Step 6: Mechanical Royalties

In part six of our series on Monetizing Your Music here at Noizefield we wanted to dive into a more complex topic that is becoming ever more important in digital music with the constant growth of streaming.

Mechanical royalties are a type of publishing right that is paid based on the ‘reproduction right’ of your music, so basically whenever a copy of your music is made. Originally born out of the analog days, mechanical royalties are generally set at government mandated rates in most countries at around 9-10% of the unit price. So in the US for example, if it’s $1 download the mechanical royalty rate would be $.091 and if it’s a stream for $.005 the mechanical royalty would be $.000455.

HOW IT WORKS:
Every time your music is downloaded or streamed online, you are generating a mechanical royalty. Whether it’s an iTunes download, a Spotify stream, or an ad-supported play on YouTube, there are mechanical royalties being generated. However, most artists and labels these days tend to own the publishing rights to their music but don’t actively collect their mechanicals from streaming and downloads. In most copyright-developed countries, there are local collection societies that collect mechanical royalties directly from digital music services such as Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music.

While the mechanical royalty rate has gone down in recent years due to the prominence of streaming and there being less downloads and album sales, if you’re music is getting lots of plays online, these are royalties you should be collecting before they are distributed into the infamous ‘black box’. The black box is a system where if royalties aren’t claimed by the rights owner (writer or publisher) then they are simply paid out to society members based on their local market share.

HOW TO COLLECT:
At Rightsify, we register your tracks directly with collection societies in over 50 countries
And also have direct publishing deals with digital music platforms such as YouTube.

1. Get In Touch
Send us an email with information on your music. For example, do you own the publishing rights to your music? Have you released your music but not published yet?

2. Upload Your Music
Once you’re Rightsify account is setup, you can upload your music. To register your tracks in each country, we’ll need accurate metadata for every song you want to register. When it comes to collecting publishing royalties, accurate data is key to ensure you get paid everything you’re owed.

3. Collect Your Royalties

After your music is uploaded and we’ve registered your tracks in each country, we’ll provide you with reports and payments from the royalties collected. The payment times range from country to country, but as with all Rightsify services we report and payout every month for all royalties collected the previous month.

Stay tuned for our next article as part of our “12 Steps To Monetizing Your Music’ series here on Noizefield.

More information: Rightsify