Let’s just get this out of the way from the get go. If you’re in the States, no, ASCAP or BMI will NOT collect all of your publishing royalties.
Before we jump into this full report, bookmark this page. You’re going to be referencing it a lot in the future. Trust me. Ok moving on!
One of the biggest points of confusion in the indie musician community is publishing. You can pretty much interchange “publishing” and “songwriting.” Whenever we’re discussing “publishing” it’s for the song. Or “the composition” if you’re fancy.
Publishing is NOT the recording.
Publishers represent songwriters and control (sometimes own) compositions.
Labels represent artists and control (often own) master sound recordings.
So when we’re discussing Admin Publishers in this article we’re only talking about the pink circle above.
So If you cover my song and release it. You own the master sound recording, I still own the composition (since I wrote the song). My publishing company would collect my royalties from your cover recording. And your label (or distributor) would collect the royalties from the master sound recording.
But, if you’re like me, and you don’t have a publishing company, you still need someone to track down your publishing royalties.
No, once again, ASCAP, BMI, PRS, SOCAN do NOT do this for you. All they do is help you collect your performance royalties. Yes performance royalties are PART OF publishing royalties, but not all of them. (For the record you can only be with one PRO in your country – ASCAP or BMI in the US. You have to pick one. You can’t be with both.)
There are still what’s called mechanical royalties out there. And PROs (Performing Rights Organizations – like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SOCAN, PRS) do NOT collect mechanical royalties.
How Do You Get Paid For Streams and Sales
First off, let’s breakdown what happens when your song (and recording) gets streamed and where that money comes from and goes. If you get a stream on Spotify, most of that money goes to the label (or distributor) for the recording.
Below is the flowchart for the sound recording (master) side – reference the blue circle above).
What are mechanical royalties?
Mechanical royalties are publishing money generated from streams and sales owed to songwriters and publishers. (See the pink circle above)
Some of the money from that stream goes to the PRO for the performance royalties and some of it goes to the mechanical rights organizations (MROs). On the publishing side, it’s about equal these days of what goes to the PRO and what goes to the Mechanical Rights Organization (MRO).
Worth noting, that if you’re in the US, 100% of US mechanical royalties from streams goes to the newly formed MLC. If you aren’t registered with the MLC (and don’t have a publisher) you’re missing out on your mechanical royalties! You need to signup with them (or get an admin publisher). You can signup at themlc.com
The below chart is what happens when your composition (the song you wrote) gets streamed or downloaded and where that money goes.
+How To Get All Your Royalties You Never Knew Existed
So if you are just signed up with a PRO, you’re missing out on about half of your money!
How do you get your mechanical royalties if you don’t have a publisher? Well, you could call up the 60 mechanical rights organizations (MROs) around the world, learn how to speak their language and say that you are the rightful owner of the mechanical royalties.
Or you could work with an Admin Publishing Company.
Admin publishing companies were created to help the indie songwriter collect all of their publishing royalties from all over the world.
For clarity, admin publishing companies do NOT own your copyrights.
They merely track down your royalties (sometimes issue licenses to outlets), take a commission, and then pass on the money to you.
Before we get into the comparison, I know I’m going to get a lot of questions about this from US based indie songwriters.
+How Do Producer and Songwriter Royalties Work
What is the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC)? Do I need to join it?
If you remember when the Music Modernization Act (MMA) got passed in the US congress a couple years back, well the MLC came out of this law.
Before the MLC there was Harry Fox Agency (HFA) and Music Reports in the US that collected mechanical royalties. Both were not awesome. And it was extremely difficult for indie songwriters to sign up with them to get their US mechanical royalties. But, and this is a GIANT Minaj but, they only collected US mechanicals. So if you were streamed anywhere else in the world, you wouldn’t get those mechanical royalties.
Now, the MLC has taken the place of HFA and Music Reports in the States.
All US mechanicals, by law, are required to be paid out to the MLC. And the MLC’s accounting is paid for by the DSPs (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, etc). So they don’t take a commission or a fee out of your money. Dope!
So, do you need to sign up?
The simple answer is no, not if you register with an admin publishing company.
Think of the MLC as one of the 60 rights organizations in the world. If you ONLY had your music streamed in the States, then sure, the MLC is all you need to register with. But who ONLY has their music streamed in the US?
