[Tbone]

Happy Holidays to all.. I’m also very glad to be a part of this community!

[Tbone]

In the UK 50/50 on total broadcast royalties (otherwise known as PRS or performing) is normal at all libraries I’ve dealt with. We don’t say 50% of “the writer’s share” we just say 50% of broadcast which is your complete writer’s share.

Your £50 may have come from the MCPS license fee. I’m not sure how Sentric works so I don’t know for sure. As an individual composer in the UK you can’t and are not supposed to join MCPS normally – the library is an MCPS member, collects the total MCPS fee and then gives you your %. Less than 50% on MCPS is not unheard of, particularly on big opportunities.

So your monies…

MCPS: Channel 4 primetime could well be £50 in MCPS – I’ve had less for similar things. But don’t know for sure in your situation.

PRS: I think it’s about £30/minute for Channel 4 primetime, very approximately. (You can look this up on the PRS website somewhere). Depending on how often it aired and how long your music played for in each airing you could have missed out on a little bit. Very difficult to say without cue sheets.

Which library in London have you got an offer from?

I recommend the discerning approach. Also, call up the library and ask them what they are looking for right now. Then submit that if you have it.

[Tbone]

If it’s an RF library promoting your tracks then 1 year is enough. If it’s PRO then I’d wait 3 years but I wouldn’t give them more than an album’s worth of material until proven.

Can you get the tracks back out of the deal?

[Tbone]

Worse than the last quarter too, but doesn’t mean much in my experience. They go up and down.. but in general up over time.

Did you see the thing about France SACEM suddenly deciding to withold 33% from PRS? I don’t understand how that’s even legal under the current treaty.

[Tbone]

I hope this doesn’t come across as too blunt but this is simply not right.

Basically what they’re saying is: we’ll give you 50% of performance and 0% of synch. That is absolutely ridiculous. It would be bad enough if they said 50% performance and 10% synch.

I would tell them you want 50% of both like you would get with just about any major library. You can always drop to 40 or even 30% of synch, but I don’t see ANY reason why you can’t get a synch split.

Here’s a question for them:

“If 90% of your profit comes from performance, what does it really take away from you to have the composer sharing in the synch”?

I don’t like the sound of this at all.

Admin trouble for sending out shares of blanket licenses is no excuse whatsoever to just put the composer down for 0%!

[Tbone]

Wow… this just completely blows Tunesat out of the water. Not even picking up tracks which are then paid by BMI.. I’m not sure how it could be missing so much.

[Tbone]

I would really like the ability to remove tracks – I noticed this isn’t possible at the moment and it put me off from uploading anything.

[Tbone]

Wow, that is exceptionally bad… and actually sounds malicious to me but then I don’t know the circumstances.

What a nightmare this could be for library work that isn’t already in Content ID.

[Tbone]

Now that I understand this better I find it staggeringly stupid that a non-exclusive library would enter its tracks into Content ID.

I was also wondering about what would happen if some nasty individual just started uploading tracks to Content ID which they didn’t own. It could create an absolute nightmare.

[Tbone]

Very interesting stuff and again very useful.

Ok I think I’m getting the hang of this now. Something I do wonder about is what stops unscrupulous people from uploading music to Content ID and trying to steal the Youtube royalties this way? Especially for smaller labels/artists this could be a problem perhaps. Or is it more robust?

[Tbone]

Wow… that response is hugely appreciated. Thank you Mark.

I don’t yet have an issue, but I’ve just launched a side-project, for which I suddenly realised I needed to know about Youtube – and also suddenly realised how little I know.

That all makes sense – except for in my last question I meant it in terms of:

If the track is not in Content ID, can more than one Youtube channel upload the track in a video and monetize that video? (Now I’ve seen your answers I’m guessing this must be yes!)

E.g. I let three different channels upload a video with my track in and all three channels independently monetize their videos – it’s not like the first channel gets to monetize but not the subsequent ones right?

[Tbone]

To clarify my question a bit:

1. When any piece of audio is uploaded to Youtube is it fingerprinted:

a) automatically?
b) only if it’s also monetized in the Youtube channel?
c) only if the channel is in Content ID?
d) not at all?

2. If 1 is no, then how do you get it fingerprinted?

3. Can more than one Youtube channel monetize the same piece of audio? (I’m guessing not).

[Tbone]

Based on my PRS experience:

Yes, register your tracks. No, the LIB extension will not mark it as not pulling royalties – it just marks it as production music. Most production music in the UK is for TV at the top end anyway. Again based on my experience I wouldn’t worry about it, just register the tracks.

EDIT: Also, PROs don’t usually hunt down royalties, you just need to be registered and have a CAE – that is a composer identifier number – and you need to register the tracks, so that in case they are on broadcast programs you will get paid.

[Tbone]

Agree with Mark that it is an absolutely massive undertaking. Most will fail even with sustained, intelligent effort.

Mark: how would you say yours is going these days? I hesitate to ask, ‘was it all worth it’ as that’s silly, but is it moving along well?

[Tbone]

Imagine the fallout if you buy the rights to something that then gets a lawsuit filed against it…

[Author]

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