and AudioSparx. They do not give music away for free. They license music for an average of $40 per track, but can go much higher. In the case of P5, I regularly receive backend from BMI as both a writer and publisher for TV shows, for which I also received license fees (unlike many TV focused libraries). I’ve even gotten an IMDB credit through a P5 placement.

[MichaelL]

A few observations/questions:

Outside the context of non-interactive digital streams, U.S. performers aren’t generally eligible for NR remuneration.

Rident collects royalties for non-interactive digital streams, which is what SoundExchange collects. Is joining Rident redundant if your works are already registered with SE?

[MichaelL]

you grant to us . . . all rights that you own

Hi jdt9517,

Licensing is a major part of my practice and “grant” is the proper term used in licensing agreements. The licensor is “granting” someone or some entity the right to do something with their intellectual property. If composers were actually giving ownership of their copyrights to BMI the language would be “you transfer to us all rights you own…”

Without getting too deeply into the mechanics of copyrights, the bundle of rights under Section 106 is exclusive, but composers’ agreements with BMI are non-exclusive, which means that composers are still free to exercise their full bundle of rights. For example, members of US PROs are free sell their music on RF sites and to enter into direct license deals as they choose. That would not be the case if they were actually giving ownership of their copyrights to BMI.

I wondered how the PRO’s were able to compel the writer to pay the PRO royalties if the writer performs his/her work in a bar or restaurant.

The writer/performer does not pay the PRO for his/her performances in a bar or restaurant. The bar/restaurant pays an annual blanket license to the PROs for music performed in their establishment, based on the seating capacity of the venue (Notice the ASCAP or BMI sticker, sometimes displayed on the entrance).

In theory, the PROs distribute the money collected from the blanket licenses to the composers whose works are performed. The obvious problem is that bars and restaurants do not file “cue sheets” to inform the PROs what music is performed in their establishments. Thus, the PROs have no way of knowing what music was actually performed. The money goes into a “black box” of sorts and gets distributed based on the PRO’s formula, which is weighted toward popular, recognized works. Unknown composers have little chance of being compensated for these types of performances. ASCAP members can apply for special awards based on live performances.

Outside the US, the situation is similar, with popular, recognized music being compensated instead of the actual composer’s whose music was performed. Also, in some countries “unclaimed” performances go into a fund that the Collective Management Organizations claim to use for musicians’ “general welfare” and the “good of society.”

Direct licensing models are a good solution or commercial background music because each performance is counted and the proper composers get paid.

[MichaelL]

I just realized that at least under the BMI agreement, we give away our copyrights to BMI:

This is not correct. Copyright owners have what is commonly referred to as a “bundle of rights,” as set forth below:

17 U.S. Code Section 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works.

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

The grant of rights from composers to their PRO, in this case BMI, is a limited, non-exclusive license. It is not a transfer of copyright ownership. The grant is limited in that it does not give BMI authority to exercise the full bundle of exclusive rights set forth in Section 106. The language below only applies to Section 106(4) and Section 106(6), which cover the right to publicly perform a copyrighted work.

Except as otherwise provided herein, you hereby grant to us for the Period:
(a) All the rights that you own or acquire publicly to perform, and to license others to perform, anywhere in the world, in any and all places and in any and all media, now known or which hereafter may be developed, any part or all of the Works.

I hope this clears things up.

[Author]

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