People at our farmers market gigs have been asking us if we have any cd's for sale.

Today we did a live recording in the interest of producing something to sell at the market gigs.

I'm sure we will not be selling huge quantities of them, but, I'm wondering how do I go about calculating and paying royalties for the songs? Seems at one point I looked up royalties, and I would have to be paying like 900 bucks for each song on the cd, regardless of how many we sold. Can't hang with that.

Anyone know?

No, it's much less. I think Blair paid something like $85 for 1000 units of her CD.

She could probablt post details if she is on line.

Dwight,

If memory serves me correctly (which occurs with
progressively less frequency)
it's about 7 cents per tune on qty 1,000 and slightly
more if you "pay on line".

The one thing that I never understood is why one has
to pay royalties before the CD's are sold.

What if the band breaks up and one is left holding
950 unsold CD's in their garage?

--big

or 999 for that matter.

Royalties, in the loosest sense, are commissions that are paid based on the number of items sold, or for performances whether live or broadcast. The process to which you are referring, licensing (mechanical licensing), has nothing to do with the number items sold. It is paying for the right to mechanically reproduce somebody else's song. They are generally paid in advance. If you make 1000 copies, regardless of how many you sell, the copies still exist. The current rate is 9.5 cents per song per copy, so 1000 copies will cost $95 per song.

Licensing can be tricky and involves a lot of research. Sometimes it is very difficult to determine who actually owns the publishing, especially when there are several version of the same song, and everyone thinks they own it. There are tools available to do this yourself, but it can be overwhelming. There are also people who will do it for you.

it;s a pain
you have to buy rights to 500 copies
whether you make them or not
so it;s $35 a song

we paid them on our cd
tried to anyway
mostly did

one of them, we couldn;t figure out really who to pay so we/i never did
author died,etc

and some were paid through an unlikely sounding place in new york

"The Harry Fox Agency, Inc., a leading mechanical rights organization,"

yeah right, i;m sure they are passing the money on to clifton;s widow for us using his songs

nevertheless that is what they claim

i ended up feeling scammed to tell the truth


a couple songs on our cd are traditional

couple of originals

i called keith frank for 'sweet pea'
he was very appreciative of his $35

who tracks this stuff, i have no idea

if you paid someone and it wasnt the real owner, who would care?

is clifton;s family or some old blues guy;s 'estate' tracking cds sold by some unknown white fan band from GA,?


the cd duplicator doesn;t track it
they don;t care

it;s honor system

or rather, do whatever you want -
if you don;t pay, you are gambling



if it is some informal, burned and printed at home thing , i wouldnt; worry about it

if you are playing keith frank's song though, he might get mad and kick your ass, or badmouth you in LA.. who knows


we sold maybe 300 copies of our cd in 5 years
maybe we gave away 25 or so

before that we were giving away burned CDROMs of demo or live recordings as 'calling cards'

or selling them for $5

even that is technically illegal

but who gone know

wle

First let me say that I'm not pointing fingers at any braves, or chastising anyone for not doing it the right way. A question was asked about licensing, so I am just trying to clear up some of the confusion about the process. I believe that musicians, especially Cajun, Creole and Zydeco musicians, should be educated on this subject. BTW...as I stated before, the current compulsory rate for mechanical licensing is 9.5 cents. 1000 copies would be $95. That rate will most likely be raised to 9.75 cents, or 10 cents next year.

A common misconception is that paying the author/composer of a song satisfies the legal licensing requirements. It does not. The publisher is the legal entity that has the rights to collect. Some writers publish without a publisher. Compare this to books. If you wanted to make copies of John Grisham's latest bestseller and paid him directly for the rights to copy it, you would certainly be sued by his publisher AND lose.

In the case of mechanical licensing, which is what this is, the payment is generally made to the publisher, or the Harry Fox Agency if the publisher has an agreement with them to collect for them. Generally, for 1000 copies, or less, you would deal directly with the publisher. It is then the PUBLISHER's responsibility to distribute whatever portion goes to the writer. The problem that arises is that often times, one of several things has happened. 1.)The writer was not educated by the publisher about their entitlement. 2.)The publisher and writer did not establish in writing how the payments would be split. (ie. 50/50, 60/40, etc.)In the case of Keith Frank, I did a quick search and didn't find any evidence of Keith being the publisher of his own material. All of what I found was either owned by Flat Town Publishing, SWIMAL Music or Fred Charlie Music. Sweet Pea is actually published by Flat Town which means if you paid Keith, you paid the wrong person. Flat Town has the legal right to demand payment from you. Some artists publish their own material which surprises me about Keith. I would estimate that Flat Town Publishing owns about 80% of the music being played on Cajun radio stations. If you want your CD on the radio, or want to distribute through Floyd's, pay the right person. I assure you they are checking. However, they may not always be right. They attempted to collect from me on a translated Country song recorded but not written by George Jones. They claimed it was written by Johnnie Allan. We licensed with the original writer. They had no grounds and certainly didn't want to get into a fight with Sony.

