MUMBAI: It is known to all that with the onset of streaming services, the music business is seeing golden days. But, with the rise, other problems like metadata/registration problems, lawsuits, missing songwriters, incorrect royalty pay or delays, unknown composition and failed legislation etc. Yet, the main issue surrounds the underlying composition – the song, which has been created by a songwriter.
To solve this problem, CD Baby Publishing is proud to announce that it is helping over one million songs and 160,000 songwriters, in over 50 countries, with direct affiliations, at more than 30 Performing Rights Organizations worldwide. In this milestone administration, they administer 100% of the publishing shares, thus helping to solve issues of one song writer, at a time. Also, their global Publishing Administration service is getting these songwriters, their rightfully owed money, globally, and is also helping to eradicate the “black boxes” at collection societies.
The key role of CD Babys is not only helping music creators to publish their music but also ensure that they get the right revenue share.
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Speaking about their objectives, CD Baby Creator Services VP Jon Bahr says, “We give artists and songwriters full choice to layer different services under creator-friendly terms as opposed to overreaching rights grabs. With 9 million recordings distributed (one million new tracks in 2017 alone!), four million songs with YouTube and Facebook monetization, three million songs, under non-exclusive Sync Licensing, one million songs under Publishing Administration, 25,000 new Publishing songs registered a month, and 4,000 new songwriters a month, collecting all their Publishing owed, CD Baby is getting money flowing to music creators.”
“At CD Baby, we educate that ‘no song should go unpublished.’ A songwriter is inherently their own publisher, but knowing what to do usually ended with joining a performing rights organization like ASCAP or BMI in the US or SOCAN in Canada and hopefully knowing to collect as a both a writer and a publisher. In my thirteen year tenure at ASCAP, I met countless songwriters, who said ASCAP was their publisher (which is incorrect). Not managing your publishing shouldn’t mean the writer doesn’t get the money owed, but it does within the international framework of how songwriting royalties flow,” he adds.
He further told, “In the US, for certain interactive services like Amazon Music Unlimited and Pandora Premium the album or single won’t go live – though completely delivered by a distributor without a Publisher registration/license of their works via Music Reports Inc. (MRI). We, as well as our artists and songwriters, certainly want their music to be available to as many listeners as they can, unimpeded, by their lack of publishing understanding.”
He also brought to the notice that many songwriters don’t have any idea about their royalty streams is not collected. Though these should flow, well, if the Music Modernization Act becomes law, songwriters will still need to proactively get their mechanical royalties in the US or work with a partner/publisher, else, their royalties will be given away only after three years.
Further enlightening on the royalties of songwriters, Jon Bahr said, “Each songwriter that chooses to use our Publishing Administration, when distributing their music with CD Baby, gets more money for each stream or download and solves countless global data problems. In a streaming era, where mechanicals accounts for roughly half the publishing royalties owed, songwriters have royalties sprinkled in every country in the world where someone pressed play and they don’t realize it. In a real-world example, a CD Baby published writer collected over $25,000 in just one country from a foreign online gaming platform that one wouldn’t think pays out directly.
Meanwhile, with about 45% international releases, the CD Baby songwriter community is completely a global entity. Their administration partnership with Songtrust / Downtown Music Publishing helps them to collect revenue, via, their direct global affiliations, with over 30 PROs, covering in over 75 countries and territories, where they have clients. The songwriters are connected, directly to the source. In mere five years, they have over about 50,000 songwriters, who are administered at, both, ASCAP and BMI. The organization also makes it easy to get full global songwriter royalty collection, with a simple one-year term, which is followed by a quarterly renewal and a fair 15% administration fee. Also, both, In Canada and the US, a writer can join a PRO, as a songwriter, without leaving their website.
