# Royalties and youtube



## robharvey (May 19, 2020)

Hi there,


I recently provided most of the music to this video:



I provided it to the editor as favour and I'm totally ok with the music being used on the production companies YouTube channel. Absolutely no problems there.

The question I have is: Is there a performing rights organisation claim here? 

I'm a little fuzzy with regards to YouTube plays and PRO and would be glad to hear your insights. 


Thanks,
Rob


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## AlexRuger (May 19, 2020)

Following this because I’ve never really been able to get this question properly answered...


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## Daryl (May 19, 2020)

YouTube will pay Royatlies. If you get a few million plays, you might be able to afford a cappuccino or two.


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## chrisr (May 19, 2020)

I write for a kids tv series. Besides the broadcast episodes and films, there's _a lot_ of youtube content on the brand channel. There are many episode excerpts and cutdowns, there are songs, there are mini "youtube only" stories, there are promos for the toys, there are educational items....etc etc...

I would guess that my music is on 300-400 "official" (english language) youtube clips, released by the production company and brand team. There's probably about the same again of fan created content (english language). There are official brand channels repeating most of the same content in 10 languages - so thousands of youtube videos in all.

The most popular videos I've scored have about 10-20million views each, the least popular have 10's of thousands. So the clips with my music have hundreds of millions of views in the english language and multiples of that when you include non-english versions. I would guess it's somewhere between half a billion to a billion views all told.

A few years ago I would take the time to input the info for the videos I'd scored to the PRS, using the deeply unimpressive youtube reporting app on their website, in the hope that something might trickle through. I'm afraid I don't bother anymore.

I don't think I've _ever_ seen any royalty payments from youtube. Decided to stop worrying about it a couple of years back. I've never heard anything from the few PRS reps I've chatted with that's made me feel that they have any sort of a handle on it. I won't bore you with some of the mixed messages I've had from them - but it's always been quite disheartening.

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has had a different experience, for obvious reasons... Am still regularly churning out youtube content (which I am paid for by the production company/companies...). Contractually I always retain my 'writer's share' of any royalties, for what it's (not) worth.

best,
Chris


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## Greg (May 19, 2020)

BMI
$200 per million views for pub and writer side for "Youtube Free"
$82 for 200k views for "Youtube Premium"

However they only seem to pay out on a fraction of my actual views when I compare it with content id. No clue why.


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## badabing (May 19, 2020)

I had a situation where I approached a popular channel asking if they'd like to use my music, which they did, however as I was registered for Youtube royalty collection with CD Baby these videos generated a copyright claim due to the use of my tracks. I'd agreed that I just wanted to do this for exposure (this channel runs a fairly popular Spotify playlist) so I agreed to ask CD Baby to remove the claim. It took them a long time to do this however and I was amazed to see that I was earning hundreds of dollars a month until it was sorted, in total I think I made about $1200 from maybe three videos which used my tracks for 30 seconds each maximum? Other things I've written music for specifically to go on Youtube I've been paid an upfront fee and haven't registered for collection, which I think is fair, maybe, I'm not great with that side of things.


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## AlexRuger (May 19, 2020)

So, thousands of videos with billions of views nets $0, while 90 seconds of music nets $1200 in a few months. Got it.

I guess maybe the point of focus here is that, while PRO’s are next to useless, CD Baby/DistroKid can pay quite handsomely...but only if they think some someone is stealing your music?


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## chrisr (May 19, 2020)

AlexRuger said:


> So, thousands of videos with billions of views nets $0, while 90 seconds of music nets $1200 in a few months. Got it.



Ha! - believe me I share your frustrations.

I'd be particularly interested to hear from fellow_ PRS _members, as I suspect ASCAP/BMI might have their shit together on this particular issue, whereas PRS don't, in my experience.

I'm guessing OP @robharvey is a PRS member?


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## SamC (May 19, 2020)

Hey @robharvey @AlexRuger, it really depends on what deal you signed with the creator/publisher - if at all? The way to collect money up to this point has been through Adrev, (placing ads on top of videos that contain your music). But that is only paid to the masters owner, not composer. Unless stated in your agreement. Look out for that! If it was a TV broadcast before upload, the Adrev for the composer is doubtful. 

Onto *Royalties*; I’ve been complaining about streaming royalties (or lack thereof) for ages now and PRO’s are still twiddling their thumbs. Youtube has to be the worst, and most convoluted, monetarily speaking.

Streaming services like Youtube, Amazon & Netflix all try to claim they‘re not broadcasters so they‘re not subject to the copyright public performance laws for broadcasters.

