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This policy has also been quite controversial as many small/grass roots venues simply can’t afford the rates the PROs are charging. This means anyone performing music outside the mainstream is out of luck.

Many small businesses, like restaurants and bars, are not surveyed and simply pay a flat rate that is distributed based on trends in local radio stations (based on the type of music).

provide the PROs with their own music use data.

Public spaces, including circuses, theme parks, etc.

For live performances, ASCAP calculates royalties from set lists provided by concert promoters and performing artists.

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Pattern recognition software is also used to calculate song playlists. Concurrently, ASCAP makes a sample survey of all for-profit college and public radio stations. For radio performances, radio operators report a few times a year their cue list for that day.For television and film performances, program producers provide cue sheets (list of the songs and all relevant information such a length, instrumental/vocal, feature/background), as well as program schedules and logs.I’ll be using ASCAP as an example because they seem to be the most open about how their calculations are made.

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The PROs calculate a fee for each user, depending on a myriad of factors then deduct their operating fee, around 12%, and send the rest of the money to the songwriters and publishers.Įach PRO uses slightly different techniques for tracking all the music that gets played. (Users include: TV/cable, film studios, radio stations, concert presenters, bars, restaurants, etc). Once you register a song with one of the PROs, it becomes part of their collection and is available for all of their users. This means if you have a hit single in Belgrade, the Serbian PRO (SOKOJ), will collect royalties and transfer them to your local PRO for distribution. In the USA there are 3 main players, ASCAP “American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers,” BMI “Broadcast Music Inc” and SESAC “Society of European Stage Authors and Composers.” These main PROs in the US are also affiliated with PROs in all international markets.

The PROs do not collect for Internet royalties (webcasters, internet radio) or mechanical royalties (collected and paid out by the record company). This includes music for television, movies, live performances/concert venues, and other public places (theme parks, shopping malls, restaurants, bars/clubs). Performance Rights Organizations (PROs for short) collect money for the composer(s) and publisher(s) of music which is heard either live or recorded in the public forum.

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The DOJ review is still underway and the outcome is yet unknown.In the first installment of his series on music royalties, Dubspot contributor Michael Emenau tackles the big question of how to select a Performance Rights Organization and get paid royalties for your music.

One of the objective of those reviews would be to allow major publishers to cut direct licenses with certain digital music services will still placing their songs under the blanket licenses of the PROs for other uses. of Justice to review the consent decrees both PROs operate under. Thus, Pandora risked being in copyright violation and exposed to millions of dollars in fines if it couldn’t pull down each publisher’s songs and, it claimed, was force to cut licensing deals at much higher rates.Īfter the judges in both the ASCAP and BMI rate court ruled that publishers couldn’t withdraw solely digital rights - that they either had to be either “all in or all out” - both PROs and the major publishers successfully petitioned the Dept. In that rate-setting trial, Pandora maintained that earlier it had no choice but to cut deals with the music publishers that withdrew the digital rights songs from ASCAP and BMI, because they couldn’t get a complete list of which songs each publisher controlled (so that they could pull those songs from their services). The move by UMPG is important because the songs it and other major publishers control was an issue in the ASCAP rate court proceeding with Pandora. repertoire before being expanded to include the company’s global catalog. The initial launch of the data repository at will feature UMPG’s U.S. In the coming weeks, the company will post its song data with the names of the songwriters who wrote the songs, the country of origin of each song, and other pertinent information.

“A comprehensive song repository helps ensure UMPG is positioned to best serve those licensees both now and in the future.” Sammis, UMPG executive VP of operations & CFO worldwide. “As the licensing environment changes, we want to be transparent, and responsive to the needs of licensees and users,” said Michael J. Kelly Trial: Ex-Employee Says He Now Doubts Abuse Denials