Question

Topic: Copywriting

Sound Recording And Phonorecording Royalties

Posted by Anonymous on 5/4/2008 at 8:40 PM ET 250 Points
I need to know how to go about getting rights to reproduce certain songs on CD and release them in combination with written material possibly including lyrics or choreography to said songs. (Think of a choreographic dance manual with the music on CD accompanying it).

I need to know if this is a straight Royalties under compulsory license for making and distributing phonorecords, issue. A negotiation with the copyright holders issue, or possibly something in regards to ASCAP. Or some combination thereof.

I have currently been lead to believe that the royalty expectation will be about 9.1 cents per copy of song manufactured divided between the publisher and artist. (Information retrieved through ASCAP) But I am unsure if that is a correct expectation, a regulatory maximum on royalties, or something else. And that beyond that a negotiation with the recording company will have to be made likely through an agency like Harry-Fox.

Can anyone confirm or deny what I have so far concluded, and/or add to it, as well as providing the steps of how this might be done?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 5/5/2008 at 10:54 AM Accepted
    This is a good question and although the initial answer provided by Mr. Razzano provided some good insight, I must point out a few things that went unsaid or are simply incorrect.

    1st of all, the licenses you seek are called Master Use and Mechanical Licenses. You must garner permission from BOTH the copyright holder of the Sound Recording (P) and the Copyright holder of the underlying song (C) (through Harry Fox Agency). The only instance(s) in which you will not need both permissions is if you are dealing with a Singer-Songwriter in which you can ask for an "all-in" license, or if you are dealing with works that were written before 1923. In the case of the latter, the underlying music is in the public domain and the only permission you must seek is that of the sound recording.

    2nd, This license is NOT A SYNCHRONIZATION LICENSE. Sync licenses refer only to music licensed to be Synchronized with a picture... i.e. Movie, Videogame, etc. Just because you are going to sell the CD with a book, does not insinuate that they will be synchronized... Legally, you are bound to the Statutory Mechanical License for the underlying work, and a negotiated Master Use license with the sound recording (P) owner. Because at the very heart of this project, you are producing a CD.

    3rd, The process is very simple. Simply Contact the copyright holder of the Sound recording and negotiate a rate based on the number of units you plan to sell. If at all possible, propose the rate yourself and explain in the proposal that the rate is a "Most Favored Nations" rate. This means that each and every Sound recording copyright holder will get the same amount per CD. Once you have secured those permissions, contact Harry Fox Agency and indicate that you intend to produce (X) number of CDs with the following material. They will have you fill out an online application and you should then be good to go pending payment.

    My full time job is working with folks like yourself to license our recorded material for various products/projects. I license to MANY MANY educational publishers for the purpose of including the musical CDs as value-adds, etc to their textbooks. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. [URL deleted by staff]

    Best
    Randall Foster

  • Posted by Levon on 5/5/2008 at 11:12 AM Accepted
    I would approach directly the artist (considering most music and recordings are held by the artist) in a label-less music industry and see if they would be willing to work out a deal.
  • Posted on 5/5/2008 at 1:30 PM Accepted
    Mr. Razzano has a good point here. Copyright and licensing in general is a very grey area... There are often multiple ways to look at the facts presented and interpretations will generally vary.

    That said, my initial language may have been a bit terse. In my humble opinion, you are producing CDs and therefore, your course of action would be that of the steps I described above. I do not think this is a Synchronization. However, it is not my place to tell you or anyone who has, or what is the correct answer to your quandary. (My apologies, Ed)

    Ultimately, no matter what any of us tell you this will be between you and your attorney.

  • Posted by matthewmnex on 5/7/2008 at 1:28 AM Accepted
    I would like to jump ino this conversation :)

    The feedback you are getting is good but your initial question lacks specific detail :) Hence it is difficult to give the precise answer as mentioned by Ed.

    Firstly, when you say 'reproduce' do you mean just take an existing recording and copy it onto your CD or are you planning to 'record your own version'? This is a critical point.

    if you are just playing the melody on a piano for instance then you don't need a mechanical license and the royatly paid through ASCAP will just be for the writer/copyright owner. Same if you play it and sing it.

    If this is the case, there is nothing to negotiate becasue it is just a cover version, you just contact ASCAP and they will tell you what the license fee per sale is.

    if you budget doesn't stretch to mechanical licenses (they can be a little pricey because it is a lump sum in advance), then a cost effective alternative is a company such as https://www.countdown.de/ these guys are great. They have fully licensed exact copies of top name artists. The re recordings are almost perfect with sound alike bands. You pay a simple fee to use their recordings and they pay all the various royalties on their end for you. They have been in the business for 30 years and they rock :)

    Just a thought to save you some pennies.

    There is one other issue that nobody mentioned.

    You mentioned that you might like to print the lyrics in the book :)) Sorry to tell you but this is another royalty/license fee again and not covered in the music license. it is not cheap. Don't neglect to cover this because if you print the lyrics in your book without permission, then you will be sued :)

    I hope some or any of this is useful :)

    Matthew




  • Posted by saul.dobney on 5/14/2008 at 3:44 AM Accepted
    For some primary source material the following is the Performing Rights Society and Mechanical Copyright Protection Society - they are royalty collection societies from the UK, but they would provide a good description of the issues involved which ever territories you wish to sell to.

    https://www.mcps-prs-alliance.co.uk/Pages/default.aspx
  • Posted on 5/15/2008 at 10:03 PM Author
    Sorry, I apologize for my absenteeism, too many divisions of my concentration.

    There are no intended direct interactions from the CD to the text, however there are implied interactions from the text to the CD. The CD would effectively be released as an anthology of songs reffered to in the text.

    And though I haven't heard any indication one way or another it may be possible that the author intends to have an opening piece of audio introducing her work or intentions thereof on the sound recording. But from all that I can see that would not constitute requiring additional lisencing. And if it did, the requirement of such an act is very limited and wouldn't be considered worth the additional fees.

    I apologize for the imprecision as a lot of this is still in planning stages and is still undergoing thoughts of feasability, and marketability. And my permission of disclosure only goes so far.

    Suffice it to say the CD is likely to purely be simply the music, the text may or may not include lyrics, and will contain little to no instructions on what to do with the music, it is simply provided as an aid, or additional material to be convenient to the end owner. Ideally we wouldn't even include the music, but it is felt that the convenience of simply giving it to the customer as part of the product would increase consumability. Hopefully without increasing the price per unit to the point where it makes the end product unnatractive. Some market research will most definately have to be done.

    The works recorded may not be the original recordings, it would however, be various performing artist versions, and not new material made for this product alone. Which strikes me as a situation of simply having to negotiate with a different record label and/or performing artist.

    Yes, I thought the lyrics might pose another problem entirely, though a master use license does seem to cover this, such a use would need to be disclosed with the copyright holder, and considered in negotiation of royalty rates. Or that is the impression I was getting.

    Pricey is a relative term, if there are cost estimations available, I would appreciate them.
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