If You Write Songs You Probably Need to Watch This

Video Transcript

Note: a machine made this, so it’s not perfect, but if you’re hearing impaired and have any questions about what we said, please feel free to ask us in the comments or send us an email with the form below. 

Welcome to get off set. My name is Emily and this video is sponsored by distro kid. Distro kid makes it easy and affordable to be prolific. As you want, when it comes to releasing your music on the internet, uh, for just 1999 a year, you can release basically unlimited music to iTunes, Napster, Spotify, title, um, Amazon music.

[00:00:22] If you, if you’re, uh, If you’re so, so inclined to do so, um, take talk, Instagram story and more. It’s really cool. My band Sunday crush released all of their music digitally through distro kid. Although we, uh, rely on our label to do physical, physical things, so like record stores and stuff like that. But, uh, that’s neither here nor there other than the fact that they are the wonderful sponsors.

[00:00:53] Of this video, I will now get to it today. I’m going to talk about something that I’ve been asked to talk about, and that is PR owes or performing rights organizations. So this is. Mostly applicable songwriters, pretty much exclusively applicable to songwriters. So if you’re in a band and you’re, and you write songs, that band, even if you’re not the principal songwriter, you should be, uh, affiliated with a pro.

[00:01:27] And that’s what that’s called. So I’m just for anyone who’s not on the United States, who’s talking. I think a lot of this will probably be applicable to people in other countries with one major difference. That difference is that, um, the United States has more than one performing rights organization.

[00:01:47] And I think we are one of the only if not the only country in the world that has. Options for your performing rights organizations, because I assume capitalism, but I don’t really know. Um, in the United States, there are three performing rates. Organizations as cap BMI and C SAC, and they all essentially do the same thing.

[00:02:14] What they do is they collect money from venues and radio stations and they pay out that money. To their songwriters, their affiliates. Um, I’m currently an affiliate with the P R O C SAC. Although I will be moving my talents to be in my, and I’ll get into that later. That’s not important right now. Um, so let’s talk about licenses.

[00:02:48] Let’s talk about how PRS pay money to their affiliates. If you own a business that plays music publicly, either a VI, a musical venue, like, uh, like, um, the Conor Bern bar and pub in, uh, Seattle or a restaurant that plays music over the sound system in Mason, Ohio, or, um, A radio station in Nashville, Tennessee, you have to buy a license to legally play music, either over your sound system or over your airways air waves.

[00:03:36] So, um, And the cost of this licensed depends for restaurants of any use on your square footage for the most part radio stations. I’m not quite so sure, but you need to have in the United States, a license, a blanket license, they call it a blanket license means it covers everything in the catalog. Every single affiliation that any of these PRS have, but you need to buy one from all three and that’s legally necessary to legally play music to your restaurant patrons.

[00:04:14] Um, within a venue or to the people sitting on the airwaves. And the reason this is is because some of these Pieros are bigger than others as cap and BMI are bigger than C sec, for example, and as CSX own damn fault, um, because reasons I’ll get into later, I want to stay on topic. So you’re a restaurant.

[00:04:35] You have to buy a blanket license for all three of these PRS, and then you can legally play music in your venue. And yes, these affiliates do have employees in cities, in every state, and yes they do at a restaurants and make sure they’re paying their blanket licenses or you get fined. They do that. Is it kind of lame and titled Taylee?

[00:04:59] Yes. But you know, what it kind of is a terrible thing to. Um, not pay musicians. So, I mean, I’m biased business owners probably hate it. I love it. Even though I make literally no money from that. So let’s talk about, um, how the money gets doled out. We now know how Piros collect money, licenses, Blake at licenses that they sell to any place that has a live performance.

[00:05:29] And there’s lots of intricacies in that. We’ll just keep it overall. These are the venues. So, um, how do these PRS decide which song writers get how much money? And there is a host of like things that they consider when they’re deciding how much money to Dole out to their song writers. They look at, for example, charts.

