Roger Newton
Senior Member
No.
Commercial not reported to PRO
- Thread starter T-LeffoH
- Start date
Roger Newton
Senior Member
ASCAP BMI PRS ect. They are basically collection agencies all around the world. You get into a Publisher and Sub Publishers ect who will publish and distribute your music around the world and they will register your music with PROs who will collect royalties.
Cyberic
Member
Performing Rights Organisation. As rightly explained by Roger Newton they are collection agencies.
When a writer’s or composer’s track or song is performed publicly, the outlet or venue - radio, television, concert hall, pub, restaurant, festival, retail store and more - has, legally, to submit a list of what was played to a PRO.
There are performance fees (in respect of the song or composition) payable to the music publisher and writer by the outlet or venue. These fees are collected by the PRO and then periodically distributed to the writer, composer and music publisher.
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T-LeffoH
Product Mgr, Supply Chain
Sometimes in the broadcast space it also isn't the publisher registering it, it might get registered by the PRO because it shows up in a production's cue sheet with information from your publisher before your publisher registers the music themselves.
It depends on the publisher, but in production/broadcast, this example I give is far more common than performance and radio broadcast artists.
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T-LeffoH
Product Mgr, Supply Chain
They absolutely should, but there aren't enough regulatory controls, on national & international levels, to ensure businesses operating in digital space, with digital assets, have business processes to account for use of their assets in reporting and application against real world use.
NekujaK
I didn't go to film school, I went to films -QT
I started writing library music at the beginning of the year, and it's been an eye-opening journey learning how the music licensing business works, or in many cases, doesn't work.
I find the lack of transparency and accountability pretty appalling. These sorts of murky business practices, with no effective provisions for reporting or recourse, would never survive or be allowed in any other (legal) industry. It's really quite unbelievable.
In Q2, I had dozens of TV placements in the US, including an ad and several TV promo spots, yet the only royalties ASCAP has paid so far is for a single placement that aired in the UK(!). A small number of cue sheets have appeared in my account, and so far, I've only seen payment from one of them. My label/library tells me to be patient, and assures me payments will start to show up in 2023. So I'm sitting tight for now, but I've got a skeptical attitude.
One thing that also muddies the waters, is that each client can potentially have their own licensing terms and payment arrangements (at least in the US). There is direct licensing, blanket licensing, annual subsriptions, needle drops, etc. In some of these arrangements, royalties are not paid through a PRO but are included as part of the fees paid to the label/library. So in those cases, royalties will never be paid from a PRO.
This whole business needs a massive overhaul. Until that happens, composers will continue to get screwed because there are no barriers of protection.
I find the lack of transparency and accountability pretty appalling. These sorts of murky business practices, with no effective provisions for reporting or recourse, would never survive or be allowed in any other (legal) industry. It's really quite unbelievable.
In Q2, I had dozens of TV placements in the US, including an ad and several TV promo spots, yet the only royalties ASCAP has paid so far is for a single placement that aired in the UK(!). A small number of cue sheets have appeared in my account, and so far, I've only seen payment from one of them. My label/library tells me to be patient, and assures me payments will start to show up in 2023. So I'm sitting tight for now, but I've got a skeptical attitude.
One thing that also muddies the waters, is that each client can potentially have their own licensing terms and payment arrangements (at least in the US). There is direct licensing, blanket licensing, annual subsriptions, needle drops, etc. In some of these arrangements, royalties are not paid through a PRO but are included as part of the fees paid to the label/library. So in those cases, royalties will never be paid from a PRO.
This whole business needs a massive overhaul. Until that happens, composers will continue to get screwed because there are no barriers of protection.
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T-LeffoH
Product Mgr, Supply Chain
I agree there needs to be a lot of improvement.
Compared to regulated, physical products on the market, the regulatory aspect of control over digital assets is behind the curve, and because IP authorship & publishing crosses borders, it complicates the nature of who should be solving it.
Governments, Companies, Companies' Third Party Partners, IP Authors, and others involved can't seem to decide, even with passing legislation in one country, which then ends up back in civil proceedings & challenges.
It's kind of a byproduct of the business, to cause lack of transparency and accountability, simply to drive value where people want, between the lines. Although I've also seen that type of value-manipulation behavior in work for a more regulated industry, the behavior there caused hundreds to lose jobs and close offices.
Daryl
Senior Member
The biggest "murky" aspect is that even when Royalties are paid by some social media platforms, it is only ever a blanket amount, so you have no idea which tracks generated the income. Therefore what tends to happen is that it is paid proportionally, compared with other income. So, in other words, the rich get richer. However, if could be that one track made all the money, and it was by the poorest composer on the planet.
All the information exists, so it should be able to do all of this without any issues at all. When it comes to Broadcast Royalties, a Broadcaster has the power to refuse to air a programme where cue sheet information is not available. However, I've never known this to happen. This is where we all need to be more vocal. It shouldn't be up to us to have to chase users of our music for money.
AfilionMusic
New Member
Commercials and some promos are not reported to BMI and ASCAP through cue sheets. They are reported using ad codes from Numerator. You can find the codes by signing up with an email with your own domain (not gmail or outlook) here: https://www.numerator.com/get-touch . As your job title put Music Composer. Usually these codes are not always sent in by the publisher and if you self-publish you must send the codes on your own otherwise you will not get paid.
NekujaK
I didn't go to film school, I went to films -QT
Just to echo what @AfilionMusic wrote, I recently discovered these instructions from ASCAP regarding the reporting of commercials, promos, and trailers:
Unfortunately, none of the 6 commercials in which I had placements during the past year were in Vivvix (formerly Numerator)
Has anyone experienced success in getting royalties from ASCAP using Tunesat data?
Unfortunately, none of the 6 commercials in which I had placements during the past year were in Vivvix (formerly Numerator)
Has anyone experienced success in getting royalties from ASCAP using Tunesat data?
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T-LeffoH
Product Mgr, Supply Chain
Ad codes are not how usage are reported. Things like PDFs, like we're still living in the 1990s, are how BMI solicit reporting.
https://www.bmi.com/pdfs/commercial_jingle.pdf
If it was six months ago like when I posted this, I'd have more choice words about it but because I was recruited into a role to revise the data supply chain for a few major orgs, I'll leave it at that.
AfilionMusic
New Member
Actually I had a friend who was missing payments for two advertisement with BMI. He sent them the ad codes from numerator and got paid the next quarter..so..
It even says right here: https://www.bmi.com/international/e...-for-international-adverts-commercial-jingles
I'm not sure what other proof I need to give.
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T-LeffoH
Product Mgr, Supply Chain
Nobody is asking you for proof of anything, let alone was this thread about how BMI's international reporting requirements differ from its domestic US reqs, so I don't intend to spend my time convincing parties on here to see an underlying issue with any PROs' non-standardized solutions to the problem if they can't ascertain that reality for themselves. I'll be happy to address the business process problems underlying those issues with NPMA & PROs directly as part of my job when I get to it, but I'm not going to continue this discussion on here.
Relative to what was described to even start this thread however many months ago - the process you describe is not the ad hoc responsibility of composers under a publishing deal.
It is the productions and PROs responsibility to report, monitor and account for performances & usages without error. Unfortunately, the PROs and their partner monitoring orgs do not have mature enough business processes or systems to do this...even though they've had decades to fix those problems.
