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for mechanical licensing; the similarity in terms or social media. These can range from $15-25 for one
is simply because both are rates pre-set by the video for one year, to $100 or more for posting in per-
government), or sometimes called “digital per- petuity. This can be a helpful revenue stream, but can
formance royalties” (not to be confused with also seem unfair since many unlicensed videos will slip
the “performance royalties” we just mentioned!) through, and this system may “penalize” the conscien-
These are collected by a third-party organization tious people who are careful to inquire before posting.
called SoundExchange, and split 50/50 between Other publishers may not charge for posting (non-
the performer on the album and the album label monetized) videos, focusing instead on making it easy
(i.e. the owner of the sound recording itself). and accessible for performers to share their work; this
feels more even-handed and encouraging, but loses a
SoundExchange exists only to handle these unique “statu- potential revenue stream for publisher and composer.
tory royalties/digital performance royalties” for non-interactive YouTube has an automated algorithm, Content ID,
streaming. Their work does not overlap with The MLC which analyzes and identifies sound clips from com-
or PROs, and composers and publishers are not in- mercial recordings and matches that musical content to
volved in this type of revenue, so you only need to videos that use this same music (including the original
register the recording with SoundExchange if you are recording, or anyone else’s performance or “cover”). If
performing on the recording, thus qualifying for some (and only if) the Content ID system can identify and
of the performer/artist share, or if you own the rights match the music, then any videos posted to YouTube
to the actual sound recording, thus qualifying for the containing that music (whether a performance video or
label share. a soundtrack to other visual content) will generate two
If you own the rights to the album and registered it streams of revenue:
that way with a service like CD Baby, then they func-
tion as the “label” in this scenario; they will automati- 1) Performance royalties for the “public performance”
cally collect from SoundExchange and pay you (minus of the musical work (reported by YouTube to the
the 9% cut they take). If your work is on an album PRO as part of their licensing agreement; the
released (owned) by a corporate label (like Sony, Decca, PRO then pays the publisher and writer[s]).
etc) this share is paid to that label, not you. Either way,
note that mechanical royalties are not paid on non- 2) Ad revenue from any ads that play on the video
interactive streaming, the way they are on interactive (sometimes called “social video” royalties). This
streaming, because the recording is not considered “re- money is divided among the publisher(s) of the
produced and distributed” for the listener. musical compositions, the label/distributor of the
sound recording(s) incorporated into the video,
and sometimes also the video uploader, depending
Video on their monetization settings and any licensing

arrangement the video uploader made with the
Sync Licensing (direct licensing with the pub- publishers and label outside of the YouTube sys-
lisher) in the digital era: tem. (The routing of this revenue is complicated
While virtually all publishers still charge sync li- and beyond the scope of this article.)
censes per-copy-duplicated for physical video record-
ings (DVDs), their policies vary for posting digital video Unfortunately, there is not currently a way for publishers
on the internet. (It’s much easier to calculate a fee per- of choral music to directly establish Content ID accounts with
copy for physical products like DVDs, than to calcu- YouTube (whether self-publishers or even established
late a fee based on “how many people downloaded or traditional publishers). Content ID is currently only
streamed your posted video.”) Some publishers and available for the very large publishers, labels, and dis-
self-publishers may charge a sync license fee for post- tributors in the music industry, so the only way for “the
ing videos of performances (live or virtual) on YouTube rest of us” to register music with Content ID is to go

CHORAL JOURNAL March/April 2023 Volume 63 Number 7 41