# International royalties question!



## passenger57 (Mar 14, 2012)

I've been getting residuals from ASACP domestically and internationally BUT I've never gotten a SINGLE DIME from Germany or Japan and I know for a fact that my movies have been playing regularly there for years.
Also I've been contacted by sub-publishers that specialize in certain areas, but I'm worried about how trustworthy they are. 
I've talked to several of my fellow working composer buddies about this very subject and everyone is just as confused as I am. Even ASCAP!
Thoughts?
Thanks!


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## IvanP (Mar 15, 2012)

I think everybody has the same problem...my documentaries are being shown in more than 130 countries and I am only getting from Spain and a couple other European countries. 

I have signed with a publisher in Spain that deals with this...but he's specialized in knowing which strings to pull in the country's PRO, which is the one where the rights need to go...in order to contact and retrieve royalties from other countries, they need to sub-publish indeed...but I felt I didn't have any other choice, so I just tried...and it will take looong time for sure...

In between, I also found an international agency that deals with this. At the end, I chose the local one since it had direct contact with my PRO, but this one doesn't seemed too shabby either:

http://www.fintagehouse.com/businesssolutions/music/

Hope that helps, 

Ivan


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## Jaap (Mar 15, 2012)

You could try to take it in your own hands and subscribe to tunesat (http://www.tunesat.com/)
Check out where and when and who played your track and with that info call your PRO and/or contact the ones broadcasting your stuff and try to get those cuesheets filled in.


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## passenger57 (Mar 16, 2012)

Thanks so much for the info! I'll check both sites and see what I can find out


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 16, 2012)

I've gotten royalties from Germany and Japan over the years, but I'm in Canada (SOCAN).


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## Ed (Mar 16, 2012)

Jaap @ Thu Mar 15 said:


> You could try to take it in your own hands and subscribe to tunesat (http://www.tunesat.com/)
> Check out where and when and who played your track and with that info call your PRO and/or contact the ones broadcasting your stuff and try to get those cuesheets filled in.



Id be very interested in peoples experience with this


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## gsilbers (Mar 16, 2012)

Jaap @ Thu Mar 15 said:


> You could try to take it in your own hands and subscribe to tunesat (http://www.tunesat.com/)
> Check out where and when and who played your track and with that info call your PRO and/or contact the ones broadcasting your stuff and try to get those cuesheets filled in.



interesting. 

how much is it for all channels around the world. ?

and is it safe to upload all tracks?


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## passenger57 (Mar 16, 2012)

I've had several films playing constantly on tv in Germany and Japan since 2008 and I haven't gotten a dime. I've even asked a big name composer friend about it and he has no clue how it works either. I'm totally stumped on what to do as I have no agent or sub-publisher and am totally on my own to figure it out. ASCAP doesn't seem to have much influence on these matters. I'm only told it sometimes takes three years in some countries.
The main country I regularly get residuals from is the UK, and I just got my first one from France last month.
I'd gladly give a sub publisher a cut of the $ if I knew they we're reputable.


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## _taylor (Mar 16, 2012)

Royalties from Japan here, in the last 2 internl. statements, and that was aired fairly recently too, not 2008 or something. 

Still waiting to see any from Germany, all though my stuff just recently was used over there so I'm patient. 


Try someone at https://www.gema.de/en/

Couldn't hurt


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## passenger57 (Mar 16, 2012)

Many thanks! I'll check it out


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## Gerd Kaeding (Mar 16, 2012)

passenger57 @ Wed Mar 14 said:


> I've been getting residuals from ASACP domestically and internationally BUT I've never gotten a SINGLE DIME from Germany or Japan and I know for a fact that my movies have been playing regularly there for years.
> Also I've been contacted by sub-publishers that specialize in certain areas, but I'm worried about how trustworthy they are.
> I've talked to several of my fellow working composer buddies about this very subject and everyone is just as confused as I am. Even ASCAP!
> Thoughts?
> Thanks!



Hi passenger ,

Over here in Germany the broadcasters _have_ to report to the german PRO ( GEMA ) every second of broadcastet music. But we all know that there are many things that can go wrong in that process ( _... Distributors send out incorrect or faulty Cuesheets to the TV Stations ; TV Station "forgets" to send its music reports to the PRO ; PRO makes a failure ; etc. ... _) .

However , depending on which TV Channels your music is broadcastet you will receive royalties ... or not :
Some TV Stations have a lower ranking ( ... which will generate no or just a tiny amount of royalties ... ), others a higher ranking ( -> more royalties ... ).

