Authorship of music or a song is not the same as ownership of rights or a share of rights to a phonogram. Sometimes authorship and rights to a master recording coincide. But it often happens that a song has a performer, producer, arranger, but they are not the authors. The authors in this case are the composer and the poet.
The authors’ shares are also specified in contracts or simple partnership agreements. Authors and phonogram copyright holders (for example, music publishers or labels) have the right to several more types of royalties. Let’s list some of them and keep in mind that some of them are almost identical to royalties associated with ownership of rights to a master recording.
- Mechanical Royalties (Physical) – “mechanical royalties” associated with the sale of music on physical media. This refers to royalties from sales of CDs, vinyl records, DVDs, cassettes, flash drives, etc. This is left on the conscience of the sellers with whom publishers, labels or DIY artists and authors have contracts.
- Mechanical Royalties (Digital) – the same, but when selling files with phonograms online, the income is collected and delivered to the authors (and others involved) by digital download platforms like BandCamp.
- On-Demand Streaming – the same as royalties from the owners of the rights to the master recording. Authors of music and lyrics also have the right to royalties from Spotify and all-all streaming platforms. They are collected by distributors.
- Songwriter Public Performance Royalties – these are royalties from authors from any public performance of music (songs). For example, in restaurants, bars, at mass celebrations, festivals, concerts – this applies to both live performances (including covers) and playing recordings. This also includes the public performance of music on certain types of radio and TV (including online).
- Publishing Public Performance Royalties — same as above, but applies to works published through a music publisher. Typically, the publisher’s share is 50%.
- Authors (including songwriters) also have the right to receive royalties from all uses of their work in film, TV, games, etc., unless they have previously been short-sighted and sold their share under some ridiculous contract.
- Ringtones – You thought the ringtone market was dead? Nope. It still generates over $2 billion annually. Some labels and music publishers cut up tracks into ringtones and publish them. Some distributors have a similar function. Ringtones can be created by DIY artists as well as “signed” artists. Shares in revenue from the sale of ringtones for phones are distributed in the same way as shares in revenue from “mechanical” royalties. Let us remind you that the shares of authors and performers are fixed in contracts or simple partnership agreements.
- Lyric Display – royalties for authors of song lyrics. In recent decades, Internet sites with lyrics and their translations into different languages have become very popular. The music industry noticed this and forced large thematic resources to make special deductions for poets – through song publishers. It should be noted that the sites resisted for several years, but eventually gave in.
Conclusions
In the end, we repeat: published music is a potential rental capital for both the author and for all the people involved in the creation of the phonogram and who retained a share in the rights. A rational musician should not only publish master recordings, but also manage their future fate. And the point here is not that many people listen to them on streaming platforms, although this in itself is wonderful.
The author (producer, performer) may not even know that there are royalties for him somewhere for playing music in taxis, restaurant chains, regional radio stations, etc. But it would be better for him to know and try to maximize all possible royalties. Finally, if the musical career turns out to be successful and long, royalties in old age will become a “second pension” for the musician, and one that exceeds the real one in size.
Read also: Music Streaming Payouts – Is It Worth Dealing With Labels?