Because of that, the normal performance royalty rates and calculations simply don’t apply. It’s actually a mechanical license they think they should be paying - conveniently because its hard collecting Mechanicals in the US and the mechanical is so low. In the UK there’s “MCPS” though (I’m a PRS member).

The mechanical royalty rate for streaming is 1.75 cents per minute. In decimal that is $0.0175. That is then split in half, with half going to the composer and half going to the publisher. So that’s $0.00875 per minute for the composer and $0.00875 per minute to the publisher. Don’t even get me started on how that is split further.

So you can see how screwed we’re getting. PRO’s stood idly by while streaming giants lobbied Congress for this nonsense and composers on their own wouldn’t be able to do much about that anyway (another reason we need a union IMO).

However, the Music Modernisation Act in the US looks very promising - The Songwriters of North America (SONA) sued the federal government over how congress calculates the mechanical royalty rate...and won. So now they can push legislation for how digital streaming royalties are calculated.

I hope we can move in a positive direction to getting equal compensation for online play. Composers all over the world will start seeing their backend shrink even more before there’s a change. More films are having online release, more people listening to music on youtube, the budgets aren’t growing, Networks are dying a slow death — I just hope the likes of Youtube and Netflix won’t put the final nail in the working composers coffin.


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## Daryl (May 19, 2020)

As an addendum, Netflix has actually been removing streaming "Royalty" rights from composer's contracts recently.


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## SamC (May 19, 2020)

Daryl said:


> As an addendum, Netflix has actually been removing streaming "Royalty" rights from composer's contracts recently.



Yep! Not sure if they sense a losing battle with royalties but I think it’s made them nervous enough to just start buying out composer rights. I could actually learn to live with that if their music budgets shot way up, but it hasn’t and it won’t.


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## Dirk Ehlert (May 19, 2020)

I just feel there needs to be some clarification here - especially in regards to this track make numbers and this one doesn't. It is undeniable that the PROs still have a long way to go to get a proper system in place with streaming providers like youtube. I have tons of music out there, that every quarter gets me a nice capuccino. So i feel there's room for improvement , haha. But back to the point, these vast differences in payouts are based on two very different collection systems - on the one hand you have the PROs (Performance Rights Organizations like BMI, ASCAP, GEMA) etc - collecting broadcast royalties - they are constantly negotiating with YT on behalf of their composers - to no much avail as of today.
But then you also have the system of ContentID (Adrev, CDBaby etc) that have nothing to do with the classical PRO system. They collect Advertising Revenue (hence the name Adrev) on uncleared/unlicensed or plainly "illegally used" content. If you have your music registered with these services, you'll get your share of that Advertising Revenue they collect on your behalf (the aforementioned 1.200 from CD Baby for example). A decent amount of views can rack up some serious numbers pretty fast, way more than any regular PRO is collecting. What I want to say is, that these are two entirely different revenue streams. There are quite a bunch of kinks with that system too - as it mainly is focussed on unlicensed usage. If you have that TV stuff streaming on YT you'll likely not seeing anything from Adrev and the likes, as it is a Licensed usage, meaning the advertising revenue goes to the content provider instead of Adrev (lots of problematic indications there as well, like unhappy clients because they get flagged for an actual licensed usage, that needs to be whitelisted etc.)

TL;DR
These differences in numbers are based on the fact that there are 2 entirely different revenue streams involved, one being classical broadcast royalties, the other one being Advertising Revenue royalties.


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## robharvey (May 20, 2020)

chrisr said:


> Ha! - believe me I share your frustrations.
> 
> I'd be particularly interested to hear from fellow_ PRS _members, as I suspect ASCAP/BMI might have their shit together on this particular issue, whereas PRS don't, in my experience.
> 
> I'm guessing OP @robharvey is a PRS member?



I am a PRS member yes. I agree with your sentiments about ASCAP etc. It might be more of an MCPS question over PRS?

Thanks for all the insights! I think basically it's not worth looking at.

Rob


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## Spectralworks (Jan 21, 2021)

Daryl said:


> YouTube will pay Royatlies. If you get a few million plays, you might be able to afford a cappuccino or two.