[00:05:58] So if you’re charting while you’re probably getting played on the radio more, so you’re probably getting more money. Uh, that’s cool. The other way is they look at a playlist from radio stations. Um, that’s kind of a big one. So radio stations submit their playlist to as happy am I and C SAC or ASCAP BMI and see SAC.

[00:06:21] Look at like the internet stuff to see who’s play being played. And the thing about that is it’s not, it’s not a hundred percent accurate, right? Like sometimes something ends up on a playlist ahead of time for a radio station and they just like, don’t play it because time, um, they have to cut some songs, so it’s not fully accurate.

[00:06:47] And the other way that they will. Uh, deny that they do this, but they definitely still do this. They literally have people listening to two tapes, um, from radio stations and writing down what’s hugs that songs get played. They also have some digital listening techniques, not dissimilar to what. YouTube uses to determine if you’re using someone else’s song illegally, um, within videos that you publish Facebook does the same thing.

[00:07:15] The problem with this, and you might not know this as a radio listener, radios stations often. Very slightly speed up the songs that they play so they can fit more songs. And this will completely screw with the, uh, the technology that is used to do like select their money. So the bottom line is if you’re getting radio play at all, you might be able to make money with a pro.

[00:07:49] And that amount of money varies. I’ve made very small checks with my PRS. Um, most of my money from PRS. So my current affiliate is C SAC. Another way, SAC and BMI. I’m not sure about as cap. I don’t think they have this yet. Uh, Pay writers is, um, this, this, I think is the coolest thing about being part of a pro like BMI or C SAC is that if you go to a venue and you play your own music, you submit it to, to see SAC or BMI.

[00:08:21] You tell them the size of the venue, the name of the venue and the date and the songs that you played that are yours and anyone else’s, they take that information and they pay you. If I play Connor Bern. In Ballard, I get like between 50 cents and a dollar for every song of mine that I performed. It does not matter how many tickets I sold for that show.

[00:08:44] It does not matter how many people attended that show. All that matters is the capacity of the venue. So if you’re a touring artist, you play live shows, you play songs that you write, you need to get on BMI probably. And, uh, so you can get paid. For doing your own stuff. You also get paid. Of course, if you have synchronizations and TV shows in movies, there’s a public performance aspect of that as well as the synchronization license to that.

[00:09:12] So the secret is  license is separate from the public performance. We’re only talking about the public performance, other weird things that are part of the public performance license are ringback tones. Um, because when, you know, do you remember what ringback towns are? Not a lot of people have it anymore because they’re kind of silly, but it used to be, you could call somebody and that person can set up a song that would be played to you while you were waiting for them to pick up the phone.

[00:09:40] So ringback tones and ringtones are considered public performances because it shoots the music into the public. Isn’t that kind of funny, um, and dated. But whatever. Let’s talk about the three Pieros a little bit, um, kind of broadly as cap was the first American pro. It was created by songwriters. Dope.

[00:10:04] Cool. Love that. Um, BMI is a second. The B and BMI stands for broadcaster. So a broadcast is created that. Pro. And then finally there’s a C SAC, which I don’t think stands for anything anymore, much like SATs don’t really stand for anything anymore. Um, see sack is famously the only pro in the United States.

[00:10:27] That is a private for profit organization as cap and BMI are non. Profits and to get affiliated with C SAC, like I have been for the past, like six or seven years, you need an invitation that means, or that used to mean that you had to have one of their reps vow. True. So, um, my husband was a C SAC affiliate before I was, we were then just stating I had H E P I released called elephant angel fish eye.

[00:11:02] He sent it to his rep at C sack. She liked it. She found she had faith in me as a songwriter and she signed me and I asked, well, did Csonka for drop writers. And at the time she said, no, They don’t. Um, we like to be dropped by a pro, which is technically too, for them to opt out of renewing. Your affiliation is really rare or used to be.

[00:11:34] Um, so Seesaw has actually made some changes now to even become a new affiliate with C SAC requires, uh, revenue minimums. So they have to think you’re going to make a specific amount of money. For them that they can then dish out to you again, they are a for-profit organization. That’s their prerogative.