At least once a year GEMA collects the royalties from the TV stations and will forward the royalties to foreign PRO's like ASCAP . 

If you like , just send me a list of your movies / TV series and I can investigate the german titles and maybe find out on which program they were broadcastet.
You can then send that list to ASCAP , so that they can contact GEMA .

Nevertheless , getting international royalties is sometimes a very long process.

By the way , tunesat actually can survey quite a few - at least the most important - german TV-Stations. GEMA accepts any info based on the tunesat tracking.

Best
Gerd


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## Jaap (Mar 17, 2012)

@Ed 

I use it since 2 months now and I am quite happy with it. I have a lot of music at different music libraries and I had the feeling that for some I didn't receive any backend and that cuesheets where not filed properly.
I managed to find a few cues that have been used in some commercials (for example a christmas song I wrote was used in a national swedish commercial in 2009). I checked my PRO statements and hadn't got anything for it.
I provided PRS with the tunesat info and they are gonna collect the income now. 

@gsilbers

You pay per amount of tracks you have with them. They create a digital fingerprint and even if your track is renamed or if they only used a snippet it will be traced (will be traced with the master recording you upload). There is actually a lot of info in the FAQ on the site: http://www.tunesat.com/faq

I have 10 tracks with them for all channels and also the web and setup is 20 dollar and monthly fee is 39 dollar.

I found this via MusicLibraryReport and it's quite widely used and it's not a fraud


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 17, 2012)

What I'm wondering is why the big associations like ASCAP, SOCAN, GEMA, etc, wouldn't use similar software? And if not, shouldn't we be pressuring them to do so?


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## Jaap (Mar 17, 2012)

We should. The technique with digital fingerprinting has come quite to an advance and indeed PRO's should follow. I think most PRO's already accept reports by tunesat. At least PRS and BUMA do for sure and somebody pointed out also GEMA does. I read about experiences that BMI and Ascap also accept it, so I think most of them embraced already the reports. Now they just need to implement this in their old systems.
For me it proves that most of the PRO's are hopeless dinosaurs who are running far behind.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 17, 2012)

Actually, I think that here in Canada, SOCAN does a pretty good job (at least based on the reports that I get). But maybe I'm wrong?...


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## Jaap (Mar 17, 2012)

Well I think most of them of course work very hard to get the reports right and when the producers fill in the cuesheets nicely then most of them work great I think.

I think the problem at the moment is that with smaller projects and quick licensing and a couple of music libraries who don't push cuesheets that a lot of tracks get lost in the process. Also more and more of our music is used via the web, online games etc and royalties get lost there while it could be picked up.


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## flashman (Mar 17, 2012)

Two routes: If you own the publishing in the music in question then you get a good international publisher who specialises in collecting royalties from overseas.

Most of the time that is not the case. 

The shows are probably correctly registered in the US but when you look on the PRS, SACEM or GEMA sites there is either little or no information. If you are not a member of a foreign society it is very difficult to find that out. It's the publisher's problem but they just do absolutely nothing. It's a real scandal.

A/ Make sure the whole show and all the episodes are correctly registered overseas

B/ Crucially, make sure the cuesheet is linked to the registration. Without this you will only get a tiny fraction of what you are owed. 

C/ once the above two are done, merge all the cues into one single registration for ease of management.

At this point you will have a completely clean registration and should be eligible for an ISWC number which will make collecting royalties much simpler

If they don't register it correctly first time around you will always be struggling to catch up and never get half the money you are owed. 

We've been having a major campaign on this for the last year with someone working on it probably two days a week and the money we are finding makes it well worthwhile but it is extremely complex and involves constant meetings and emails with the PRO to get them to do stuff. We are finding it tough and we are also publisher members so one guy with a single doc would really struggle.

Ultimately it is a failure by the publishers and you need to let the production company know there's a problem. Potentially there could be five figure sums out there for big shows but after three years its gone, lost forever.......

It's a very big deal and something needs to be done about it.


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## gsilbers (Mar 17, 2012)

Jaap @ Sat Mar 17 said:


> @Ed
> 
> I use it since 2 months now and I am quite happy with it. I have a lot of music at different music libraries and I had the feeling that for some I didn't receive any backend and that cuesheets where not filed properly.
> I managed to find a few cues that have been used in some commercials (for example a christmas song I wrote was used in a national swedish commercial in 2009). I checked my PRO statements and hadn't got anything for it.
> ...



thanks! yes i read the FAQ but didnt find pricing. 

seems a bit expensive for me now. if i had more tracks internationally i would totally do it.


