Music Publishing Royalties

To complicate matters, but in ways that are beneficial to the songwriter ultimately, there are several "collection societies" that act as middlemen and assist in the collection of some of these royalties. ASCAP, BMI and SESAC are rights societies that collect the license fees from any music users who want to perform music in public, radio and TV stations being the biggest of such users. Songwriters join one of these and then register their works that are to be publicly performed. All three have detailed websites that provide further information. The Harry Fox Agency ("HFA") is the collection organization that handles mechanical licenses on behalf of their music publisher members. Most publishers use the HFA as a license clearance facility as they have the administrative capacity to handle the thousands of license requests that record companies make each year. If you are a songwriter without a deal with a music publisher you can always issue mechanical licenses on your own or if you're getting a ton of license requests and you don't want to contract with a another music publisher you can always join the HFA as a publisher member. Do a Google search to find these societies on the World Wide Web.

Synchronization licenses are most often handled directly by the songwriter or, if the songwriter has one, a music publisher. Licenses to print sheet music are generally farmed out to one of three print companies operating in the U.S.

© Mark G. Quail 2004
The information in this article is not to be construed as legal advice. It is strongly recommended that you seek legal counsel in your local jurisdiction to advise you on any contractual matters.

Mark G. Quail is a lawyer based in Toronto Canada. His practice is restricted to music and video game related matters. He can be reached through his website at www.markquail.com