[00:11:56] They continue to sign enormous songwriters like Bob Dylan, and Adele and David Crosby. And then. Lately this year they’ve been dropping people. They’ve dropped friends of mine who have appeared, had like huge, enormous sinks in big, uh, network TV shows. So I, and they dropped me. I really don’t know what their progress to there is, but to be dropping songwriters.

[00:12:25] And then our year of 2020 is really, really disgusting. I think it’s pretty gross. Again, they’re prerogative. That’s fine. I’m going to now sign with BMI. It’s going to be a little bit of a pain in my ass, but you know, it doesn’t really matter cause I wasn’t really making a lot of money with that anyway.

[00:12:47] But um, for other people that they’re currently forcing to opt out, which is again unheard of in general and really I think a terrible thing to do to songwriters and musicians in 2020. Um, What can you do? I probably would have made a lot more money for them if I had been able to tour them this year, but I haven’t.

[00:13:07] So I didn’t, whatever. Um, but yeah. So the other Pieros BMI and C SAC, you just sign up. That’s easy. It’s that easy? It’s just you sign up, um, read the contracts. Um, when I Rhea Philippe, I will be re affiliated Rhea fileting with BMI, um, because they had the same public performance submission system. Um, you might be wondering which pro pays the best.

[00:13:40] It’s probably C SAC, but I think the difference for most songwriters of any level who would be watching this video is the answer is it probably doesn’t really matter. So that’s fine. All right. Let’s get into the next thing that I want to talk about, which is the parts of your publishing. So this is actually done to protect songwriters and does a very good job with that.

[00:14:04] Um, when you affiliate with a pro as an independent songwriter, and by that, I mean, you do not already have an agreement with a publishing company to handle the publishing of your songs. So. Though, if you have a publisher, like if you’re, um, if you’re assigned to bug music or, um, Sony is not Sony BMG, Sony publishing probably now or anything like that, um, this isn’t really apply to you.

[00:14:35] Super-duper a lot because your publisher already has explained this to you, but when you write a song and you submit it to your pro. It’s broken into two parts. So as if you were the sole songwriter on a song you own, you do own a hundred percent of that song, but the way you need to affiliate yourself within a pro is in two parts split right down the middle 50 50.

[00:15:07] You don’t often negotiate this any other way than 50, 50 there’s the writer share. And there’s the publisher share. And this does a great job at protecting writers because otherwise publishers could get greedy and I’m sure they have in the past before, this was how it works and take all of your publishing your PR.

[00:15:30] If you’ve read a book about music business, the first one of the first things they tell you is, do not sell your publishing. And they just tell you that you shouldn’t, and you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t sell your publishing. If you’re a new songwriter, you shouldn’t publish it. You shouldn’t sell your song writing, um, unless you really, really, really need the money.

[00:15:52] And that’s how I feel about it. Um, so if you’re a young, I mean, you might feel like you’re really, really need the money, but I promise you, you don’t need to do this and you should do this. So never. Wow. You’re still getting started. Don’t sell your publishing. Uh, so you’re pro it’s in two parts. These are the two parts, the songwriter and the publisher.

[00:16:16] And when you register for, um, let’s say BMI, it’s free to register the song writer half, and it costs money to register the publisher half. That’s fine. Just pay the $125 or whatever one-time fee and have it done with, I know that sounds like a lot of money and it is for a lot of song writers, but it’s but you should register both so you can get paid.

[00:16:36] Um, so the songwriter half and the publisher half you, you pick your publisher name minus historical fiction, whatever. Um, And you submit your songs. And then half goes to the song writer, you and half goes to the publisher. If you have a publisher, they take that half. They deal with it. They take the money from it.

[00:16:58] If you’re doing everything, you do get both halves. So don’t fret about it too much. Don’t stress about it. It’s just something you need to do. Um, and this video is not going to get in depth enough. For that to matter. It’s like, I’m not going to explain the intricacies because I don’t fully understand them either, but that every single publisher is going to make you register twice.

