Music Business Information

This section provides information, articles and links about fundamental issues for songwriters, such as copyrighting, collection of royalties, and the performing rights organizations. The organizations listed below all play vital roles toward helping songwriters take care of their basic business affairs.

Performance Rights Organizations

Performance royalties provide a huge portion of many songwriters' income. In many cases, the writer of a hit song may make more money from performance income than from mechanical royalties. This is particularly the case of a hit song which receives massive airplay, but does not generate equivalent single or album sales.

Performance income can also be very important to writers who place their songs in TV shows. Income can be lucrative for writers who can consistently place songs in TV shows, particularly shows airing in prime time, or place songs in series which have numerous reruns. There are many writers who have built prosperous careers in this manner.

There are three, established performance rights organizations: ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. ASCAP and BMI are the most dominant, although SESAC has been making inroads. Publishers and songwriters have steadily debated the merits of these organizations, particularly BMI and ASCAP. The debates usually are not about the quality of the executives who represent each organization (all three have excellent representatives), but about which organization pays the best royalties. The debate continues, with ASCAP and BMI representing a fairly equal number of the most successful hit songwriters.

Here are some key links to all three organizations:

ASCAP
The ASCAP Advantage
An Introduction To The ASCAP Payment System
BMI
About BMI
BMI Royalty Information Booklet
SESAC
SESAC News

Copyrighting Your Songs

The U.S. Copyright Office website provides all the necessary information, instructions and forms to properly copyright your songs. Form PA is the basic form to copyright your songs, whether it be in an "unpublished" or "published" form. ("Unpublished" generally means that the song has not been released and distributed for sale to the public). The filing fee was increased as of July 1, 2006, to $45.00. You can download any forms from the Copyright Office site. Also, the site features a "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page, which does an excellent job of answering many of the questions writers may have. Here are three of the main Copyright Office links:

U.S. Copyright Office
Frequently Asked Questions About Copyright
Form PA (on PDF)

Also, there is an article about copyrighting songs in SongwriterUniverse Magazine. It discusses issues such as when a songwriter should file the copyright forms, and how to possibly save money on filing costs. Here is the article link:
"When To Copyright Your Songs"

Collecting Your Royalties

There are a variety of different income sources for songwriters, such as record sales, radio and TV performance income, film and TV synchronization fees, and sheet music royalties. The two main sources are mechanical royalties (sales from records) and performance income (revenues from radio and TV airplay). Performance royalties in the U.S. are collected by ASCAP, BMI and SESAC and distributed quarterly to each writer (see "Performance Rights Organizations" section below).

In most cases, mechanical royalties in the U.S. are collected and distributed by The Harry Fox Agency (HFA). HFA takes a commission of 6.0% to issue mechanical licenses and collect royalties from record companies. HFA is widely respected, and is utilized by both small, independent writer/publishers and the large publishing corporations. Self-published writers with just a few cuts can be assured of being paid properly by HFA. Occasionally, HFA conducts audits of labels to ensure that all royalties are being paid.

HFA also provides a service to collect foreign mechanical royalties. Writer/publishers who have not entered into subpublishing deals (for overseas administration and collection) can utilize HFA to do the collecting. In Canada, collection and distribution of mechanical royalties is largely handled by The Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd. (CMRRA). Most publishers utilize CMRRA for their collection of Canadian royalties.

Here are the links to HFA and CMRRA. Also included is the link to HFA's excellent "Frequently Asked Questions" webpage.

The Harry Fox Agency
Harry Fox Agency Frequently Asked Questions
CMRRA

Also FYI, there is an article in SongwriterUniverse Magazine about the history of mechanical royalty rates:
"An Overview Of Mechanical Royalty Rates"

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