A song I wrote in 2009 ended up as a background theme in what became a popular kid's YouTube channel called #annoyingorange It has Hundreds of millions of views. The Song was Stolen/Renamed from me, there is a whole thread dedicated to explaining the whole ordeal of music/identity theft and fraud by a composer named Alex Khaskin
The problem is the royalties were paid out to the thief long ago. Can anyone please tell me at least a ballpark figure of what the scammer + adrev earned from something like that?
I know it's difficult to estimate? how do I even go about calculating it? They have over 3000 videos, going back 10 years...in some of the Episodes, my song plays for just 15 seconds, in others it goes on for 2min 30seconds, it's not standard..follows the story on the screen. some videos have 230 million views, while others have only 8 or 9 million views. Can anyone please share any advice?
Thank you all in advance for reading

link to MUSIC THEFT by Alex Khaskin


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## SamC (Jan 21, 2021)

Spectralworks said:


> A song I wrote in 2009 ended up as a background theme in what became a popular kid's YouTube channel called #annoyingorange It has Hundreds of millions of views. The Song was Stolen/Renamed from me, there is a whole thread dedicated to explaining the whole ordeal of music/identity theft and fraud by a composer named Alex Khaskin
> The problem is the royalties were paid out to the thief long ago. Can anyone please tell me at least a ballpark figure of what the scammer + adrev earned from something like that?
> I know it's difficult to estimate? how do I even go about calculating it? They have over 3000 videos, going back 10 years...in some of the Episodes, my song plays for just 15 seconds, in others it goes on for 2min 30seconds, it's not standard..follows the story on the screen. some videos have 230 million views, while others have only 8 or 9 million views. Can anyone please share any advice?
> Thank you all in advance for reading
> ...


 I imagine the royalties due to you won’t be an insignificant amount. 

Does your track have a publisher assigned?


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## rgames (Jan 21, 2021)

ASCAP also pays YT royalties.

They are also mostly worthless.

rgames


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## Spectralworks (Jan 21, 2021)

SamC said:


> I imagine the royalties due to you won’t be an insignificant amount.
> 
> Does your track have a publisher assigned?





SamC said:


> I imagine the royalties due to you won’t be an insignificant amount.
> 
> Does your track have a publisher assigned?


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## Spectralworks (Jan 21, 2021)

I just came into an agreement with Identify ( who is like ADREV)
But prior to that the song (under my original title) was registered with my SOCAN by me in 2011
and 100 % of publishing and composing rights were legally mine
If you could please forward this to 2min 30sec, I talk about the papers and performing rights with the screenshots of my PRO showing ownership, the problem is, that I Convinced Adrev by shoving them that video. I don't know what name the thief retitled my song to, I can partially "poke in the dark" on scans Repertoire page, but Alex Khaskin (the composer who stole my song, ill just refer to him as Alex from now) renamed my song "funny walk" to " Funny Walk-14157" " cookie walk" "walking funny" "Silly walk" "silly walk -141517 ""cooky wak" etc..many other manes I'm assuming in order to confuse... I don't see any other reasons..so I'm stumped as to how to figure out the details.

I also found one version where under the youtube video it says the right belongs to
(on behalf of Salieri Music (Salieri Music Is the company that belongs to Alex Khaskin )); PEDL, Warner Chappell, AdRev Publishing, SODRAC, and 6 Music Rights Societies


These pages are just to prove that i own 100% of the rights to the titles I AM AWARE OF. I don't even know many different names Alex Khaskin or someone else may have given it
.


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## Spectralworks (Jan 21, 2021)

The Short answer, and im ashamed to say this .. I DONT KNOW if my track has a publisher. Its been stolen and re-titled so many times


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## SamC (Jan 21, 2021)

Spectralworks said:


> I just came into an agreement with Identify ( who is like ADREV)
> But prior to that the song (under my original title) was registered with my SOCAN by me in 2011
> and 100 % of publishing and composing rights were legally mine
> If you could please forward this to 2min 30sec, I talk about the papers and performing rights with the screenshots of my PRO showing ownership, the problem is, that I Convinced Adrev by shoving them that video. I don't know what name the thief retitled my song to, I can partially "poke in the dark" on scans Repertoire page, but Alex Khaskin (the composer who stole my song, ill just refer to him as Alex from now) renamed my song "funny walk" to " Funny Walk-14157" " cookie walk" "walking funny" "Silly walk" "silly walk -141517 ""cooky wak" etc..many other manes I'm assuming in order to confuse... I don't see any other reasons..so I'm stumped as to how to figure out the details.
> ...



I’ve had my stuff stolen by people. Something was lifted from my soundcloud - a track EMI owns the publishing to! - Someone just uploaded it to some buyout site like pond5. It was eventually resolved but I got nothing out of it. The “artists” profile was taken down but they already made money out of it for a good 4 years or so.

