Tag Archive | mechanical license

Happy New Year Songwriters! You’ve Got New Royalties

Happy New Year Songwriters & Music Publishers!

Take note of the new mechanical royalty rates that are now in effect for the use of your songs in the United States:

As of January 1, 2023, royalty rates are as follows:

• Physical / Permeant Download: 12¢ per minute or 2.31¢ per minute or fraction thereof, whichever amount is greater

• Interactive Streaming / Limited Downloads / Locker Services / Other Digital Deliveries: 15.1% of Service Revenue or Total Content Cost Prong Calculation, whichever amount is greater by offering.

As a reminder, if you own the publishing in your songs, you may be eligible to join The Mechanical Licensing Collective to get paid directly 100% of your digital audio mechanical royalties. This is a separate royalty stream, which your PRO (ASCAP / BMI / SESAC) does not collect or pay out. You earn two songwriter royalties when your songs are streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, and other digital music services. You earn a performance royalty (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC) and a mechanical royalty (The MLC).

Learn more about The MLC at http://www.themlc.com and join for free today!

About The MLC in 60 Seconds:

Understanding the New United States’ Mechanical Royalty Rates

🚨Attention Music Creators & Indie Music Publishers🚨

Understand the New United States’ Mechanical Royalty 💸 Rates

📱Streaming: 15.1% of DSP revenue
💿Physical: 12 cents per media (e.g. CD, Vinyl)
🎧Downloads: 12 cents per download

Previously, streaming was 10.5% of DSP revenue and physical media and downloads were 9.1 cents.

Looking ahead to 2023, songwriters will see a 32%-44% increase in mechanical royalty income.

It is more important than ever before to make sure that your songs are registered at The Mechanical Licensing Collective.

Check out this explainer video that I helped to create on how song metadata influences your money:
https://youtu.be/BprSCHUAIcw

(Side Note: Before you sign a recording contract, understand how a “controlled composition clause” may reduce your income as a songwriter and how your obligation to pay collaborators the full statutory royalty rates, while you’re being paid less than the full statutory rate, will impact your overall net income as an artist.)

[Video] Artist Managers Connect presents AMA About The Mechanical Licensing Collective with Dae Bogan

Dae Bogan conducts a Facebook Live “Ask Me Anything” regarding The Mechanical Licensing Collective in the Artist Managers Connect Facebook group on January 20th, 2021. Watch

Is the blanket license royalty rate determined after the majors have negotiated their license with the DSPs?

Does registration with the MLC supersede registrations with HFA and MRI?

If a song was previously licensed under the voluntary license, does it now have a secondary revenue to coming from the blanket license, or do you have to choose one path over the other?

Will the MLC establish reciprocal mechanical collections with foreign mechanical CMOs such as MCPS and AMCOS?

Watch me answer these questions and many more from artist managers in my “Ask Me Anything About The Mechanical Licensing Collective”

Watch: https://youtu.be/Kz43LyYXMUI

[Video] Songtrust Presents ‘Let’s Talk Music Publishing: The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC)’ With Dae Bogan

Watch the recording of Songtrust’s webinar.

Description: With the beginning of the new year, as the initiation of The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) begins, songwriters have a lot of questions about how this will affect them in 2021 and beyond. Join the Songtrust team, along with special guest Dae Bogan, Head of Third Party Partnerships at The MLC, to discuss everything you need to know about The MLC and their relationship to Songtrust.

I Was Interviewed By The Congressional Budget Office Regarding The Music Modernization Act, And Now I’m Even More Concerned For DIY Musicians

cbo1

I just spent the last hour giving a copyright law and music publishing crash course to a Principal Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office who’s tasked with determining the economic impact of the revised Music Modernization Act (which, by the way, now includes the Musical Works Modernization Act (which is an update to the originally proposed MMA, affecting songwriters and publishers), AMP Act (affecting producers and engineers) and CLASSICS Act (affecting recording artists of Pre-1972 records)) on states, DSPs and music creators.

He emailed me yesterday and asked to speak with me about the magnitude of the unclaimed royalties market, although we ended up discussing much more than that. Apparently he had discovered a presentation that I gave at the Music Industry Research Association’s MIRA Conference last year titled “The State of Unclaimed Royalties and Music Licenses in the United States.”

Screenshot (533)

Email from a Principal Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office

At the top of the one hour call he began by stating that he’s had to learn copyright and music publishing in 2 days (2 days!!!). The guy who’s going to contribute to a recommendation to Congress that will impact whether or not 3 different bills will be enacted and change our copyright law has spent only 2 days learning about the complex web of regulations and customs that govern an entire industry and its millions of constituents. I guess this is how legislation is vetted; economically.

The good news is he had a lot of great questions and had did a significant amount of research prior to our call. To be fair, I meet plenty of music industry professionals who have (or at least demonstrate) less knowledge of what’s going on in the world of music rights administration and music publishing than this gentleman; and they’ve spent years in the industry! It is refreshing to know that the government does inquiry with non-lobbyist from time to time when considering the impact of proposed legislation.