[00:17:21] This is normal. This is fine. You need to do it. It’s going to be okay. I. Promise. Um, yeah, so that’s kind of the gist of it. Um, those are the kind of the most asked questions, the most weird things. Um, I recently guided my bandmates through the whole publisher thing, which is cool. Um, so that’s, those are a lot of questions that they had for me about PRS, but if you anticipate playing live a lot, if you anticipate maybe getting some radio play.

[00:17:55] Then you should sign up for a pro basically, as soon as you release music into the world, um, you should sign up for a pro. So then when you sign up for a pro, what you do is you register your songs. Um, that includes who you wrote the song with, uh, the title of the song. You can upload, um, an MP3 of the song, which I highly recommend.

[00:18:19] Uh, it’s not the same as copywriting your song. So don’t get that twisted. You still need to copy, right. Um, your music and don’t let it. Okay. So I’m just gonna get into one more thing. There’s this real silly kind of urban legend that I kind of want to refer to it as an urban legend, that there’s something called a poor man’s copyright.

[00:18:43] And what that entails is, um, mailing yourself, your music via certified mail. If someone steals your music, then that’s proof. That you came up with at first. That sounds great. But the fact of the matter is it’s, um, it’s, it’s bad advice. You should just, I’m sorry. You got to bite the bullet. You’ve got you.

[00:19:05] Can’t be pinching pennies when you’re trying to protect your own music. Or your own art or your own creations. This is not the time to pinch pennies. This is not the time at all. Um, if you have concerns that maybe somebody is going to steal your music, you need to submit it to the copyright office in the United States.

[00:19:25] Is it easy? No. Is it cheap? Not really. Um, but is it worth it if someone actually does steal your music and the answer is yes. Yes. Because even, because even if you have that certified mail that shows that you came up with at first, um, do you know what you’re not entitled to? If you don’t register your copyright damages, that means you can’t Sue the person who stole from you.

[00:19:56] For damages, you can’t make them pay money as well. Again, not a lawyer, but you need to register and you can actually register your copyright after, after someone’s seals yourself. If you can prove it, you can prove it. That’s great. And some people do that, but for the frigging peace of mind, register your copyrights.

[00:20:21] Please you work so hard on your music. This is what gives you fire. This is yours. You don’t want someone to steal it. Then you need to register your copyright. Having a pro is not quite the same. Having a pro is how you get paid for the music that you own. Having a copyright is what protects you from infringement and that’s infringement is when someone steals your music.

[00:20:48] Yeah. Your song writing. So I know this isn’t like our normal, our normal kind of video, but, um, just for some background, because I’m sure you’re sitting there wondering what the hell does this woman know about any of this kind of stuff? Like what is her, what, what gives her the right to talk to me about music, business stuff?

[00:21:12] And I can tell you, I, um, I have a bachelor’s degree in music business from one of the top music business schools in the country, uh, Belmont university, I think maybe only NYU has a better music business program. So, I mean, I studied this, I I’ve, um, interned at publishing companies. I’ve worked in music.

[00:21:35] Basically since college and in various capacities, I have a band I have, I’ve been affiliated with a pro, uh, since I was 21. And, um, I’m a song writer. So, I mean, I’ve been through, I’ve been through some ringers on this, not as many as a lot of people at well, yeah. A lot of people, um, But I just have a little bit of information about PRS as someone who’s been affiliated for a long time.

[00:22:02] And I just wanted to answer some questions that friends and followers have had about, uh, PRS. So was this a comprehensive look at PRS? Yeah. And let me see if I have a book. I recommend this book more than any other book. This is the Donald Passman book. All you need to know about the music business. This was literally my textbook in college or previous version of it.

[00:22:35] I really recommend buying this book and I’m not even going to link to it on Amazon because I don’t want you to necessarily buy it through Amazon. I’m not an Amazon affiliate either. So that’s fine. That’s totally fine. But Shaiman and sister shine and Schuster, Simon, and Schuster and publish this. And this has, um, this basically will kind of answer almost every question you have.

