LA Musician Newsletter
Welcome to the world of beat selling!
If you make music, it's important to protect your beats and get paid fairly for your performances.
When you register your beats with organizations like BMI or ASCAP, you're not protecting your copyright. These organizations have a different role.
This article will explain what PROs do, why copyrighting is important, and how to protect your music.
🔑 Key Takeaways
- PROs process metadata and collect performance royalties for songs made with your beats. They pay royalties for plays on the radio, TV, or streaming services.
- Copyrighting your work is essential to establishing a legal record of ownership and gaining the power to enforce your rights.
- Registering complete songs with PROs is more efficient than registering beats and helps ensure you get your fair share of performance royalties.
- Communicating with all the artists involved in a song and tracking your registrations over time gives you better insights.
The Role of Performing Rights Organizations (PROs)
Performing rights organizations play a vital role in the music industry by processing metadata and collecting performance royalties.
They focus on monitoring and licensing the public performance or streaming of songs created with your beats on platforms like radio, TV, or streaming services.
However, selling a beat itself does not generate royalties. Instead, royalties are earned from the songs created with those beats.
For online beat sellers, registering individual beats with PROs can be unnecessary and time-consuming.
Instead, it's more efficient to register a complete song once it's finished and the final metadata, including writer and publisher information, are known.
A crucial aspect of this process is the use of split sheets to determine appropriate splits between the beat creator and the artist who wrote and performed the lyrics.
The Power of Copyrighting
Copyrighting your work is an essential step in protecting your music.
By registering your work, you establish a legal record of ownership and gain the power to enforce your rights if infringement occurs.
If you're working with other artists on beats or songs, it's a good idea to give them your Works registration number and suggest they register their lyrics separately.
Doing this makes sure everyone gets their own copyright protection.
It's also a good idea to register your music with a performance rights organization like BMI. This means you'll need to register the background music (beat) and lyrics separately, mention that the artist sang over your track, and give yourself the right composer and publisher credits.
Remember, this registration process should be repeated when the song is released, not during the initial registration phase.
To make sure you get your fair share of performance royalties, do two things
- Register the beat and lyrics accurately.
- Provide the artists with your writer's IPI number and publisher's IPI number.
Taking Matters into Your Own Hands
Unfortunately, there may be instances where artists fail to reach out or incorrectly register the song.
If this happens, it's important to take action and defend your rights.
To do this, you can give your song a name and officially register yourself as the author (even if you're not sure who the other person is).
Make sure to include any relevant information about the song and its code, like the International Standard Recording Code (ISRC).
This way, you can still collect royalties even if the artist hasn't registered the song properly.
Optimizing Your Time and Efforts
To make the most of your time, focus on registering complete songs instead of just beats that won't earn you royalties.
This way, you'll get your fair share of performance royalties.
Remember to track your registrations and communicate well with all the artists involved.
Registering with PROs alone doesn't guarantee copyright protection or secure your beats from theft.
It's better to copyright your work through copyright.gov and register with a performance rights organization like BMI.
By following all the necessary steps, including split sheets and metadata registration, you can protect your music, get your rightful share of performance royalties, and concentrate on what's important – creating exceptional beats that resonate with artists and audiences.