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## gsilbers (Mar 17, 2012)

Ned Bouhalassa @ Sat Mar 17 said:


> What I'm wondering is why the big associations like ASCAP, SOCAN, GEMA, etc, wouldn't use similar software? And if not, shouldn't we be pressuring them to do so?




i agree . this business is more about eveyone on thier own. not like factory workers who all are in the same place and chatting about this stuff and trying to do some change. 

like that composers union that still havent taken off. 

and im betting those companies are pocketing our. unintegration


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## Question (Mar 17, 2012)

Very interesting topic.

If I understand correctly, we are talking about two different tracking methods.

A) Music that someone writes (such as library or pop music) gets used and broadcast in a film, and Tunesat recognizes that
this music belongs to you.

B) Music that someone writes for a SPECIFIC film, that film gets broadcast, and as Gerd pointed out, the copyright information does not get transmitted reliably to the PRO.

I have never used "Tunesat", it looks quite interesting, but seems more suited for music such as I described in "A".
(Please correct me if I am wrong)

Since the music that I write falls into category "B", I have used a company in Germany called "Media Control", for which I paid a one time kind of a "search fee" to track how many times a specific film was broadcast in the previous year.

The Pro in Germany, GEMA, accepted their tracking and paid me my royalties, albeit a year later!

I would be interested if anyone has used Tunesat to track films or commercials in category "B".


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## flashman (Mar 17, 2012)

They're sort of one and the same. Tunesat is just a very good way of tracking where you're stuff is played and that gives you the ammunition to lodge a claim with your PRO. But Tunesay charge by the track so for a film or a series you would need to register just the main title for example and use that to establish whether the whole series or film was broadcast. I don't know yet how various PRO's accept Tunesat information without further proof of transmission.


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## Daryl (Mar 18, 2012)

gsilbers @ Sat Mar 17 said:


> like that composers union that still havent taken off.


That's never going to happen. Why would it, when it would need the approval of studios and producers to recognise it? It's not in their interest, so thy wouldn't. None of the high earning composers need it anyway, and the lower earning composers would just succeed in losing the job to someone cheaper.

D


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## gsilbers (Mar 18, 2012)

Daryl @ Sun Mar 18 said:


> gsilbers @ Sat Mar 17 said:
> 
> 
> > like that composers union that still havent taken off.
> ...



exactly. ! and great for another thread to not deviate. 

now, you mentioned high earning composers....

how do they track their stuff internationally?... (that is.. if they care) 

and still, as someone already asked.. why doesnt BMI or ASCAP use services like tunestat.? as i learned.. both have a different way of calculating royalties. 
seems like a mess imo. but also , it might not be a easy thing to do in general. 

and, the FAQ says that they track web royalties...
that seems crazy to track. do they do like netflix/hulu/etc or radio play stream?
i thought none of those gave royalties.


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## Ed (Mar 19, 2012)

Thanks for some more thoughts on TuneSat!!

Does anyone know how it works if you have a feature film? I swear the cuesheets have been screwed up for my only feature, but I have only the film registered with my PRO not individual cues, so whats the plan if you have a show TV show or film? Someone above said you register your main titles and then use that to track the film, anyone done that with success?


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## Ed (Mar 19, 2012)

gsilbers @ Sun Mar 18 said:


> and, the FAQ says that they track web royalties...
> that seems crazy to track. do they do like netflix/hulu/etc or radio play stream?
> i thought none of those gave royalties.



All I know is PRS do apparently now pay for Youtube royalties. You have to find it yourself though it seems. also no idea how much you get


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## cc64 (Mar 19, 2012)

Ed @ Mon Mar 19 said:


> Thanks for some more thoughts on TuneSat!!
> 
> Does anyone know how it works if you have a feature film? I swear the cuesheets have been screwed up for my only feature, but I have ony the film registered with my PRO not individual tracks, so whats the plan if you have a show TV show or film?



Hi Ed,

the important thing is always the cue sheet...But you don't need to register every cue separately if your the only composer on the film. You just enter for example Background music 43 min 14 secs Composer Ed Bradshaw. At least that's how it works with SOCAN here in Canada

Then if you're a client with Tunesat you fingerprint the cue that is most likely to not get cut out for various reasons, end titles for example on TV are often completely buried under tv announcers telling you to stay tuned for House MD etc... I tend to choose 1M1(Opening titles/scene) for every film i want to track. Not likely the opening scene of a movie would get cut anywhere...You don't want to register every cut of every film with Tunesat , it'll cost you a bundle...

