Every artist’s dream is to be able to quit the day job and focus on their music full time. But in order to do that, they need to make money from their music. This can seem like an impossible feat, considering the industry is crying out that the value of music is dying thanks to piracy and micro royalty payments from digital platforms.
But there are some ways to still make money from your music and every little helps. In this short series of blogs, we are aiming to cover the main ways you can make money from your music, to better strategise in your career and understand what opportunities are available to you. The first part is about intellectual property.
Understanding Intellectual Property
The main thing to understand about intellectual property (or IP) is copyright. When a song is written and/or recorded, there is automatically a copyright attached to that piece of work – you can make money from this copyright.
There are three different types of copyright within a song. The individual(s) involved in creating each of these are entitled to a share of ownership of that copyright.
- The lyrics.
- The composition (i.e the melody).
- The master recording.
To make things simple we will group the copyright for the lyrics and the copyright for the melody/instrumentation together and this is normally called the song rights or publishing rights and the copyright for the recording is called the master rights.
So how do you make money from this exactly?
If you own the song rights:
One way to earn money from your compositions can be from having your song placed in sync opportunities, such as films, television shows and advertisements. The Music Sync Tank are doing an excellent series for us, delving into what exactly sync is and how to get these kinds of deals. You can see Part 1 and Part 2 (part 3 is coming up soon).
Another way would be to get another performing artist to record your song. Every time this new recording is performed live, played in public, broadcast on radio, used in a film, television show etc. you earn a performance royalty from these usages.
The best way to keep track of this is to be signed up to the Performing Rights Society (PRS). You register any song you have written with them and they give you and your songs unique codes. They can then track the usage of your song and pay you what you are owed. Their website tells you more about what they can do for you, but essentially if you are writing songs there is no excuse not to be signed up to them as you could be missing out on money!
If you own the master rights:
You also earn a royalty from MCPS each time this master recording is reproduced on CD, download etc. This is called a mechanical royalty. This is also handles by PRS but is solely about the usage of the recording of the song, not about the lyrics and composition of the song. Basically, if you have recorded a song written by someone else, you will earn an MCPS royalty whenever the recording is played in public and the songwriter will earn a PRS royalty. You can learn more about MCPS here.
As well as this, if you distribute the recording to go into physical stores or on streaming/download sites then every time that is bought or streamed then you will get a cut of the money earned from this. You will receive the money from whoever distributes this for you e.g. our sponsors Horus Music distribute to over 800 digital stores and you can distribute with them for free and they in turn will pay you your cut. No need for you to chase up the money yourself. There are other distribution options that are available depending on what you’re looking for.
If you are a singer/songwriter or you are in a band, you have written your own songs and retained your master recording rights then you’re lucky, as you can earn money for both copyrights! If a song is played on the radio you will earn the performance royalty. If you distribute your music to stores then you will get a royalty from PRS/MCPS and also your direct payment from your distributor.
As with anything like this it is easier said than done. If you get your music out there but don’t tell anyone about it then there is less chance that it will be bought, listened to and companies won’t know about it to use it in the media. You have to make some noise about what you’re doing to reap the benefits.
Browse through our blogs for advice on how to promote yourself. Also, sign up to our newsletter to get industry contacts directly to your inbox every month from companies actively seeking artists to work with.
Next time I will discuss how you can make money from Live Performances, and in Part 3 we discuss Fan Relationships.
Read Full Article Here: http://www.helpforbands.co.uk/making-money-from-intellectual-property/
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