[Music1234]

They pay any way they feel like paying. There is 0 accountability and 0 transparency. What John said…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).

[Music1234]

@ Wall_E, The last time a German company asked me for my PRO details about a track it turned into tens of thousands of dollars in performance royalties from GEMA, to my USA PRO, to my bank account. I am still collecting on the project. It was one of the largest ad campaigns I have ever been associated with. So short story: Just give them your pro details about that track asap.

[Music1234]

@Tbone, well they clearly do not know what they are doing. If they represent works by an ASCAP writer, the only way to collect publishing royalties for that writer’s works is by having a publishing entity affiliated with ASCAP. This is the case worldwide, at every PRO.

My ASCAP publishing entity can not collect publishers royalties for a SESAC or BMI writer.

My Hunch is that maybe there is a weird scenario where the publisher moved an entire catalog over to SESAC and there is a glitch in the system (for now).

The easiest solution for all is to be a publisher member at all 3 PRO’s.

[Music1234]

Tbone, any serious publisher will be “Publisher members” (i.e. affiliated as a publisher) at all 3 PRO’s because they are most likely representing the works of writers from all 3 PRO’s.

If someone is a “writer” at ASCAP, but a “publisher” at SESAC all they have to do is apply to become a publisher at ASCAP to resolve their conflicts.

[Music1234]

For Bigger Brands the broadcast TV Spo rates are often as follows:

Worldwide audience = $25,000 to 40K – Think NIKE, MCD’s PG, Coke, GOOGLE, INTEl, MICROSOFT
National USA TV Audience = $15K to 20K
Regional Advertising Tv $5K to 10K – Think Only Northeast USA (but NYC included)
Single City TV Ads – $2500 to $5000 – NYC, LA, CHICAGO
Local ads: $1000 to $3000

Some of my recent examples;

BMW National radio paid 5K

Delta Faucets/ Amazon / Alexa Co-op paid 7K for the license (airs mostly on cable)

$2000 Jingle for a seed company airing in Minnesota Only on radio

However, it really is the wild west because many times ad agencies will take advantage of the cheap offerings on the sites we all know of and get a track on national spot for a lousy $100 to $1000 or so. That is just sad and it is enabled by stupid site operators who don’t understand this business beyond the youtube buying crowd and small business, mom and pop operations. AJ and P5 just do not have a barrier in place to talk about bigger ad campaigns to up sell the client properly.

[Music1234]

I get statements from all 3 as publisher. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. I have been fortunate to observe statements and utilize their on line logins to: Register titles, browse my accounts and the data inside, study statements, etc….

SESAC is not exactly “invite only” if you have an extremely professional looking presentation on your own web site and appear to be quite accomplished with lots of high end credits you can e-mail them and “apply” to become a writer and/ or publisher member. SESAC does pay royalties off of TUNESAT detection sheets as well as filed cue sheets and filed jingle/ tv spot claims. The communication with them is solid. If I have an issue, I can communicate by email or phone to resolve questions.
SESAC Cons: They do not pay royalties for radio ads that air.

ASCAP PROs: The pay 8 checks a year – 4 domestic royalty distributions for USA air dates and 4 international distributions. It’s nice to get 8 checks a year. They also display all USA TV Show cue sheets in your account so you can see all the shows using your music. They seem to do a great job with facilitating payments from foreign societies and often the foreign royalties are greater than the domestic royalties.

ASCAP Cons: E-mail and phone Communication with ASCAP reps is more challenging. I often feel ignored by this PRO when I have questions about issues. They also neglect TV networks like BTN and other cable TV sports networks. Their rates of pay for TV spot royalties seems to be a lot weaker compared to BMI and SESAC.

BMI PRO’s: They seem to pay for more money for USA domestic TV channels than ASCAP based on my statement observations.

Cons: I have not been very impressed with foreign collections and I can not see any cue sheets in my on line account so the only data I see is 4 royalty statements each year.

It really does seem to be a coin toss but if I really had to pick as a new writer just getting started, I’d join SESAC.

[Music1234]

I didn’t even understand the problem much less what to do about it or who to go to.