About half of your publishing royalties for streams is paid to PROs and half is paid to MROs.
Admin Publishing Company vs. Publishing Company
As a clarifier, this comparison is only for admin publishing companies. Admin pub companies do NOT own your copyright. Traditional publishing companies will own your copyright. Traditional publishing companies also help you get cuts, get into writer rooms, write for the stars, and pay advances. These admin publishing companies merely collect your publishing royalties from around the world. Every publishing company has an admin department (and many publishing companies actually use Songtrust or Sentric for their admin).
Do You Need Your Own Publishing Company?
There’s a lot of confusion out there about creating your own publishing company. Because ASCAP pays 50% of the money directly to the writer and 50% directly to the publisher, if you don’t have a publisher listed, you’re missing out on 50% of your performance royalties. That’s why many people think you need to create a publishing company. In reality, many do create a “vanity publishing company” if they don’t work with an admin pub co and if they’re with ASCAP so they can get 100% of their performance royalties. If you work with an admin publishing company you do NOT need to register a vanity (or any) publishing company to get 100% of your publishing royalties. That’s what these admin companies do.
If you WANT to create a publishing company and sign songwriters and such, you can create one, and then you should use an admin publishing company to administer licenses and collect the royalties for your songwriters. But you do NOT need to create your own publishing company to get your money.
Ok, so let’s dig into the comparison.
Sentric Music
Sentric is the only company on this comparison based in the UK. Started by Chris Meehan, it has grown to be one of the largest admin publishing companies in the world. Sentric boasts that it is the largest submitter of live performance setlists (for performance royalty collection). Since they are UK based, and live performances can actually pay a hefty amount in performance royalties, they are all-in.
You can currently make about 4.2% of the box office receipts on songs performed at a venue in the UK.
Meaning, if you play a 1,000-cap club at $20 tickets ($20,000) and 100% of the music performed that night you wrote, you could expect around $840 for that one show. Now multiply that by a 20 date tour and you’re not going to want to leave that on the table. European countries actually pay quite well for live performances. The States do not.
Sentric is the only admin publisher that does not have a signup fee.
They primarily focus on B2B deals. Meaning, they like striking deals with companies (like TuneCore) where they can admin their entire catalog. Sentric has shifted away from trying to get songwriters to sign up to their platform directly. So much so, that Chris didn’t want me to include Sentric in this comparison! But, they have no signup fee, so I felt it would be a disservice not to let you know that they exist.
Sentric does the backend admin for TuneCore Publishing and Chris said that they prefer that songwriters just go to TuneCore (especially if they’re US based) and use them directly since TuneCore is set up better for ‘customer support’ and individual songwriter needs. But, again, Sentric is still open to all (as of this writing) and there’s no signup fee. So, if you’re looking for an admin publisher (who is literally just as good as TuneCore Publishing) without the signup fee, Sentric is your platform. They do take a slightly higher commission than TuneCore and the others (20% vs. 15%) so that’s something to consider.
Like Songtrust, they collect from most societies around the world directly. Which means you get your money faster (with fewer hands taking a commission).
Best:
- No signup fee
- No exclusivity for sync
- Setlist submission tool – streamlined live performance royalties collection
- Short term length (28 days)
- Direct collection from most societies
Worst:
- Higher commission (20% vs. 15% with the others, 50% on sync)
- Works with some sub-publishers (double commission)
- Does not collect from all societies worldwide
Songtrust
Songtrust is owned by Downtown – made famous by their publishing arm – which is also the parent company to CD Baby, FUGA, DashGo and others. Like stated in the CD Baby section, it does the admin for CD Baby (and others like Sub Pop, Secretly Publishing, Merge, Kill Rock Stars). Songtrust is one of the biggest admin publishing companies out there with over 3 million copyrights. 350,000 songwriters have direct deals with Songtrust. I spoke with Anna Bond, a Senior Director and who’s been with the company for 2 years. I’ve also spoken with Molly Neuman (current president of Songtrust) in the past.
Quick shout out that Songtrust is one of the very few music companies with a female president!
Songtrust is the largest admin publishing company in the world, with over 350,000 songwriters and 3 million songs in their catalog.