Since this Alex dude is a prolific thief, he probably stole your track and just submitted it as his own. Have you checked Warner Chappell’s library to see if it’s in there since they have a share?

It must be in a library somewhere being licensed with Alex as the artist.


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## Spectralworks (Jan 21, 2021)

No i haven't checked Warner Chappel, is it fairly straightforward how figuring out how to do that ?or do they make u jump through hoops?


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## SamC (Jan 21, 2021)

Spectralworks said:


> No i haven't checked Warner Chappel, is it fairly straightforward how figuring out how to do that ?or do they make u jump through hoops?


I just searched their catalogue for you with Alex’s name and pseudonyms. There’s nothing on there under those names.

If you have seen the ownership chain which doesn’t include you registered on the PRO’s sites you can then contact those owners.


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## Spectralworks (Jan 21, 2021)

Alexander Khaskin is his full name


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## MusiquedeReve (Jan 21, 2021)

Spectralworks said:


> I just came into an agreement with Identify ( who is like ADREV)
> But prior to that the song (under my original title) was registered with my SOCAN by me in 2011
> and 100 % of publishing and composing rights were legally mine
> If you could please forward this to 2min 30sec, I talk about the papers and performing rights with the screenshots of my PRO showing ownership, the problem is, that I Convinced Adrev by shoving them that video. I don't know what name the thief retitled my song to, I can partially "poke in the dark" on scans Repertoire page, but Alex Khaskin (the composer who stole my song, ill just refer to him as Alex from now) renamed my song "funny walk" to " Funny Walk-14157" " cookie walk" "walking funny" "Silly walk" "silly walk -141517 ""cooky wak" etc..many other manes I'm assuming in order to confuse... I don't see any other reasons..so I'm stumped as to how to figure out the details.
> ...


Was it difficult setting up your own publishing company?


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## Spectralworks (Jan 23, 2021)

ChromeCrescendo said:


> Was it difficult setting up your own publishing company?


I just contacted https://www.identifyy.com/ with my dispute regarding my case which involved my music being stolen: 



They asked me to film a video showing individual stems of the multitrack work file of song in question, and after they were satisfied with my evidence they sent me an email congratulating me on joining their company.


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## Slivochnii (Jan 24, 2021)

Ilya, stop lying and discredit my name . It is you who is a thief . Because of Covid 19 you are out work in Russian night club and now you are trying to find a way how to make money elsewhere . First of all you dont have multi tracks of any of my songs cause they are disappeared with old PC . Second , Funny walk was composed by me and the reason why you are in the first time even able to sue German singer is because i found out and gave you the link . ....but , all the music that we are talking about was composed way prior you been fired by me before you became mentally unstable . I gave you a lot of tracks in early 200 till i fire you so that you could make enough money for a living , but only for royalty free stuff ...at the time none of us new that YouTube will have watermarked program . Then i fired you because of you were acting weird . You were my sound designer , not a composer . Even if your life depends on it you wouldn't be able to find middle C . I keep you at my side for many years and gave you possibility to learn a craft of sound designer , but then something happened to you and you became unstable ....was it mental illness , drugs or something else ? ...but you screw up deadline with one of my major producers and i had to let you go . Since then because of your strange behavior you lost every job that you ever been involved . You been fired from the club as a singer and basically lost your income . 
You have been calling me since then and asking me to hire you again , but i cant do that because you are not trustworthy . So ,now , instead of appreciate for how many years i helping you to make a living you decided to go after me yet another way by claiming that music is yours ....how much money you made just because i allow you to sell my music on Royalty free websites ? how much money you made
by working with me and getting credit for nothing ? Even when you were sick i spend more then 5000 dollars to buys you a new furniture .....stop lying and using cleverly facts that have nothing to do with your ownership of my songs .....this time i will fight you on every lie your mouth produce 

Your ex friend , Alex


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## chillbot (Jan 24, 2021)

Slivochnii said:


> Even when you were sick i spend more then 5000 dollars to buys you a new furniture


I would also like a new furniture when I am sick.


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## MusiquedeReve (Jan 24, 2021)




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## Slivochnii (Jan 24, 2021)

_They asked me to film a video showing individual stems of the multitrack work file of song in question, and after they were satisfied with my evidence they sent me an email congratulating me on joining their company._



here is a lie .....


