I know it’s been a few years since this was implemented so i was curious if anybody with PRO registered audiojungle music have received any royalties from them. Just wondering if it’s worth my time to update all my music on here or not. thanks!
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I’ve got them. Collecting them is a pain in neck but if you have big placements, it can be very profitable. Unfortunately you have to monitor usage of your tracks and help PRO because their automatic systems are very inefficient for a stock-related usage.
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i have a lot of music registered with my PRO (ASCAP) but it’s all been through traditional music library channels and not audiojungle. So all that music is being licensed and royalties coming to me is all kind of automated through the system of it all. I’ve just been curious about exactly what you said which is how do you ensure your usages are getting reported particularly with music being licensed from audiojungle. i don’t think most of the customers even think any reporting needs to get done for anything. So are you using like tunesat too keep track of any usage then are you reporting to your PRO to look into potential royalties? Or have you had some stuff that just ended up getting reported on its own without you having to really do much?
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Here is everything you’ve asked about: The AJ Community Guide #2 - Performing Rights Organisation Royalties (PRO)
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The truth is that the royalty free market is very unpopular among working musicians aswell as many people who work for the PROs. I’ve mailed my PRO all the information I could gather about my placements (beeing over a thousand by now) with audiofiles attached to secure my claim. They said they’ll have a look into this. That was around a year ago and I have not received a single penny yet.
I don’t know if it just takes them so long because it can take up to 2 years to get royalties, but my suspicion is that they are neclecting it on purpose because they know it’s RF. On the other side a fellow member here on the forum who’s with the PRS contacted me and said that many of my placements are in their database, unclaimed. I’ve considering switching since then, but I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle and would also like to know if anyone here who’s with PRS have ever gotten any rayalties on tracks without a publisher.
On a side note, I got emails from a self proclaimed publisher who is interested in filling up the publishers role, so I can get payed out those royalties, but since I’m my own publisher I claim the right to get the publishers share also.
Would be nice if fellow members could sahre some more light on this.
@SteelSound @PurpleFog @Sky-Productions @aurusaudio @stockwaves @OvationMusic @AAMediaMusic
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So far PRO royalties have been pretty lacklustre for me. I did get one or two nice $1,000+ payments initially, but shortly after everything began to fizzle out.
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have been with BMI since it started here and i havent seen one cent.
thanks for this. some good insight here. Still hoping to hear from more people to just get a collective sense of any success or lack there of in PRO royalties from AJ tracks.
Same here. I get the royalties only for the tracks with publishers…
Because we all “self publish” here you will need to chase the royalties down yourself once you know your music is being used on air. If it’s getting used on a TV show, the client is required to add your writer and publisher name as well as your IPI # on the cue sheet. This is why it’s very important to clearly display your writer name, PRO affiliation, and IPI# next to every track. Don’t assume “they’ll be able to figure it out” because they won’t. This is why some tracks have been filed at PROS where they list “Audio Jungle” as publisher, which is “Entitled Party” to collect publisher share of the performance royalties. Pretty pathetic is it not? If you land a TV spot you need to file a claim that your music is getting used.
There is no downside to being in a PRO, only upside. Yes, I do collect royalties from broadcast placements and have had some very nice surprises on my PRO statements. 3K from Romania was one surprise, there have been many more but I know what I am doing and I know how to communicate with my PRO to ensure the royalties get collected and paid. Someone in Romania was doing the right paperwork and it all worked out without me ever seeing or even knowing about the project. If I did not properly and clearly display my writer and publisher name and IPI #, PRO affiliation, there is a chance I would not have been paid.
I have to believe that after 10 years of missed opportunities and blatant ignorance from many AJ participants that there are uncollected royalties in PRO’s all over the world that will never get collected.
Those who have a strategy of “NO PRO affiliation” are pretty ignorant IMHO.
I’m also on a continual hunt for royalties that I’m owed. Along with other musical streams, it now forms a major part of my income. The manual chasing of royalties should be considered an integral part of our business, so absolutely the responsibility of the author to track them down - as opposed to being completely ignorant to it or under the false assumption that other people will report usages correctly and do all the leg work for us. As the saying goes, if a job’s worth doing properly, do it yourself.
As part of my regular searches, I often check for ‘Audiojungle’ on the Unpaid Royalties page on the PRS website. It’s currently returning 14 long pages of uncollected royalties - many of which indeed are destined for AJ authors (some I do recognise) - and for potentially big numbers too (indicated by a ££££ in the ‘Amount’ listing). Potentially sensitive details blurred out, this is just a small sample of page 1
(Interestingly, as I checked the site to grab that screenshot, I spotted another 3 uses of my own music for that search that were presumably added recently, so another bunch I’m about to claim for).