HTH

Claude


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## passenger57 (May 14, 2012)

Hi there! I had to stay off the radar of this thread for a bit as I finished a score.
Thank you for all the incredibly valuable information here!! 
However I do have one question - 
I recently got my international royalties and they are much much lower than they should be (especially in the UK) Anyone know who to contact for performing rights in the UK? I made decent residuals in the last distribution for less movies airing there. Now I've had three times the airings and a quarter less return. I don't get it. :| 
(I'm with ASCAP by the way)
Thank you!


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## Daryl (May 14, 2012)

http://www.prsformusic.com/Pages/default.aspx

D


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## passenger57 (May 14, 2012)

flashman @ Sat Mar 17 said:


> Two routes: If you own the publishing in the music in question then you get a good international publisher who specialises in collecting royalties from overseas.
> 
> Most of the time that is not the case.
> 
> ...



After digesting this information, I now realize I'm being majorly screwed somehow


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## passenger57 (May 14, 2012)

Anyone know a reputable, honest sub publisher specializing in the UK? 
Thank you!


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## Brobdingnagian (May 14, 2012)

passenger57 @ Mon May 14 said:


> Anyone know a reputable, honest sub publisher specializing in the UK?
> Thank you!




...and in France and Deutschland? 

In this day and age it really can't be THIS hard. Tedious when you see so many inconsistencies. My favourites are when you have both the writer's AND the publishing, yet they differ. Someone might think that the PRO is hedging their bets that the right hand would never speak to the left hand....

As IP rights get eroded.....and these monies disappear into "black boxes"...one has to wonder. As if composing and even just landing gigs isn't hard enough......

Sorry. Grumble over. Don't fret for me boys, I am doing just fine. But what is fair is fair.


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## passenger57 (May 14, 2012)

It's like this - Lets say you own the writer and publisher on a bunch of movies you scored. All your cue sheets are registered w/ ASCAP. Domestic residuals are fine and accounted for. Then you get the residuals for the movies that aired over thirty times (many in prime time) in a single quarter on tv in the UK and you only get a few hundred bucks? Something is seriously wrong here. ASCAP doen't seem to know what to do, most my fellow composer friends don't know what to do, it's very frustrating. I'm grasping at straws here, what's the next step?


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## Brobdingnagian (May 14, 2012)

passenger57 @ Mon May 14 said:


> Something is seriously wrong here. ASCAP doen't seem to know what to do, most my fellow composer friends don't know what to do, it's very frustrating.



I received my ASCAP statement today too. Yes it was for a tidy sum, but a fraction of what it should be. I tracked MANY airings in several major countries and I share your frustration. It would be nice not to look at International statements as variable windfalls, but instead, as solid as our domestic statements. Here is hoping.

FYI - yes, I reached out to my contacts in various agencies, bureaus etc.... aside from grumbling on this board....we'll see what happens. (Hint - I won't be holding my breath)....


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## RiffWraith (May 14, 2012)

Brobdingnagian @ Tue May 15 said:


> I tracked MANY airings in several major countries....



Hi - can you explain how you do this?

Thanks!


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## José Herring (May 14, 2012)

IvanP @ Thu Mar 15 said:


> I think everybody has the same problem...my documentaries are being shown in more than 130 countries and I am only getting from Spain and a couple other European countries.
> 
> I have signed with a publisher in Spain that deals with this...but he's specialized in knowing which strings to pull in the country's PRO, which is the one where the rights need to go...in order to contact and retrieve royalties from other countries, they need to sub-publish indeed...but I felt I didn't have any other choice, so I just tried...and it will take looong time for sure...
> 
> ...



I have a title being released this summer in European territories first. I'm giving Fintage a try. I'll keep people posted on how it does. But, apparently they handle publishing for a lot of bigger film companies that do foreign markets. Should be interesting to see if it makes a difference.

International royalties for me has been a mixed bag. I'm hoping there's something out there that can sort it out. ASCAP just isn't up to the task.