Song​Cocky Walk without singing-14157
Artist​Alex Khaskin
Album​Salieri Music
Licensed to YouTube by​ (on behalf of Salieri Music (Salieri Music)); BMI - Broadcast Music Inc.
SHOW LESS


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## Slivochnii (Jan 24, 2021)

sorry , wrong link


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## Slivochnii (May 5, 2021)

Spectralworks said:


> The Short answer, and im ashamed to say this .. I DONT KNOW if my track has a publisher. Its been stolen and re-titled so many times


how much money ? you piss of lying s....


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## HarmonyCore (May 6, 2021)

I think I contacted BMI seven months ago asking them the same exact question and they clearly stated they don't pay royalties for YT plays or views. Only for public performances. But let me search for that email and quote their reply correctly.


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## HarmonyCore (May 6, 2021)

HarmonyCore said:


> I think I contacted BMI seven months ago asking them the same exact question and they clearly stated they don't pay royalties for YT plays or views. Only for public performances. But let me search for that email and quote their reply correctly.


Sorry! can't find it but I remember properly they told me what I just mentioned.


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## fairyclown (May 6, 2021)

It is super confusing, but I think anything on Youtube counts as streaming which would be "mechanical" royalties and BMI only collects "performance" royalties.

If there is a song that has not gone through a digital distributor like Tunecore, Distrokid, etc., and was only used specifically for Youtube content, then the only revenue generated from that will be from the monetization of the video. 

You could sign up to Songtrust if you don't have a digital distributor or I also just learned about themlc.com If your songs are registered with a PRO, the MLC will keep data of your songs and see if there are any "mechanical" royalties that are owed to you that you have not been able to receive through a distributor. So I think it's worth it for everyone who might be confused, such as myself, to sign up to the MLC and input your song's data if it's not already in the database. Just to be double sure you are not missing out on any mechanical royalties considering there are so many outlets now where music gets used and played! Also, it's free to sign up and they have a public search at the top of the website where you can see if your songs are already in their database. Mine were not since I just barely registered with BMI, but I'm going to sign up to MLC so I don't miss out on any $$


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## GtrString (May 6, 2021)

Yes, your videos has to be published through a distributer/ aggregator company. They then register the video properly and YouTube will pay them. I know of a UK music library that reportedly makes more than 100.000£/year on their videos on YT alone. It can become quite substantial if you do it right, but doing it right is also the hard part..


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## gsilbers (May 7, 2021)

Anyone know about those aggregator services (pond5, taxi etc) and if you sell through them you can also do the Distrokid thing and get royalties this way? 

Basically upload to distrokid and have the content ID done. Then place that track in all these different aggregator services and if someone uses my kids song track into their kids video and gets millions of views.. do i get part of that or does youtube just gives a copyright strike to the video uploader for using my track? Or do they have an opotion to share ONLY the music/part of their royalties?


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## devonmyles (May 7, 2021)

RE PRS:

I have tracks that were published and licensed with a Library company that earn me royalties from YouTube.
It started last year. My last last three PRS quarterly distributions have YouTube payments included.
I have not really been following the PRS YouTube saga, because I thought it might be a waste of time. But, I presume PRS have come to some kind of deal with YouTube recently?

Here is the breakdown of the payment I received for one individual track:


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## HarmonyCore (May 7, 2021)

devonmyles said:


> I have not really been following the PRS YouTube saga, because I thought it might be a waste of time. But, I presume PRS have come to some kind of deal with YouTube recently?


Sorry but by saying PRS, did you mean PRO?! What PRO are you a member of? According to BMI, they don't pay for YT streaming.


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## devonmyles (May 8, 2021)

HarmonyCore said:


> Sorry but by saying PRS, did you mean PRO?! What PRO are you a member of? According to BMI, they don't pay for YT streaming.


PRS = 'Performing Rights Society' (UK).
I'm UK based, so my apologies, I really have no idea what BMI do, or do not, distribute royalties for.

Regarding YouTube:
As taken from my last quarterly statement (screenshots above), it shows what amount that particular track received.
(I actually had several tracks receiving varying amounts).

PRS:
*https://www.prsformusic.com/*
Where PRS and MPCS collect royalties from:
*








Member royalties


Get all the information on your royalties including where they come from, the distribution schedule dates and how to report performances and usage.




www.prsformusic.com




*
PRS position on their YouTube agreement, although a little complicated:
*https://www.prsformusic.com/help/what-rights-are-covered-by-the-youtube-licence*
What PRS & MCPS are all about. The two societies now work together under the umbrella of “The Music Alliance”*.
https://www.prsformusic.com/what-we-do/prs-and-mcps*
Sorry, I should have been more clearer in my original post.
As we know, these different PRO's across different countries all work in different ways with different agreements.


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