[00:22:59] This is the most recent version of it. It’s the 10th edition. I think it came out last year or earlier this year. Um, and it will be among with, if you’re a musician songwriter among the smart $35 you might ever spend. So check it out, read it, read it, cover to cover. You’re going to thank yourself later.

[00:23:23] And again, if you’re a song writer and you’ve released music, or if you play music live. Yeah, I think it’s worth it to sign it for a pro. Like BMI, especially one that lets you submit songs that you play at your own shows for money. I have friends who made, I mean, it’s incremental revenue for a songwriter.

[00:23:44] Is it going to be your biggest source of income? Probably not. Not unless like you get a song that gets played at Nick’s games all the time, or if you have a, you know, even if you’re at that level. Of famous. Like that’s not going to be your biggest source of revenue, probably not. Um, but it’s money that you’re leaving on the table.

[00:24:06] If you don’t have a pro I have friends who have made $2,000 in a year for, um, they’re from their PRS. That’s like six or seven bucks a day. I think. So again like that, it’s a couple of months of rent for a lot of people. Check it out, try it out. Um, If you know anybody at CC, I mean, I do. It’s nothing. I can do anything about it at all.

[00:24:32] I’m kind of mad about it, uh, who gets dropped from their peer posts that literally doesn’t happen. So BMI and ASCAP are not going to drop. You. See SAC might, they’re a private for profit organization. They can do whatever the hell they want. If they want to drop me, they’re going to drop me. It’s I cried a little.

[00:24:55] I’m feeling better now that, um, I mean, they, they literally dropped, I’m just gonna say this. They dropped me two days before Thanksgiving and three days before my band got featured on all songs considered. And like two months before, I’m probably in a document of a major, like an actually commercially released documentary.

[00:25:14] So

[00:25:18] it’s just in the end. That just is kind of funny, right? Well, anyway, a big thanks to this Joe kid that reminds me this true kid does not collect PRL money. So, but they do collect royalties. I feel like I need to mention, there are a few different kinds of royalties and royalties or payments you get from your work.

[00:25:43] Um, basically, uh, Piros pay you for your performance royalties. And then, uh, this, your kid pays you. I think, I think that might be considered mechanical royalties and it mechanical royalty is just a payment you get per, per song sold or streamed. So if you sell a song, I feel like someone buys a, so you wrote on iTunes for 99 cents.

[00:26:06] So you get 9.10 cents of that for your mechanical royalties as a song writer. Um, if you solely wrote the song, if you wrote the song with somebody else, you split that 9.10 cents. That, that was kind of simple. So that’s that. So, Hey, I’ve talked about two kinds of roles. I think I talked about three kinds of royalties.

[00:26:25] I briefly mentioned synchronization licenses, nerd stuff that I find very interesting. I hope you found this video. Interesting. I know it was long. Thanks to distro kid for sponsoring this content. Um, I really love their product. I love the way that they support artists. Um, I don’t. I feel like some, I, this is me speaking from the heart.

[00:26:49] Like I felt this way about the strict histories before they sponsored. I used to be with other another, um, distribution, online distribution company, and they charged me closer to 60 bucks a year. I felt like I was getting fleeced. I make about 60 bucks in mechanicals, a here, technically in sales and royalties for stuff.

[00:27:11] So I was basically. Bottoming out on what I could do. And they didn’t have like nearly the features that distro kid has like.

[00:27:23] Yeah, I’m really, really so happy. I suppose, to district head I’m happy. It was as easy as it was with music. I’d already released. So big ups to distro kid for sponsoring this video, uh, sponsoring the podcast. There’s a podcast. You should listen to it and check it out. There’s also a video version of it.

[00:27:41] And for supporting artists from around the world, really like. Yeah, big ups. So thanks for watching. Thanks for understanding. Once again, my name is Emily and I need to fix my camera Mount situation. Look how bouncy it is. Goodbye.