Performance royalties aren't paid by you. They are paid by the venue and/or media. When radio plays your songs, or they get used in TV or movies, these organizations pay directly to the performing rights organization (BMI, ASCAP, etc.) The PRO then distributes the money to the writer and publisher according to the terms of the publishing agreement. However, if the writer is not registered with the PRO, they will not receive their payment. Again, this is an opportunity for a publisher to misrepresent themselves and omit the writer from payment.

In researching publishing for projects that I have worked on, I have found many instances where local record labels listed themselves as publisher and writer. A prime example would be Iry LeJeune. The song "Viens me chercher" is published as Eddie Shuler being the writer. Not even a mention of Iry LeJeune. Think of how many times Iry LeJeune songs have been recorded or played on the air. His family would have a nice side income, but they recieve no payments.

I hope this clears some things up.

Thanks for the details, Ganey! You could teach a class!

I would love to look at the actual copyright registration form for Viens me Chercher and see if it was registered as a derivative work and whether Tante Aline by Amédé Ardoin & Denus McGee was named as a source for the melody. If not, you would think it could be ruled a frivolous, bogus registration and invalid, at least for the underlying music and lyrics if not the recording, but I'm not a lawyer.

I have been in a couple of different bands (not my own band) where recordings were made and no royalties were paid. And I know plenty of others who have done that as well.

Since I was only a side man on those projects, I don't know if any thought was ever given about doing things the "right" way or not.

However, the reason for the recordings was to serve primarily for promotional purposes, not as a way of making money. I doubt that the break even point was reached. (not a valid excuse, I know, but I'm just sayin')

I am not saying it is right and/or legal. But it seems to be very common for homespun recordings of this nature to fly under the radar on this issue. I guess everyone is hoping that it won't develop into a problem later on. I have certainly never heard of anyone being called out for it.

I have been thinking about making a CD of my own lately, and this issue has been at the back of my mind. I had no idea the cost was that high. So, if I have a CD with 10 copyrighted songs, it's going to add nearly $1000 to the cost of the project? Ouch! That is not in the budget. No wonder people cheat.

I know what you mean, David. It can add up. You are correct in saying that people fly under the radar. Depending on the publisher, you just might get questioned just like I did. In my case, I am trying to establish a reputable label. I can't fly under the radar. An option would be to only press 500, though the per CD cost for production would increase. I have had some success also by asking the publisher for a discount on the compulsory rate if paid in advance of release. Flat Town gave me a 15% discount the first time I dealt with them, but after we butted heads on the Country song, they quit giving me discounts.

In my case, rather than fly under the radar, I would probably skip the whole thing, unless I can get the budget under control somehow.

What I was envisioning was only for promotional purposes anyway, and I can get by without that. I did not have intentions of selling CDs at a profit. I would be amazed if I was ever able to sell more than a few dozen. It's probably not worth the hassle.

i think the min number is 500
at 9c it would be $45 a song

i'm sure skipping it would result in nothing at all

unless you are doing, like i said, keith frank;s song, and because zydeco is a small community, someone leaked word back to KF

something like that might be a problem

but if you are doing a beatles song, forget it
go ahead

kind of the inverse problem from what you would like to have - you are so small no one would notice - unless you go into an even smaller world - zydeco

promotional purposes does not matter
neither does whether you sell it or not
it is a license to make mechanical copies of a copyrighted work

though to be sensible, if you don;t sell, it is even more unlikely that anyone that cares, would find out

wle

I just realized that I said something that was ambiguous. When I said skip the whole thing, I meant to not make a CD. I did not mean skip out of paying royalties.

I guess the answer is to write your own stuff. But I've heard and I own many Zydeco Cds where the jacket says all songs composed by the particular artist and some of the tunes are ripoffs of other tunes, or the words or both. I guess that Zydeco is such a miniscule market that it just flies under the radar of everyone. I was doing a song that I thought was written by a particular artist and then heard the original rap song by pure serendipity and was shocked! Now when I do it I give credit to both the Zydeco artist and the Rap artist and figure I'm covered! LOL

In time. I've got two right now that are viable. Another 3-4 in the works.

As Snooopy would say change a few phrases and call it your own, screw royalty