At any rate, he was open to hearing my advocacy on behalf of music creators (specifically songwriters, music producers, and recording artists of Pre-1972 records) as well as my substantiated opposition to some features of the revised MMA (generally those features that would disproportionately benefit music licensees (primarily, DSPs) and major publishers while leaving DIY music creators to fend for themselves).

[This paragraph was omitted on 4/20/2018 as a result of a clarification that I received for Title 3 of the MMA]

Another issue I have is with the ownership of the unclaimed mechanical royalties fund(s). The Musical Works Modernization Act (Title 1 of the MMA) would, for the first time, codify the existence of a mechanical royalties black box in the United States. The current US Copyright Act does not give copyright owners a right to earn or collect mechanical royalties if their musical works are not registered with the US Copyright Office.

Here’s an excerpt from one of my articles on the matter:
After the NOI has been filed, it is then the copyright owner’s responsibility to become aware of and locate the NOI, and then take action in order to receive mechanical royalties. The law states, “To be entitled to receive royalties under a compulsory license, the copyright owner must be identified in the registration or other public records of the Copyright Office.” (17 USC 115(c)(1))
The law also makes it clear that the licensee is not required to pay mechanical royalties until after the copyright owner has been identified. “The owner is entitled to royalties for phonorecords made and distributed after being so identified…” (17 USC 115(c)(1)) What’s worse, the law does not require the licensee to pay retroactively for mechanical royalties earned before the copyright owner is identified. “…but is not entitled to recover for any phonorecords previously made and distributed.” (17 USC 115(c)(1))

However, intermediaries (e.g. Harry Fox Agency, Music Reports, Loudr) that process NOIs (Notice of Intent to Obtain a Compulsory Mechanical License) on behalf of their DSP clients do encourage their clients to set aside unattributed mechanical royalties into an escrow account (the so-called “black box”). The royalties sit there until the copyright owner raises his/her/their hand to collect the earnings or until the entity decides to disburse or absorb the uncollected funds.

Generally, this is a “good faith” policy.

Now, since the MMA will codify the black box as a matter of law, this private sector matter will become a government matter. The question, then, is will federal government or state governments have the right to maintain the unclaimed royalties black box?

Currently, unclaimed property laws enable states to receive and hold unclaimed property (such as money) when the property owner can not be reached. For example, California’s Unclaimed Property Law requires corporations, businesses, associations, financial institutions, and insurance companies (referred to as “Holders”) to annually report and deliver property to the California State Controller’s Office after there has been no activity on the account or contact with the owner for a period of time specified in the law – generally (3) three years or more. I’ve had a few refunds from services that I used and cancelled when I moved from one place to another. I did not provide the service with a forwarding address, so my refund became unclaimed property and ended up with the California State Controller. By searching the CSC’s database, I was able to find and then claim the property (pictured below).

If your property goes unclaimed too long (each state has their own statute of limitations), the state has the right to liquidate the property (e.g. sale an unclaimed vehicle) and absorb proceeds as miscellaneous revenue to the state’s budget [lawyers, correct me in the comments if I’m wrong].

Because states unintentionally (benefit of the doubt) benefits from unclaimed property, I could see states with significant music industries (e.g. California (Los Angeles), New York (Greater New York City), Tennessee (Nashville), Georgia (Atlanta)) suing the federal government or the Mechanical Licensing Collective (the entity that would be granted under the MMA to administer a new blanket licensing system along with a centralized database of musical and sound recording copyrights to match works with usage reports submitted by digital services) over the right to collect unclaimed royalties, especially if the black box is hundreds of millions of dollars (which I believe it is).

There are many other issues that I have with the MMA such as the proposed formation, structure (especially the imbalance of representation on its board where there would be 10 publishers and only 4 songwriters (why not 7/7?)), and governance of the MLC and similar unclaimed royalties issues related to the CLASSICS Act; among other issues. I’d be happy to discuss, but this post is already yuge!

In a word, I am all here for improving royalty rates, ensuring the fair treatment of music copyrights and moving towards a more equitable representation of music creators. However, the MMA is not quite there yet and passing it as-is, with all of its ambiguity, would be a shame. I don’t know if the music industry will have another shot to make this kind of update to the Copyright Act in the next 20 plus years (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 was the last significant update).

We should probably get it right — now.

Google To Enable DIY Musicians To Capture Their Mechanical Royalties

Google

Two months ago I published an investigative report on Google’s mechanical licensing practices that left DIY music creators without mechanical royalties from Google Play Music and YouTube.

Today, I’m happy to say that after weeks of discussions, Google has come onboard to Royalty Claim to make it possible for DIY music creators to get DIRECT LICENSING DEALS with Google Play Music and YouTube.

Read more in Royalty Claim’s Facebook post.

%d bloggers like this: