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This is one of those cliche comments and not meant to be confrontational, but if it’s so easy to sell the music then why don’t composers do it themselves? I would suggest trying to do it yourself to get a better understanding of why it’s so hard to become a successful music library.
I’ve always considered 50/50 fair to be honest.
Also, it might be worth you calling PRS and asking them what they normally do in these situations.. Sometimes they are pretty helpful.
Hi again,
In the UK, this kind of deal is normal for big libraries. Exclusive, no-reversion, own all rights type of thing. And yea, no tracks on Itunes etc.
The reimbursing for MCPS registration sounds a bit odd to me but perhaps that’s just how Sonoton does it and it’s fine. I honestly don’t know since I haven’t heard of anyone doing this before and also have not worked with Sonoton myself. They do have a good reputation though from what I’ve heard.
The following is just for performing royalties…
In the UK there is no 100% publisher’s share and 100% writer’s share, there’s just a total 100% of performing royalties which usually gets split 50% to the writers and 50% to the publishers.
From what I’ve learnt, PRS will not accept a track being registered with them where the total performing royalty percentage to writers is under 50%. I.e. if there’s one writer only then he/she must have at least 50%. If there are multiple writers then they must collectively have at least 50%.
So to be honest, I’m not sure how you would do it in this case. There are some ways I’ve seen but I have no personal experience with them so am not sure how good they are – those being, you take a cut of the publisher’s share, or, you become a ‘writer’ on the track and take a cut that way. You need to hear from someone who’s got experience with this I think.
Glad it helped geezabrek. I remember the stress I had in the early years figuring all this out..
Let us know how you get on.
I don’t have any personal experience with them, but I’ve heard that Sonoton is pretty big. I think they are represented by APM in the US. It surprises me a lot that they would be asking writers to register at MCPS. The UK is such a big market I’d expect there to be a sub-publisher. I mean what do all the other writers at Sonoton do? And what does Sonoton do in all other countries?
I am a little confused by all this as it seems so unusual for a big company to ask for writers to register at MCPS.
Can’t Sonoton just collect the mechanicals via Germany’s GEMA? I don’t actually know if that works but I’ve seen it before I think. But if so, they could then pay you out that way too once they’ve received the mechanicals.
I’ve never heard of a UK exclusive library asking writers to register at MCPS. Which is the company you are talking to? Normally a large company will just have a sub-publisher in each region. I can’t think of any large company that doesn’t have this.
To answer your question: that is very difficult to know. Sometimes in the UK I think mechanicals can be quite substantial, it depends on the use of the tracks. I wouldn’t like to say yes or no since I cannot predict it. But I would think that not having any % of the mechanicals could be a big risk.
Hi. I have a lot of experience with this. I am a UK writer with publishers in the UK and abroad.
This is what I have learnt over the years:
First, make sure you understand any contract you are considering signing.
Also, you need to specify to us what kind of company and deal you have been offered, otherwise the advice may not be right.
However, let’s take the case that you’ve been offered an exclusive deal with a UK library (publisher). In that case:
1. Yes, you should join PRS as a writer member. You will now have a CAE. That is your unique writer identifier number, for life. You will give this to your publisher.
2. Do NOT register your tracks with PRS. If you sign exclusively to a big publisher, it is part of the deal that they do this for you, as your publisher. They will then assign the track whatever % split you have on the contract. If you register the tracks yourself first, there will be duplicate entries that then have to be corrected. Also, even if you put in the publisher correctly when you register the track, PRS will not accept this – a writer cannot add a publisher (I know from personal experience).
3. No one I know nor myself has ever registered anything with anyone except PRS (and MCPS but that’s done by the publiser). I haven’t heard of there being a problem. Additionally, if you are signing with a big UK publisher, then if there is an infringement on your work, as far as I know, in theory, that publisher will go after the infringer as part of their deal with you.
If your deal is non-exclusive, then that changes things a lot.
Hi,
MCPS is to collect mechanical royalties. Normally writers do not join MCPS. Publishers join MCPS and collect all the mechanical royalties for all the writers they represent. The publishers then distribute the writer’s % to the writer after receiving the payment from MCPS.
The above is standard practice as far as I know (e.g. Sony/EMI etc do it this way). If it is an American publisher then standard is to have a UK sub-publisher at MCPS.
Remember that in the UK we do not have 100% writer’s share and 100% publisher’s share adding up to 200%. We just have a total of 100% to be split between writer and publisher.
If you’d like any more info let me know.
Usually the loops I’m asked for are 10-15s.
To avoid clicking and to make the loop seamless, you can export “as loop”, which takes any tail like a delay and adds it to the beginning of the loop. This is an incredibly useful feature. I always check my loops in the DAW and listen for the transition. I don’t use fades or silence.
I’ve made thousands of loops this way over the course of my life!
As Mark said, if they offer you some up front money per track on signing the contract then a lower synch % could be acceptable. To me this always shows that they are serious about selling your music and are confident they can do so. Which are really good signs in a library..
The only other time I’ve had a lower synch split was because the tracks were being contracted by not just the library but also a production company, and were specifically for that company. Probably not my finest hour of negotiation but that company has a huge share of the television market, so the deal was that the tracks would generate a lot of backend.
Unless there’s a really good reason, 50% of synch is what I consider fair. No matter which library it is.
Performance free refers to a library music model in which the music which is sold has no PRO registration and therefore can not receive broadcast royalties (back end). I.e. even if a cue sheet were filed the track would not receive back end because it is not PRO registered.
Performance free libraries market to their customers as being completely free of all royalties and only accept composers with either a) no PRO affiliation or b) specific tracks outside PRO registration (while the same composer may have different tracks PRO registered). According to my understanding b) is technically against the Ts and Cs of some PROS, e.g. PRS in the UK.
What you mentioned – a track from an RF library with no cue sheet submitted – is something that probably happens much too often.. but it’s not performance free. It’s more like an accidentally s*** situation. If the composer chased it down and got a cue sheet filed, then provided it’s within a certain time limit (like a year or so I think) the composer could get paid the backend on such a usage.
I hope that explains it.
What MichaelL says at the end of the last post is basically my experience.
I have tracks with libraries like Extreme/Sony and I also have tracks with RF libraries. I use the same name for everything and no one has ever cared at all. What I have heard in top tier world as being a major problem is performance free. That’s both composer and publisher suicide in most people’s view.
Also.. for what it’s worth, I’ve probably done better in financial terms through RF than I have with even the top libraries, but I think that’s unusual. On the other hand, my most prestigious placements have been through the top tier libraries.