This is the exact reason why it is best to just upload your entire catalog yourself to:
A. Quickly understand how Content ID works
B. Initiate and maintain control of your compositions in the YOUTUBE universe.

It’s also nice to get access to every detected video using your music tracks on YOUTUBE so you can see who is using the music and how they are using it. Of course, it’s also nice to collect the content ID royalties every quarter.

A lot of publishers and libraries were crafty and manipulative with the way they handled CID “Opt in”. Many took the “bait”. In some cases, some just said “screw it, let’s upload everything to ADREV or HAAWK. HAAWK is owned by the founder of ADREV by the way. Then there were just thieves out there who also just uploaded others music as if were their own.

So newbies and youngbies, anyone just getting started, beware of all the nuances of music licensing, content ID, exclusive deals, distribution rights, and so on.

These days, when you sign a track to an exclusive publisher they want to enter the title into CID, they want to distribute the music to Spotify, apple, amazon, facebook, youtube, google play, tidal, and so on. The publisher wants full control of every revenue stream and they want to be the first to collect it, and frankly, probably not share it properly.

I could not imagine trying to execute accounting back to writers by a Music Publisher who may see CVS files with 900,0000 cells of CID royalty data, and perhaps 500 to 1000 writers to “split” the CID revenue with.

Have you ever bothered to ask AS how they execute CID accounting?

[Music1234]

Pat, I think some of us hear have run into issues where our distributors (CD Baby, Distro Kid, etc) to Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, YOUTUBE RED, TIDAL, etc. have “accidentally” and by an “intern mistake” have had our music and albums entered into youtube’s Content ID.

My solution was simple – all of my tracks are going into youtube’s content ID under my own account so I am the first collector of CID ad revenue royalties and everyone will have to answer back to me for “conflicts” “whitelisting” , “takes downs”, etc.

I think most composers with large catalogs have run into this issue and were left with no other solution other than to take control of the situation themselves. The two top sellers on AJ definitely ran into this issue so they put all their tracks into ADREV.

You’d think by now, July 2020, that every film maker, content creator, corporation, post house, vlogger, youtuber, hobbyist, etc…would understand that certain steps need to be taken to ensure that a newly released youtube video has been “cleared” for music usage.

We always hear the story “well I don’t want to upset or cause problems for customers who do buy a music license”. In theory, I agree, but using a composers intellectual property has it’s “issues” and one of those is youtubers must learn to upload their music license certificate (Proof of music license purchased) to YOUTUBE to ensure that their video does not get a copyright claim. That’s my 2 cents on the matter.

[Music1234]

I had my worst July payment in five years, but I’m not too worried – could be that some cue sheets were late

Same here. Down 33%. I am slighlty worried because I just have to wonder if TV royalties are getting “borrowed” from committed TV writers to supplement the checks of popular artists who rely 100% on Live touring, concerts, radio airplay, stadium plays of their songs, retail store, hotel, restaurants, and airline plays of their popular songs.

The fact of the matter is that in these settings I listed above, the music stopped playing, and the customers stopped listening. Meanwhile Spotify’s stock has soared to earth shattering record highs during this pandemic. $130 a Share to $285 a share in just 3 months.

One thing is for sure Daniel Ek’s (Founder and CEO of Spotify) net worth has tripled during this pandemic. Isn’t this business interesting? Every pop music creator and live performing musician has been decimated during this pandemic, but Daniel EK now has a net worth of 6 Billion Dollars.

Tech Grus exploit and win every time. They “herd up” the content creators to exploit them as slaves and pay them fractions of pennies while they book hundreds of millions of subscriber fees. Spotify did create a tip jar though for all artists. They actually want subscribers to “tip” artists during the pandemic…LOL!

Content creators always get the short end of the stick.

[Music1234]

Great news Art, Let us know if BMI has stated that they will honor I Spot TV data.

[Music1234]

Good news Art, you should be paid for every air date period. I have seen that spot on tv several times this past month or so and I only really watch TV in the evenings for 1 or 2 hours, mostly news.