The question I get asked most is “Should I sign up for Songtrust.” It’s complicated. If Songtrust didn’t have a $100 signup fee, it would be a no brainer – to make sure you get 100% of your publishing royalties collected. But you have to register with a PRO in your country in addition to an admin publishing company, and PROs do collect your performance royalties. The main benefit to Songtrust is that they will collect all of your mechanical royalties from everywhere in the world. Which, to be honest, don’t add up to be that much without millions of streams. Yes, The MLC will now collect your US mechanical royalties, but they don’t collect international mechanicals. So even if you signup for the MLC directly and your PRO (and you’re based in the States), you’re still missing out on your international mechanicals. These admin publishing companies collect 100% of your mechanical royalties.
I like that the headache is removed. However, I have heard time and time again that their customer support is extremely delayed and that balls get dropped often. When it comes to your money, this is not what you want. If there are errors in your catalog, you will have a helluva getting it fixed. I like the people that work at Songtrust and really want them to succeed, but it’s proven time and time again that their customer support is frankly, very very bad. So, if you’re going to signup with Songtrust you have to know this going in and manage your expectations.
Songtrust, although a great idea and definitely needed in the indie songwriter community, they need to up their support game BY A LOT!
When it comes to “sub-publishers” (as you can see I’ve listed them as a “Worst” Anna assured me that the territories covered under sub-publisher agreements are smaller and the only way to get to them is through these local, sub-publishers. She said “we’d rather have, say, 90% of something by collecting in an otherwise-inaccessible music market via a sub-publisher, than 100% of nothing, which is what we’d be able to collect for our clients otherwise.” Fair.
Best:
- Setlist submission tool – streamlined live performance royalties collection
- No exclusivity for sync
- Direct collection from most societies
- Collects from every society in the world
Worst:
- High signup fee
- Works with some sub-publishers (double commission)
- Customer support
TuneCore Publishing
I sat down with Chris Dampier, who heads TuneCore Publishing, for this review to learn more about the service. Chris previously worked at BMI, and before that Universal Music Group, so he has a deep expertise in the publishing space.
As of April 1, 2021, TuneCore allows users to opt out of its exclusive sync representation.
Before this, you were not able to opt out of this, which was a dealbreaker for me. You can now continue to have TuneCore Publishing exclusively represent your sync rights (only if you use them for distribution as well) or opt out of it and retain control of it. This update is a huge plus.
The thing you have to understand is, with TuneCore’s 1 million songs, there’s absolutely no way the handful of people they have on the sync team can intimately know all the songs and know which would be best to pitch for various briefs that come in. Chris did reveal their own internal searching tool which enables their sync team to scan the million songs for keywords, tempo, lyrics and such to search their database for what they may need and pitch it accordingly.
But, of course, if you want to be successful with TuneCore’s sync team, you’re going to want to get to know them. If you’re getting millions of streams, you can definitely ask to meet the sync team and I’m sure they would be happy to meet and get to know you and then you’d be top of mind when they’re pitching music supervisors and ad agencies. But with hundreds of thousands of songwriters in this program, they obviously can’t meet with most.
TuneCore is administered by Sentric. A benefit of signing up for TuneCore instead of Sentric directly is if you distribute your music with TuneCore they could theoretically audit your royalties. Meaning, if one of your songs is getting millions of streams, but your publishing report indicates otherwise, TuneCore Publishing cross reference this with TuneCore distribution and reconcile this. But this is only really done in the rare instance that a song is EXPLODING. As of now, this isn’t automated in their system for every songwriter/artist.
Also, TuneCore has a more robust customer support community than Sentric. Sentric is built for publishers (and higher threshold songwriters) whereas TuneCore is built for DIY musicians, so I’ve been told that TuneCore handles support questions quicker than Sentric – but I have not tested this.
Best:
- If also used for distribution, can audit your numbers
- If used for distribution, simplified interface and payments
- Direct collection from most societies
Worst:
- No setlist submission tool for live performance royalties
- Does not collect from all societies worldwide
- Works with some sub-publishers (double commission)
Conclusion
If you want 100% of your publishing money and you don’t have a pub deal, signup for one of these admin publishing companies. Obviously, I can’t tell you which to signup for because everyone’s circumstances is different.
Any questions?
