Page 42 - Mar_Apr23

The Business of Composing, Part 2 - Licensing

- PROs have “publisher” members and “writer” (com- Interactive Streaming Summary
poser or lyricist) members, and pay performance When someone uses Spotify (or some other interac-
royalties directly to all parties involved (split ac- tive-streaming DSP) to stream someone’s recording of
cording to how the publisher tells them to; typical- a piece you published with a traditional publisher, Spo-
ly 50% to publisher and 50% to writer[s]). If you tify pays mechanical royalties to The MLC who then
publish with a traditional publisher, they should be passes them along to your publisher (who registered the
registering your works with your PRO under their work there); and presumably The MLC or the publish-
publisher account; those works will then automati- er have successfully matched the work to this particular
cally link to your writer account. recording), and your publisher splits them with you.
Spotify also pays performance royalties to your PRO,
- The PROs are effective at finding and linking the who then sends half directly to your publisher and half
kinds of performances or recordings that gener- directly to you, based on streams of the piece.
ate significant income, even without additional If the work is self-published, you should register the
work on your part. Some composers self-report all work in your publisher accounts at both The MLC and
performances they can find to their PRO; royal- your PRO. The MLC then pays the mechanical royal-
ties can vary widely based on many factors, so you ties directly to you (as the publisher), and your PRO will
may or may not see worthwhile revenue accumu- pay your “publisher half ” to your publisher account
late for these efforts. and your “composer half ” to your writer account.
Regardless of where/how you published the work,
- If you self-publish, be sure to sign up with your PRO if your own the rights to the album/recording (i.e. you
as a publisher member, and register your self- produced a recording of your own work) you’ll also
published works in your publisher account, listing receive wholesale proceeds through your record label
yourself as composer, so you receive both halves (either a standard record label, or CD Baby, TuneCore,
(publisher and writer). (CD Baby Pro Publishing etc., who function as a “label”/distributor for self-pro-
is another way to collect the publisher share of duced albums). In this scenario, you would receive rev-
performance royalties, but they take a 15% cut; enue through three different sources, all generated by
we recommend registering directly with a PRO interactive streaming (Refer to revenue streams #1, 2,
instead.) and 3 on The MLC’s chart, linked in end note 2). 3

- Again, The MLC does not interact with PROs; the
MLC handles only the mechanical royalty side Non-Interactive Streaming – Audio
and the PRO handles only the performance roy- Non-interactive Streaming (with less user choice
alty side. about what is listened to, i.e. “internet radio” DSPs like
Pandora, Sirius XM, and iHeart Radio) generates two
Wholesale Proceeds (or, more simply, revenue revenue streams:
shares) are paid to the album producer/distributor (i.e.
a label or recording producer), not to the composer or 1) Performance royalties (which are similar to in-
publisher/copyright holder. If you own the rights to teractive streaming), reported to your PRO and
the recording of your work, you can collect this reve- split between publisher and composer 50/50 (see
nue through a service like CD Baby or TuneCore (etc.) above). This is why you may see both interactive
who is functioning as your “label”/distributor. and non-interactive DSPs listed as generating roy-
alties in your statements from your PRO.

2) Non-interactive streams also generate a unique type
of royalty sometimes called statutory royal-
ties (not to be confused with the “statutory rate”

40 CHORAL JOURNAL March/April 2023 Volume 63 Number 7