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I just wish there was a way to release albums and collect royalties directly from Spotify, Google Play, YOUTUBE RED, Apple Music, and so on. I do get that HFA has a role: match song titles, stream counts, and IRSC codes with complex spreadsheets and other “Big Data” they collect. They do need 11.5% commission for the streaming mechanical payouts. I just wish I could collect directly from Spotify and apple without a middle man. There is a way, it’s just been tough to figure out. The guys that “know” are not willing to “tell”. There’s that “code of silence” we were talking about.
I do understand that we need middle men for licensing, but I am talking only about the “streaming” royalty opportunity from our personal albums for end consumer personal/ leisure listening. Self releasing through CD baby is just not good enough. Albums need to be promoted.
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?
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.
Well then with your news Art, I will be taking this very seriously. For me it’s still a work in progress and it also sounds like they may be unloading royalties that have been bottled up for years (Aerobics music from the 90s). I am specifically waiting to see what they will send for some fall 2016 releases to streaming services. I had a glitch in my data that disallowed distribution (bad IRSC codes) IRSC codes for each track title seem to be “God” for HFA. Whereas with PRO’s …it’s all about the registered title and IPI number.
I also remembered when TV royalties were just dinner money and then that changed quickly. Today I received $2.11 from HFA…seems to be an “Adjustment” to what they paid last time. Who knows? Art, you can download a CVS file and get very clear data about what was being paid. I suggest doing that.
I really think Mark can chime in and offer more because he’s been releasing albums for a few years now.
The key seems to be really having all our spreadsheets in very good order within their database.
Art, the real money in streaming is simply collecting royalties from the streaming services themselves. The HFA income stream seems to be a small side show bonus (eat dinner out) money. I probably have to wait a few more quarters to really know the potential of the streaming market.
There is some money to be made here, but it does not compare to the income streams we are used to from TV, advertising, film and general stock music licensing. Based on the data I have seen over the last year, I can conclude that you have to have a lot of music released and you need to get streams. You need a listening audience and fans of your music. Most people release an album and get 500 to 2000 streams in a 3 to 5 year period. I can tell you it is not worth any energy unless you start getting millions of streams.
Mark should be able to chime in on his experience, he has a significant amount of streams on Spotify for his film and trailer music.
And to answer your question no it will not make a difference for a Library to try and sync your tunes into media projects ,TV shows, films, etc. by affiliating with HFA unless of course they decide they will release production music as albums. As it turns out, Many exc pubs are doing exactly that! I have no idea why? But they are.
I tend to think that there is some hidden agenda or angle they know about so they release production music albums on streaming services like spotify and apple music. Perhaps they intend on collecting as publisher from HFA. This is why I trumpet ownership ownership ownership. You want full control of your assets ideally so you can decide where your music goes.
Exclusive publishers that do not pay an advance fee for a cue or entire album are just the arm pit leeches of the music business.
Hello all, I am affiliated with Harry Fox Agency as a publisher. I have 13 “albums” streaming on all digital platforms – Spotify, Pandora, Google Play, Apple Music, etc. I do collect royalties from streaming. Harry Fox Agency pays “mechanical streaming royalties” each quarter. It cost around $125 to $150 to affiliate. Uploading albums, track titles, label, publisher, IRSC codes and so on, was extremely tedious and difficult. It took several attempts. Their site is very sensitive to fonts, spreadsheet formats and so on. The site development at HFA needs a lot of improvement. The story regarding the amount of royalties I will earn from HFA is still unfolding. There was a major glitch for several of the albums where I had to straighten out IRSC codes for every song on the spreadsheet and supposedly I will get paid “Mechanical Streaming Royalties” for those tracks retroactively.
This is complicated stuff and I am still educating myself on the entire matter. The only way to get educated is to release music to the streaming services, affiliate with HFA AS PUBLISHER, and get the spreadsheets uploaded properly. It’s not easy, time consuming, and not fun, but if you don’t do the work, you don’t collect the money.
MECHANICAL ROYALTIES
Royalties paid to songwriters and artists when music is sold (think CD or vinyl) but also when music is streamed (streaming mechanicals) “on-demand” (like Spotify). Songwriting mechanical royalties are set by government through what’s called a compulsory license, which right now is set to about 9 cents of every dollar earned via sale.Current copyright regulation wasn’t created at a time when services like Spotify or Beats existed, (which are kind of a hybrid of ‘performance’ and a ‘sale’) so they pay both performance royalties and mechanical royalties to songwriters and artists.
Spotify pays about 10% of its revenue to songwriters (split between mechanical and performance royalties) and about 60% to the artists. Services like Spotify don’t have to negotiate with songwriters, because the government sets the rates – through the consent decree for PROs and a compulsory license for mechanical licenses.
Mechanical royalties for songwriting are usually paid by labels or artists to a third party, (traditionally for the major publisher it’s been HFA (the Harry Fox Agency), who pay the publishersHonestly, I find it pretty comical that you wrote paragraph upon paragraph telling me how you would never help me!
Actually I was directing my comments to “others” based on some revelations in other threads Alvaro. Send your music to UMG. I am sure you’ll do fine right where you started.
Art, I actually like investing the “Stock Music Market!” I agree with stock market investing but do it slowly…a little bit each month over 3 to 4 decades (I would not bet the house on it today because I sense a massive tumble coming soon). I also STRONGLY agree with other sources of income.
If you have the chops to write and mix at a very high level in many styles, I do think and hope it’s possible for a new youngster to make a living solely at production music. Perhaps some of you know about the 18 year old aussie who entered a site most are aware of and proceeded to sell about 1000 licenses a month. I think the youngster was pulling down 20K a month for a few months. Obviously a rare event. If you believe you are super talented, are willing to grind it out for 7 to 10 years and write 1000 high quality cues, you may have a shot at making a living where you can actually support a family.
That’s just the writing part. You better also be ready to do all the grunt admin work like endlessly prep spreadsheets, submit, make some cold calls, get on planes and possibly meet some folks in the big cities like NYC, London, and LA, send lots of emails, and really have a savvy business strategy overall.
Wall E, I appreciate your comment and I am sorry you feel that way. Let me just say that I have privately helped many people on a path toward meaningful income in this business. I am just not sure if it makes sense to amplify publicly specific contacts and data about where one earns the most amount of money, with which genre’s, etc. It’s business 101 from my perspective. If you have a business that is generating revenue, any business, is it wise to amplify exactly how you are doing it?
Do Google, Microsoft and Facebook reveal their 2018/ 2019 strategy and plans to their competition before they launch their products and services in their pipe line?
If you want to publicly reveal your best contacts, number of tracks you have, best earning libraries, what you earn at each and provide direct links to your highest earning tracks, etc you can do that, I just don’t think it’s wise. (This is my opinion). This IS a hyper competitive business . It takes a long, long time and a ton of effort to build one’s catalog and revenue in the music licensing business.
I really don’t get the “conspiracy of silence” comment. I don’t know of any “code of silence” in this business. I am certainly not silent here and I have given a lot of experienced perspective where people can absorb information and do what they need to do with it. PRO selection and strategy is one example (see other threads). I also gain a lot of perspective here from others comments and do not portend to know everything.
How am I “ruining” the business by not shouting out who I work with, not providing links to my portfolio, stating my best selling genre’s and tracks, which sites I have earned the most on, and so on…? This is where I think people need to use caution (again, just my opinion)
Wall E, I agree 100% with you when you say “do some research on this great website, lock yourself in the studio, work hard”…it all starts there!
Regarding silence when it comes to how to enact a strategy and to generate revenue – we can agree to disagree on that point. It took me many years, so I am sorry, I am not willing to publicly and freely state exactly how I did it. I will say that it begins with locking yourself in the studio and putting in 40 to 60 hours a week for at least 5 years!
Hi Huge…do you really think that those of us who have “been through the grinder” for 10 15 20 years are just going to publicly come out say “Send your music here and there, that Is where i make all my money!”
Come on huge…get in the trenches, roll up your sleeves, and do the hard work that we all had to do to figure out what worked for ourselves.
and to everyone in this forum…if you are having success at certain places, you must know by know that it is NOT in your interests to pull out the bull horn announcing loud and clear how well you are doing with a certain publisher/ licensing site, how many tracks you have there, the styles and genres that sell the best for you, links to your portfolio, and so on!
If you are succeeding, I advise keep your lips sealed tight. Telling people exactly how you are making money, with which libraries or sites, etc, in which genres, and so on… is foolish!
It has been for me a marathon run of 5 to 10 years to get my income to a level that I can be happy with licensing music through libraries. I am not going to tell anyone EXACTLY how I did it. It’s my hard work and trade secret how I got to where I did today in the music publishing/ music licensing business. I toughed it out through trial and error. i worked my butt off, quite frankly. I still am.
For me (or any of us really) to come here and say out loud to all: “send your music to these guys and those guys and call so and so…and e-mail that site and this site, and write in these genres..and so on…” is absurd! All you are doing is inviting more competition for yourself.
So everyone just go back to what this place was invented for: prudently commenting on our “experiences” with various music libraries. At this point in a hyper competitive and mature phase of the digital music licensing scene, think twice about what you say. If you are succeeding, keep it to yourself and do not tell anyone how you are succeeding.