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The Business of Composing, Part 2 - Licensing

performance royalties the next quarter. 6 are now much better established than they were even
ASCAP also has license agreements with Twitch, In- 5-10 years ago. Our best advice for any composer is to
stagram, TikTok, etc, so posts/plays of your music on register as a writer member with a PRO of your choice,
these platforms can also eventually trigger some per- and be sure your works are all in their system—this one
formance royalty payments from ASCAP if your music simple move can capture performance royalties from
can be identified through a registered recording. Other live performances, interactive streams, and non-inter-
platforms (e.g., Vimeo and Twitter) have not currently active streams! The U.S.-based PROs have relation-
reached agreements for licensing. ships with their counterparts around the world, as well;
CD Baby and other similar distributors also offer so registering with one will help performance royalties
other monetization options for self-owned albums: to be collected around the world, should live perfor-
mances happen overseas. If there are widely-played re-
- A Facebook Monetization program similar to You- cordings of your music on Apple Music or Spotify, we
Tube’s Content ID program (with, unfortunately, the recommend talking to your publisher to be sure those
same heavy limitations on eligibility). If you opt in works are registered with The MLC, or if you self-
and have eligible recordings, CD Baby will collect and publish, register your publisher entity and your works
distribute sound recording earnings for the recording directly with The MLC.
owner from Facebook. If you want to do less of this work yourself, there are
third-party administrators/advocates available for hire
- The publisher’s side of revenue for Facebook can only such as Songtrust, Harry Fox Agency, Sentric, etc, who
be collected through CD Baby Pro Publishing (or the will track and collect the royalties mentioned above (as
few large companies that have rights management ac- well as international performance royalties) in exchange
count with Facebook (e.g,. BMG, Kobalt, Songtrust, for a registration fee and/or a cut of your royalties. This
etc). However, these options would, again, only be may be worthwhile for self-publishing composers with
available if you don’t already have a publisher collect- enough music being recorded and distributed digitally,
ing other revenue or administering other rights for your and/or complicated situations. Individual companies’
work; this is likely not the case for most choral compos- policies/applications may vary with respect to adminis-
ers publishing or self-publishing their work. 7 tering certain rights but not all rights, which may make
them unfeasible for composers who already have one
- A Sync Licensing program which makes your music or more publishers administering certain rights to their
available to music licensors looking for music to use as published pieces, or who self-administer their rights for
soundtracks to videos; if they select your music, CD self-published works. Talk to these companies about
Baby negotiates an upfront fee on your behalf and pays your options, if interested.
you 60% of that fee. Most sync usages also result in We also hope that conductors will better understand
performance royalties as well. the importance of securing licensing to support com-
posers, including a blanket performance license from
PROs (and accurate reporting of their performed
Conclusion repertoire) as well as mechanical licensing for CDs or
We’d like to reiterate: the revenue streams mentioned download sales. For recordings posted to streaming
here are not get-rich-quick situations for most choral DSPs, a simple heads-up to the composer about your
composers. Significant visibility and large play-counts recording can help the composer (and/or their pub-
are needed to generate significant revenue. However, lisher) track down that revenue as well.
some of these revenue streams can add up to amounts Thank you to all the choral conductors who support
that make the effort worthwhile, if your music is getting new music from living composers, and to all the com-
significant plays and posts. posers making new music. We hope these articles clarify
The digital landscape is constantly evolving; but the your options and point you toward success in the busi-
collection mechanisms through PROs and The MLC ness of composing!

44 CHORAL JOURNAL March/April 2023 Volume 63 Number 7