Publisher, PPL and PRS - Revisited

[JSkye]

Hi there

this is my first post and I have seen a couple of threads about the same topic but they were a couple of years old and I thought it might be interesting to get a more updated view. Also my question didn't really get answered

I am about to self-publish a (neo classical) composition via Dittomusic and I am in the process of registering with PPL to become a member and also obtain m own ISRC codes (rather than use dittos).

In the fine print of PPL it says: "To join as a recording rightsholder member, you must give PPL the exclusive UK public performance and broadcasting rights in your recordings, so that PPL can license those uses of your recordings on your behalf."

I'm not sure I understand this correctly but what confuses me is the word "exclusive". Because I thought I should potentially (at least further down the line) also join PRS for Music. Would I not be able to do that then?

The other questions is: Do I need to join PRS for music if I use a music publisher (currently thinking about using Ditto Publishing)? Do I need to be a member of PPL, PRS, MCPS AND a Publisher to get the most out of it?

PRS themselves say only join if you foresee your royalty income to be more than their joining fee of 100.00. (or then 200.00 in case of also joining the MCPS) - that is of course a lot and it takes a lot of streams to recover that. However, doesn't it mean that I will miss out if I DON'T join from day one? Nobody knows how successful something will be before it happens.

Thank you so much for your help! I just got the tracks back from mastering and I can't wait to get them out there!

[BigRedX]

Are you intending to perform, or have performed by other, this piece (or any others that you may compose in the future) at a concert? Or hope to have it played on broadcast TV or radio? If so you will be making far more in performance royalties than the streaming rate, and you should easily recoup your PRS and MCPS joining fees.

My advice is to join all of them if you can afford it. I lost out on some big performance royalty payments from having my music played on Radio 1 because I waited too long to join the PRS.

[JSkye]

Are you intending to perform, or have performed by other, this piece (or any others that you may compose in the future) at a concert? Or hope to have it played on broadcast TV or radio? If so you will be making far more in performance royalties than the streaming rate, and you should easily recoup your PRS and MCPS joining fees.

My advice is to join all of them if you can afford it. I lost out on some big performance royalty payments from having my music played on Radio 1 because I waited too long to join the PRS.

Thank you for your input. That is exactly what I was worried about. That by a stroke of luck I will get played on tv or radio (even though there are not as many "classical" stations as pop music) and, as fate would have it, I miss out on a chunk of royalties because I wasn't registered...

So, when you say all three, do you mean PPL, PRS and MCPS? Plus publisher, too? I myself won't be playing the songs live as in "perform" them. I consider myself more of a writer/composer and recording artist.

And do you know what this "exclusive" means in the PPL contract?

Thanks a bunch!

[James Perrett]

So, when you say all three, do you mean PPL, PRS and MCPS? Plus publisher, too?

No need for a publisher if you are a member of all three. However, some publishers may help with publicity or exploiting the work so, it you are in contact with a good publisher who will work for you, it may be worth going with a publisher rather than those organisations. Check out the publisher very carefully though - some are good while others do very little work for their money.

And do you know what this "exclusive" means in the PPL contract?

That just means that no-one else (like a publisher) is collecting the same royalty.

[JSkye]

So, when you say all three, do you mean PPL, PRS and MCPS? Plus publisher, too?

No need for a publisher if you are a member of all three. However, some publishers may help with publicity or exploiting the work so, it you are in contact with a good publisher who will work for you, it may be worth going with a publisher rather than those organisations. Check out the publisher very carefully though - some are good while others do very little work for their money.

And do you know what this "exclusive" means in the PPL contract?

That just means that no-one else (like a publisher) is collecting the same royalty.

That's interesting thank you. I was under the impression that one really "should" be registered with those collection agencies, well at least with one/some. But doesn't a publisher liaise with collection agencies?

The reason I was going to register with the PPL is that I would rather have my own ISRC code. I am not really sure I trust using an ISRC code that has been released to Dittomusic for example (or distrokid or any of those for that matter). Doesn't that make "them" the rightsholder rather than me?

Also I find it odd that you have to first upload your song to them and THEN they will get you an ISRC code, which means that you won't be able to give an ISRC to your mastering engineer, which means that the master you have on your computer etc won't have the ISRC (so if you upload it anywhere or send it to radio, it won't have it). Any thoughts on that?

It still confuses me though because doesn't the exclusivity then mean that PPL will collect all the royalties to what they cover and a publisher would do what? Other than pitch your songs, what royalties would they pay you?

[James Perrett]

It still confuses me though because doesn't the exclusivity then mean that PPL will collect all the royalties to what they cover and a publisher would do what? Other than pitch your songs, what royalties would they pay you?

The thing to remember is that there are two copyrights in a recording. The recording itself and the writer's share. Publishers are only worried about the writer's share from PRS and MCPS while the label collects the PPL share.

[electroacoustics]

Hi JSkye,

PRS and MCPS merged, becoming 'PRS for Music', because digital audio superseded vinyl and CD. Inside PRS for Music, MCPS deals with sales of music in hardware form, and digital downloads.

• PRS collects royalties on your behalf for music you have composed (music and/or lyrics).
• PPLUK collects royalties on your behalf for music you have performed on.

One joins both.

When PPLUK ask for 'exclusive UK right', they are asking you to confirm that you want only them to collect performance royalties on your behalf. This makes sense. They need that right to collect worldwide royalties for you.

Some counties have more than one royalty collection agency. To my knowledge in the UK it's just 'PRS for Music' and 'PPLUK'.

If you have a publisher, then so long as you have a contract with that publisher that asserts and assigns a certain proportion of writer (PRS) royalties to you as composer, then yes, you can join PRS who will then collect and deliver royalties on that share to the composer. As you say, it may take a while, post registration, to start generating significant income. This depends on appropriate and sufficient exposure of the track.

[RichardT]

Yes, they have merged, but it’s still necessary to join the PRS and MCPS schemes separately.

I was researching PPL today as I’m not a member and it seems there are schemes for both performers and rights holders.

It’s all incredibly complicated.