Anyway, as you rightly maintain, it’s testament that there are many thousands in missed earnings just sat in a pot out there, waiting to be collected. Sadly, many never will.
Are you succeeding, even though they are listing audio jungle as publisher? PRS has been a challenge for me. I know I have royalties there and have written directly to them about that as well as to my PRO here asking them to please collect them, but they don’t seem to be in a hurry to pay them…some have been hanging around over there since 2015 or 2016. I should have been paid last week. Also…“thousands” missed? …probably “hundreds of thousands”.
I’m not currently having any issues recovering my royalties via PRS claims. I guess ‘Audiojungle’ is erroneously being added as publisher by PRS because a) there simply isn’t anywhere else to put it on their system and b) the administrators aren’t even questioning it.
When I first contacted PRS years ago about all of this, they initially refused to further my claims as they (wrongly) believed royalty-free music simply meant no royalties, period. It was only when I phoned, explained the model and the inherent confusion with the use of the term in our industry, they agreed to take a deeper look into my case and assigned me an administrator. Since then, I’ve had successful claims each time.
That said, whilst I did indeed suggest they maybe treated all AJ/RF claims differently to the more conventional publishing setup, it looks like they operate here on a case-by-case basis, especially if you’re still having issues claiming. Doesn’t seem to be company wide policy on this.
I should also mention that PRS only backdate claims on usages for up to 3 years, so any reported usages more than that can’t be claimed on. Also, regarding the £ ‘amount’ legend PRS use, this should explain it…
Haha, yes absolutely. Or even more realistically - millions.
For sure and I can also conclude that PRO’s welcome lots of lazy AJ writers who are not in the mood to claim the royalties. When they go unclaimed, they have more slush fund money for their internal staff, senior managers, and so on.They are happy to have a lot of extra money to give raises, and set aside extra cash for pet writers and publishers. But then again, is this any different then what we see here with all reviewers getting a sweet deal with the elements (no fair competition) monopoly?
Yes, it’s true that RF music is not very well respected because it’s basically associated with ending a good thing we had going in the library music industry up to perhaps 20 years ago. However, I don’t think PROs differentiate between RF and RM (rights managed). To them, it’s all the same when it comes to collecting royalties because the front end doesn’t matter and that’s where the differences between RF and RM exist.
PRO income is a “long term investment”. You generally aren’t going to immediately see the pay off because it can take a while before things get collected. Once they start, a single placement can bring you money for literally over a decade if a broadcast program gets syndicated in several countries. However, performance royalties from RF placements are notoriously small per use because the placements aren’t major placements. A placement of a song in prime time network TV is a lot more likely to be made through an RM library than an RF because RM library clients have the sort of budgets that allow them to produce major projects. They aren’t coming to low budget sites to find their music. RF customers do not have deep pockets for their productions, so they search low budget sites. A typical RF placement that goes to broadcast, and that’s not often, plays on cable TV during off hours. The difference in money generated by the different types of placements here can be astronomical.
Publisher or self-sublish?
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RF - self-publish
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RM - give up your publishing
I only advise self-publishing for those who are not able to get into a good RM library and are relying entire on RF, or those who are very well established with excellent music that gives them leverage to negotiate with an RM library. That being said, in current times, with incomes dwindling away as subscription services take over, I do not recommend allowing an RF library to take any of your publishing. I don’t work with RF libraries anymore, but if I did, I would not sign away the publishing. The bad news, of course, is that you’re going to have to chase after the royalties your PRO missed. There are ways to do that which have been covered elsewhere. Check out the link @RedOctopus posted above.
If you’re not happy with your placements and find yourself running around chasing too many royalties, you are probably much better off working with an RM music library with publishing entities AND music supervisors AND marketing staff. I think most people who compose music for a living, and are happy with their income, work with other dedicated people to secure their placements and collect their performance royalties rather than chase everything on their own. These RM libraries have staff members that actively market the catalog and go after every penny from every placement for you and for them because as publihsers, they have a vested interest in the publisher’s share of royalties. That’s all these staffers do and you have the time to focus on writing and producing good music. Going beyond that, since you are much more likely to get high end placements through a good RM library, you will not miss the publishing. The songwriter’s share will be significantly higher.
NOTE: I would trash those emails from the “publisher”. I’m pretty sure that’s a scam. Some of those guys will claim to help you get into Content ID, add you to a ton of RF sites and register your music with a PRO. All of these things you can do yourself.
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