In order to receive your songwriter/publisher royalties around the world (a royalty separate from the distribution royalties you already receive through Symphonic) you would need to sign up with over 100 societies and notify dozens of digital service providers. This would cost you thousands of dollars in sign up fees and require you to fill out paper registration forms for each entity (often in different languages).
With our service and partnership with Songtrust, you pay a one-time $100 signup fee, we will retain 15% of the royalties earned, but other than that, no additional fees will be charged. Your songs are electronically registered with all societies and partners worldwide within two weeks. You as a songwriter/artist should spend your time creating, not pushing paper. We distribute for you and now we can administer your copyrights as well!
Since we already receive sales reporting/accounting for your distribution sales money, we can use that existing data to ensure you receive the proper songwriter royalties for mechanicals. The same song IDs used to distribute your releases to partners are also used to track and report royalties owed to the songwriter, so we automatically have an audit trail of how much money you are owed as a songwriter. No other service in the world provides efficient royalty tracking like us!
Features Included In Our Service
- You, the Songwriter, keep full ownership of everything.
- Get detailed quarterly accounting statements in your very own Songtrust account.
- We register every composition you submit with the societies and digital partners in over 60 countries.
- If you are affiliated with ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or SOCAN, no problem! You can remain a member with them and join our service –Symphonic collects royalties in addition to what they collect (all income types – not just performance)
- If you are not affiliated with ASCAP, BMI, SESAC or SOCAN (and you should be) the one-time signup fee covers any additional fees that would be necessary to affiliate with a PRO
Can I join if I am with another publisher and/or publishing administrator?
No. It would also not benefit you and would create more of a complicated royalty collection process for yourself so we recommend signing up with us for Songtrust royalty collection.
Can a band or group be signed up to Symphonic's Publishing Administration service?
Any band member(s) can sign-up to Symphonic Publishing Administration independently, but you cannot join a PRO or our publishing service as a band. Publishing Administration is for songwriters and composers, i.e. individual members of a band who write songs for the band. Therefore, each individual band member will need to register with Symphonic Publishing Administration.
My Record Label claims to be the publisher of my song(s). Can I still sign up?
This is situation-dependent on the deal you signed with the record label and/or if you've given up publishing rights to your music. You will need to do some close research to discern which songs (if any) you are allowed to register and collect with our service. Please address this situation carefully with your label(s).
If the label states in the contract that it owns a percentage in your composition/publishing, explicitly states that it is the publisher and assumes all responsibilities thereof, including to handle administration and collection of all publishing royalties worldwide, then you shouldn’t register with us the songs released by that label. (But you can still register with us as a songwriter for publishing administration to collect publishing royalties for your other songs.)
However, some record labels can get confused. The definition of “publishing” is unclear to some, and some call themselves the “publisher” of a song. It gets tricky when the label claims to be the publisher but there is no explicit statement of any of the above in your artist-label contract. If there is no explicit statement of this and if you have never received any publishing royalties from your label or from your PRO, then your label is not the publisher and cannot claim it. We can be your publishing administrator for your song.
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