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## passenger57 (May 14, 2012)

Thank you fellas
Well you know what they say...follow the money. SOMEONE'S getting our money! Sounds like a racket - criminal, stealing from us musicians as usual. There is no way all that money is just floating around in space somewhere. Without residuals I can't put food on the table for my family, so looks like I'm feeding someone else's kids free of charge


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## Brobdingnagian (May 14, 2012)

FWIW, one can never be too vigilant. I will share a recent tale...in case it interests any of you, my brethren...

A popular franchise I score has been adapted for a Brazilian format of the show. For the first season, the network wanted to try and cut the entire season with my music (fortunately for me they succeeded). They sent one of the EP's from the show down to shepherd and consult. He was very on top of things and made sure they had my info for the cue sheet....

Cut to several months later: I get an email from a colleague in the network's music dept. She kindly sends me a copy of a cue sheet, as there is an issue. For some reason, there are random cues that have no publisher and writer info. It is as if a worm had randomly eaten those boxes every so often....of course the entire show featured my music. Very odd indeed.

Luckily, this was pointed out to me and we remedied the situation across EVERY episode. In the past before email and facile global communication, where would all of that "undeclared" income gone? How many times has this already happened on all of my other projects over the years - especially when I have no contacts in a music dept?

How much money is being lost - on ALL of our bottom lines?

Speaking of losing money, I have procrastinated enough this afternoon and need to get back to writing.

Best of luck and let us keep the dialogue open.

-B


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## José Herring (May 14, 2012)

passenger57 @ Mon May 14 said:


> Thank you fellas
> Well you know what they say...follow the money. SOMEONE'S getting our money! Sounds like a racket - criminal, stealing from us musicians as usual. There is no way all that money is just floating around in space somewhere. Without residuals I can't put food on the table for my family, so looks like I'm feeding someone else's kids free of charge



Its not a case of somebody being dishonest but I case of ASCAP just not knowing where to look.

I just recently was told a story by a well know composer. He has a friend who did this little TV thing that got used in Poland. He wasn't receiving a dime for it even though the music was playing every night. It was like a news type thing. A lawyer approached him and asked if he could look into it. A few month down the road the composer guy gets a $450,000 dollar check from the lawyer, the lawyer of course got a percentage.

The money had been their all along, just nobody was looking for it.

Oh, I should add that he was entitled to a right that ASCAP doesn't even collect for. He was entitle to Broadcast Mechanical rights.


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## passenger57 (May 14, 2012)

Well if I was an entertainment lawyer starting up and looking to make a buck, I'd figure this out, then post a banner here on VI control offering my services. I bet you could make a pretty good living recouping residuals for clients. 
But lots of good information here, at least enough to get started.
I'm really surprised at how most musicians know almost nothing about this stuff. I sometimes offer nonunion musicians who play on my scores a percentage of my residuals so they will get some backend. Many times they are not even registered with ASCAP or BMI to begin with, much less know what a cuesheet is. Just taking the time to figure this out can be life changing (in a good way)


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## José Herring (May 14, 2012)

I found these guys here. I shot them an email, but I'm not sure they're still in business. I'll keep people posted.

http://royaltygroup.homestead.com/services_ibmrc.html


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## lux (May 14, 2012)

same issue here. Never got a penny from US, and it looks I definitely should have. 

Its a cul-de-sac situation, and there is no really communication between the PRO's. ASCAP responded to instances from SIAE like once in 6 months (after 3 solicited emails from the office) with something like "we've forwarded the problem to the xxxx office". Then silence.

My PRO says that they cannot do anything different from sending emails and getting no response. 

I've heard of many authors here which didnt get a penny either from very well sold ( i mean million copies) records in all the Latin American area.


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## ChrisAxia (May 15, 2012)

I share your concerns, gentlemen.

I've had a 13 part BBC series running on USA TV for 20 years and have not received a cent. I complained to PRS here in the UK on two occasions and nothing happened even after lengthy documentation etc. I also scored a BBC drama that was sold to over 100 countries, yet I've received royalties from only a handful. Both are self published.

Now, I also have some music in a major movie (published) and some library tracks with Universal, and I receive royalties from all sorts of places around the globe from these. As a result of this and a growing catalogue of BBC series that are being sold around the world, I am looking to do a deal with a major publisher. It seems there is a greater chance of royalties making their way back to you if you're signed to a major. Better to get 75% of something than 100% of nothing, I believe!

Good luck people,

~Chris


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## dinerdog (May 15, 2012)

ASCAP has always reminded me of the Ministry of Information in the movie Brazil.

One HUGE building where you have no idea how or why they do what they do.

Sort of "A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma".


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