The other weird thing about PROs is that the license fee is paid by someone who doesn't actually make the product. The broadcaster pays the fee, not the production.
That's like you paying Goodyear for the right to use their patents in the tires for the car you buy from Ford. It's silly and inefficient and, more importantly, incentivizes a "pass-the-buck" mentality in your customer. It also leads to a lot of unfair practices in distributions because the PROs treat royalties in aggregate across broadcasters (EDIT: and payout is based on aggregation at the time of payout, not performance, also unfair).
That's the source of a lot of the complexity and unfairness in the PRO system. Just get rid of that model and have the productions pay, like they do in the photo/video world. And the rest of the world other than the music biz...
If you want to license something from Apple they don't let some PRO decide what you should pay for it. Absurd, right? Well, that's how the PRO model works. I have never once had any say in what ASCAP charges, and the result is statements with hundreds of pages of TV shows that use my music for next-to-nothing. And a bunch of uses that never even make it to my statements, so ASCAP is letting those go for free. What can I do about it? Nothing. They don't care.
I guarantee you Epidemic Sound isn't giving away its composers' music for free. So, are you really better off with a PRO? Maybe not.
rgames
you ve been adamant about this sort of practice for a while. I do understand but still, one main issue is that composers have been able to get paid about 70% of the overall fee through ryalties.
So everyone has been charging the upfront fee for the the longest time to be small in context because the PRO would pay about 50-70% of the rest.
Now all these types of royalty free libraries are going for even lower upfront fees. at like $20 bucks per track. the chances theyll buy more than a few times is very low.
Normally rates to sell a track are based on the exposure and revenue said media will have. if you sell to a cable network then you kinda of know. but with amazon self publish, youtube movies, hulu only releases etc its all murky.
We do know these tech companies are making gazillions of dollars. and we know that each stream can be counted exactly in terms of duration, composers, etc.
So now these facebook videos or tick tock that get rehashed in instagram reels, and snapshat whatever is not paying anything. some blanket back end we dont know about.
I think we should be pushing for the oposite. that there was some sort of metadata that can even be lke crypto to make sure its your track and not a retitle and get a few pennies each stream on social media. or youtube, netflix. etc.
btw- now in july 2021, Youtube is as big as netflix. And we know the future is streaming. Yet getting paid in roaylties seems to be the hardest. or getting paid in a better way. right now we are turning into uber drivers. but uber drivers that drive mercedez benz since we have to spent a ton of money in equipment and leanring the craft
maybe Ai will take the place of corporate music for facebook article videos. but other than that there is no real reason we composers shoudlnt be getting paid more via upfront or royalties. yes , there is a lot more composers but there is a ton more content out there.