Upcoming changes to our Performing Rights Organization (P.R.O.) policy on AudioJungle

I’ve heard the rumors for a while now, but I guess the people at Google aren’t too excited about paying several billion dollars as the biggest broadcaster in the world, and this will cause delays. I sure wouldn’t complain though. :grin:

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Supposedly, this is already the case: http://www.ascap.com/playback/2015/06/action/make-money-youtube.aspx

3 Forms of revenue for writers:

  1. Customer buys a license here at AJ for $20
  2. Adrev gives us “Advertising revenue” by slapping ads on everyone’s videos.
  3. ASCAP gets wind of the music performances and pays us 1 cent more!

And YES…Google is the wealthiest company on the planet so I have no problem with PRO’s asking for some more royalty money for music artists that drive their money making engine a lot more than any of us could imagine. Does Google give any money to PRO’s? anyone know?

You’re right, and I also found some European PROs that pay out YouTube PRO money. However, it still seems very primitive and the US PROs can only collect for US YouTube plays, and the Europeans for European YouTube plays only. This is more than nothing but for some of the videos with my music with 15 million views outside Europe/US it does me little good…

It also seems to take about two whole years to get paid… All of a sudden AdRev’s 3-month delay doesn’t seem so bad. :grinning:

Ha welcome! Yeah 700 euro in royalties is a lot of money for me also… But if you scored a world wide ad, the royalties should be around 10.000 (although there is no way of calculating this, it just a number, depending on how much broughtcast time the brand bought around the world (which they keep a secret so the competition does not know exactly).

A world wide ad (like rexona, coca cola, nike etc) will never take a AJ track though. They go true ad agencies that demand an exclusive track. Else the competition (axe, pepsi) might do an ad with the same song! So in my case I had to sighn away all the rights to the song for very little money as they promised me huge royalty payments… Bla bla bla… The great great thing about AJ is you dont have to deal with any ad agencies (horrible culture) and most of all there exclusivity…

I’ve been getting both performance royalties and AdRev revenue on YouTube videos for quite some time now through BMI. I believe they first appeared on my 2nd Quarter of 2014 statement, which was dated 01/16/2015 and that included itemized “retroactive” collections for all quarters of 2013 up until that 2nd Q of 2014. I’ve been getting them quarterly as they happen ever since. This appears on the statement under the heading “U.S. Performances - Internet Audio”. I don’t think AdRev is going anywhere. They’re collecting a completely different type of revenue.

Warning: YouTube performance royalties are NOT a lot of money. For example, I have one song with 36,070 plays in one quarter that got a whopping $1.80. And I’m not sure how they calculate, but it is also not consistent. I have a different song with 24,060 plays that made $4.68, and so on. It’s likely to depend on the length it plays, but there may be other factors. It’s not enough money for me to care about researching it and I won’t have any control over it anyway, but feel free if you wish. It;s probably discussed on the BMI site and on the various other PRO sites that collect from YouTube. Yes, it’s welcome money, but it’s not at all like the royalties from broadcast. It’s more like digital streaming amounts… in other words, “squat”.

@EricSchwartz Hey Eric, I’d like to know if Envato plans on including two IPI’s for each author, both writer and publisher. As was previously mentioned, many PROs require the publisher portion of the cue sheet to be filled in order to collect on those 50% of the royalties. Thanks.

Is one ipi not enough? Pro organizations need a composer and a track title… Then (if the track is registered to a pro) they can look up in there big database if it is also registered to a publisher… No need for that on Aj I think…
Same goes for tracks that have 2 authors. Only one needed to find the right track. The rest is history.

Also a fun fact: you can submit a request for a (worldwide) pseudonym at a pro. So if ipi is not included with Aj for some reason you can request your profile name as an alias. Then if a buyer filles in your profile name and the track title, you have a big chance things will be ok, especially if you are living in the USA. But to avoid mistakes an ipi would be perfect no???

To clarify: PRO’s do not pay you for a track you have not registered. Even if a movie uses your music and you are on the credits. Only if you have actually registered the song will they bother to pay.

So that’s why only one ipi and track title is enough. It will point to the registration of the song. There they will find the info about co writers, arrangers, lyric writer, publisher etc…

Actually, this is not always true. I have had songs pop up in my PRO that I have not registered.

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Hey audiophile, see my earlier response: Upcoming changes to our Performing Rights Organization (P.R.O.) policy on AudioJungle

There will be two additional attributes on the item upload/edit pages for you to provide the song’s composer and publisher details to customers, e.g. for use on cue sheets. You can enter both the name and IPI number here.

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Hi @mannymusic, if you are currently a member of a P.R.O. you should set your account as “P.R.O. Affiliated”. This is to ensure the best consistency and clarity for customers globally on AudioJungle.

Ah okay, missed that earlier somehow. Thanks Eric!

Lucky man!! :smiley:

In Holland you have to register it, print out the form, sign it, and send it to them in the mail, else, not much chance…

Well from my understanding, for some PROs it really has to do with what’s actually filed on the cue sheet. I contacted ASCAP last week about this, and gave them the scenario that a cue sheet is filed with the writer’s info and ipi entered but the publisher’s section left blank, they said that in this case the publishing 50% would simply go unclaimed until properly filed on the cue sheet. This is not so with BMI apparently, but I’m already a member with ASCAP, so that’s why I wanted to know if publisher ipi’s will be listed on the item pages as well. Looks like indeed it will be :+1: :slight_smile:

If the song has no publisher the 50% should go to the composer always… At least that’s the way it has always been here in Europe… There are some slight differences with the Us i know…

Thanks for your reply @EricSchwartz!

Hi,
We are registered with a PRO in the Netherlands (BUMA). Do we
need to upload all our tracks over there as well? Is it enough to
just have the IPI number linked? Otherwise, we have to upload a lot of
tracks with different versions, and sometimes with the same names, does
that bother?

I just want to remind everyone reading this important thread that this is a great forum to get “opinions” and obtain knowledge of PRO’s, but when all is said and done take 1 hour out of your life go the PRO’s web site that you are a member of or want to join and read. Look up the PRO on Wikipedia and read about it. The only entity qualified to answer questions about how P.R.O.'s work is the PRO itself. This is a great thread, and we all have learned a lot. Some PRO’s rely on fingerprinting, others- cue sheets, some a combination of both, some are trying to move toward fingerprinting. Some PRO’s seemingly have access to the mp3s of tracks registered, others do not. I can confirm with 100% certainty that no USA PRO’s have our audio tracks in their database’s. They simply have registered titles. I strongly advise all, ask your PRO what to do next if you are confused and need advice. This is a great discussion and I love learning about how the European PRO’s work so lets keep that going!

And Avocado, you supply great info, but none of us should assume that if a publisher is not credited to a cue, and only a writer is, then the writer will get both writers and publishers share of the performance royalties. Again…everyone do their homework with their PRO to find this stuff out. I would advise always having your own publishing company associated with the cue where you are writer AND Publisher so that “issue” or “confusion” just does not become an issue at all! Simply stated: you write the cue, and you publish the cue. This gives you complete control over your own catalog.:slight_smile:

SGAE (Spanish PRO) told me that to use songs in advertising, a license or authorization must be submitted to the SGAE. Envato send the PRO any document of the tracks and licenses we sell here?