BMI should honor the I Spot TV data. If they don’t, we may just have to riot. That spot is no small potatoes especially since the Sheen’s are in the deal. Performance royalties to composers and publishers always come from ad spend. Your music is helping to sell the service single care is offering and they clearly have a BIG ad budget to spend on network and cable TV. The TV networks send a portion of that ad revenue to our PRO’s so we can get paid for those performances. Basically, you are owed 5 figuresin Jan 2021 (Possibly half on the September Payout) based on the data I am seeing below. Congrats….this is a big one!

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/nf4I/single-care-martin-sheen-saves-on-prescription-drugs

[Music1234]

Of course we like composing, but we also like making money and we come here to discuss our business.

Maybe change the name of this website to “Music Money Report”.

I started and joined a band for fun, but I was surrounded by people who made a living making and playing music on a professional level. My father, uncles, grandfather, brothers, sister, even cousins. So I was born into the make money while making and performing music concept. I quickly began to make money from performing then writing and producing for ads. I always made a bunch of music and never knew if would make money or not make money. I actually always thought library and stock music would end up being extra “hobby” income at most, but then it became full time income. So in summary, I made music for fun, then for money, then for fun again, then to make money again. This forum is called “Music Library Report”. It’s a place where professionals come to exchange ideas about how to make money off of production, film, tv, advertising, and trailer music. Production music by nature engages in commerce, that is the main purpose, to service the media industry with useful compositions, scores, soundtracks, catchy tunes for all media.
So yep, we are here to make music and make money. I almost never am getting paid money to compose new music soundtracks, but then I bring those tracks to market and it eventually makes money. It’s the best of both worlds.

[Music1234]

Amazon VOD – $8
HULU – $50
NETFLIX – $139

Internet audiovisual totals: $198
For me the Lion’s of my performance royalties is still coming from Network TV, Cable TV, Local TV and Foreign TV airplays. While internet audio visual aka “streaming” is showing some tiny improvement beyond fractions of cents, it is still paying exponentially less than broadcast TV.

Congrats on the HULU success Mark. I’d imagine you have some cues/ scores in very popular HULU movies getting tens of millions of streams? 10K can not possibly be coming from reality TV episodes streaming on demand?

[Music1234]

Hi Unique Place, please post the link to the ad using your track and maybe we can help you. It can take from 6 to 24 months to be paid performance royalties depending on the PRO you are affiliated with. If you have a placement in a tv spot that began to air June 1, 2020. you most likely will not collect any performance royalties until January 2021 the earliest. If you are a member of a non American PRO, it may take 1 to 2 years to collect. Writing music for media is a business based on endurance and extreme patience. We are not financially awarded “immediately” in this business. We have to be willing to wait a long, long time before our performance royalties arrive.

[Music1234]

It’s really fascinating how misunderstood this business still is even by the most experienced pros. (I don’t know everything either, but I have learned through trial and error) Most people will live an entire life and never fully understand how this business works. It is a very complicated business though. There are are just so many tems and every single one of them is misunderstood by the majority:
-CID
-Royalty Free
-Performance royalty free
-Subscription
-Blanket
-Back end
-PROS
-Neighbouring Rights
-Publisher
-Sub Publisher
-Original Publisher
-Retitle
-Sync Rights
-Master and Sync
-royalties
-sync fees
-music license
-up front sync license
-advance
-library
-sync agent
-stock music site
-RF site
-buy out
-reversion clause

Ask 20 different “pros” in this business and they will not be able to agree on what any of these terms mean above. When all is said and done, this is a complicated business and it takes years and years and years to understand these terms.

And Yes, I too have made substantial royalties “on the back end” from some very high profile placements where the the music was sourced from web sites where you’d least expect that to happen. The music licensing landscape has changed drastically over the last 7 years. Owning and controlling 100% of your writers share and 100% publishing share is more important than ever. NE deals are still fine in my book and it’s an overt lie when music libraries state “our clients are demanding that we only offer exclusive music in our castalog.” That is a LIE! 100% false statement. I have had literally thousands of placesments with my 100% Non Exclusive music air on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN, BRAVO, Discovery, ESPN, BTN, USA Network, HBO, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central and all of them, to this day it’s still happening.

[Author]

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