BMI/Royalty Help?

BearOnTheBeat

BearOnTheBeat

New member
Im sure its been asked before or at least talked about but its pretty new to me as i just signed up about a month ago. Unfortunately when i started making beats i had 0 knowledge about ascap or bmi and i still have little knowledge about them. Anyway tho i've got a couple questions and i'm hoping maybe i can get some help from the forum and everyone who's willing to reply.

So do to lack of knowledge and just wanting to get artist on a few of my beats i've neglected to talk royalties to certain artist i've sent out beats to. I've got a few placements on different albums here and there (nothing to big) im sure the artist have registered their songs through either ascap or bmi without me included. Would i be able to (now that i joined bmi) register that song as well? since i produced it and if so how do i go about the split since its 200% do i give myself 100%?

Is there more to bmi and just signing up? if i registered, became a member and register a song is that it? Will i eventually get paid (whether its .30 or $3) or is there more?

Thanks to anyone who can share some knowledge or give me insight to any of this.
 
SFTRAXX said:
Fam,

You should probably pick up the All You Need to Know About the Music Business: Ninth Edition book.

Its well worth the read. (I'm still letting it soak in.)

You can download it (kindle) or buy the hard copy (that's what I did) if you really do want to learn about this stuff.

$.02
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Appreciate it. I'll probably hit my local barnes & nobles see if they have it. if not ill probably order off amazon.. Good lookin on the replies the bro
 
BearOnTheBeat said:
Ended up picking up the book, haven't had a chance to read it but im definitely looking forward to it. Appreciate it man
Click to expand...


Take your time with it.

I'm still "re"reading some chapters trying to wrap my head around some stuff.

A lot of eye opening stuff in there.

It's a great book for artists.
 
ya, im digging into everything too. I'm fairly new but this is what I think is going on...

The 200% is split between the songwriter and the publisher. What I'm getting at, is this is mainly organized around getting tv/film/videogame/radio placements. The song writer gets 100% of the songwriter royalties, and the publisher gets 100% of the publisher royalties if your song is placed in a movie, tv show, videogame, trailer, commercial, or if your song is played a lot on radio.

In your case, the song writer royalties would be split probably 50% - 50% between you and the other artist (or whichever way fits best). Whoever copyrights the song should include the other person(s) stating their percentage of work in the song.

Basically, there's 100% for songwriters, and 100% for publishers. Publishers are the music libraries that you submit your music too. Film directors and music supervisors go to these publishing libraries to pick songs for their films/shows. Unless you're doing the publishing on your own, it's usually all done by a separate publishing company.

If your song pops up a lot on radio, you (and whoever else made the song) can probably claim the publisher royalties (all 200%). If your song ends up in like i.e Rick and Morty, episode 8, season 2, then your publisher probably worked pretty hard to get your song in there and deserves the publisher royalties.
 
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The 100% publisher share is negotiable. Some publishers insist on keeping all of it as a prerequisite to making a deal (the writers' share they never get). But sometimes you can also negotiate for a portion of the publisher's share (10%, 20%, 50%, etc.). 50% would be extremely generous. But depending on the situation, it could happen.
 
when i "sold" a beat to an artist that was signed to stones throw. i ended up getting 50 percent of my publishing...i didn't make anything from sales. but i registered the song with ascap and ended up making like 4 dollars lol the song itself got about 50,000 plays on youtube...i know i probably can't capitalize off of that now but yea, it's best to copyright your work and demand some type of payment up front. draw up your own contract and talk with the artist and management to see where you stand.
 
>>>>but i registered the song with ascap and ended up making like 4 dollars lol the song itself got about 50,000 plays on youtube<<<<

You could try and see if SoundExchange is sand-bagging any $$ for you.
 
Inspirmentalist said:
when i "sold" a beat to an artist that was signed to stones throw. i ended up getting 50 percent of my publishing...i didn't make anything from sales. but i registered the song with ascap and ended up making like 4 dollars lol the song itself got about 50,000 plays on youtube...i know i probably can't capitalize off of that now but yea, it's best to copyright your work and demand some type of payment up front. draw up your own contract and talk with the artist and management to see where you stand.
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You have a lot to learn.
 
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Now that you are signed up with BMI/ASCAP you need to register your songs. As a beat maker I have always treated all of my beats as if they were complete songs even though there are no lyrics. Once I add the songs to my BMI catalog then I submit them to music licensing services. It's very important to make sure you are consistent with the names you submit to BMI and the name of the beats you submit to be licensed. When that beat is licensed for use it gets reported to BMI and that is how your royalties get generated. If your song names or artist names don't match up then you could potentially loose out on royalties.
 
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