media rights: a guide for composers

NMC RECORDINGS

Introduction

Ellie Wilson | NMC Recordings | April 2014 | www.nmcrec.co.uk

'Without NMC, I and many other composers would undoubtedly struggle to find such a level of support and commitment in a recording industry increasingly preoccupied with celebrity and quick profit … I shall be eternally grateful, both as composer and listener, for NMC's unique commitment to new British music' Stuart MacRae, composer

‘NMC - proving anew exactly why it is we still bother to make records’ Time Out New York

‘NMC’s website is like entering an overstocked sweetshop for the intellectually and

musically curious’ Classical Music Magazine

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this country’ The Sunday Times


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Ellie

RECORD INDUSTRY


Future of the industry: Is it really all doom and gloom? Album Downloads v CDs

Boosted by a surge in streaming in 2013, digital now accounts for half of all UK recorded music revenues

Classical 25% revenue from downloads (up 15% on 2012)

But Classical CD sales dropped by 26%

Market average (all genres) 40% album revenue from downloads

Classical sales account for just 6% of overall music industry income

The effects of digital revenue / illegal downloading / streaming

Spotify /Deezer – revenue vs exposure (approx £0.004p per stream)

Illegal downloading has decreased by 25% because of streaming platforms such as Spotify but still 7m people in the UK using bit torrent sites.

Most people listening to classical music on Spotify are aged 18-30.

Average age of someone buying classical music (CD/download) 35-60

Downloads are cheaper and CD prices have had to drop as a result. Most labels can’t make enough money from just selling CDs.

Search engines need to improve in iTunes and Spotify to work better for classical

YouTube – 4 billion videos are streamed every day!

Spotify claim that 46% of its users go on to purchase a CD or download


Protecting Copyright · Media Rights


Copyright/media rights as a composer or performer

The most important thing you need to do, if you haven’t already, is join PRS for Music!

Performing Rights Society (PRS for Music) Collect money whenever a piece of music is performed or played in any public space - gigs, radio airplay, TV exposure, online etc.

Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) Collect the Mechanical royalties on behalf of composers when music is reproduced, such as for CDs and digital downloads. Income is based on sales & licensing (CD = 8.5% dealer price)

Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) Essential income stream for all performing artists. PPL collect money for those who own the master recordings of a song (P owner ) and also the performers on the recording. There is money generated every time the recording is played on the radio or receives TV exposure.

Musicians Union (MU)

The trade union for UK based musicians.


PRS distribute money for any public performance …

Live

Small Venues: anything up to £19 per gig

Mid-Scale Venues: (Shepherd’s Bush Empire, QEH, ) £392 per gig.

Festivals & Large Venues (Glastonbury, Womad, Royal Albert Hall) up to £1600 per gig

Radio play

BBC Radio 1 - up to £58.94.

BBC Radio 2 - up to £79.48.

BBC 6 Music / BBC Radio 3 - up to £20.

BBC Regional Stations - up to £5.

TV

Up to £145 for a feature on a BBC programme.

Commercial TV (Channel 5) up to £1300 for being featured on an ident.

Films / Adverts

Anything from £1k up to £40k!


Composers rights in a recording: this is covered by MCPS/PRS. You don’t have a contract with the record label unless you are also a performing artist or conductor involved in the recording itself. Once permission for a first recording has been granted by the composer, anyone can make a recording of it. Publisher: Composers may assign the rights in their works to a publisher. This has the benefit of providing a network of support and advice on things like promotion, editing and preparation of parts, securing and negotiating commissions, general networking, etc. The deal with the publisher will outline what the split in earnings is between the two parties and may be time limited but any works written in that time period are assigned to the publisher for life of copyright (70 years after composers death) . So if you move publishers your works will invariably stay put. Self publishing: This has the advantage of maximising your earnings but it does mean you have to divide your time between composing and promoting, networking etc. Sometimes composers opt to appoint a manager/agent to help with the non-composing part of the job. Consider joining the self-publishing collective, Composers Edition.

Releasing a Recording


Recording proposal

Budget / Funding

Publishers/ Copyright – Music hire

Book artists, venue, engineers & producers

Clear performing rights of all artists.

Get contracts signed

Recording session

Listening edit & final master CD

CD booklet design, liner notes and credits

Manufacture CD

Promotion: press, launches, marketing online, advertising

Distribution: release CD/download formats

(mp3, FLAC, WAV, 24-bit lossless)

Income : sales, broadcasts, sync licensing, merchandise


Releasing a Recording – what to consider

• Costs: artists, pressing, venue hire, engineer, producer, album artwork, promotion. Funding options.

• Clear the performing rights of all artists involved in the recording – even if they are your mates! Are you paying them? Giving them a split of the royalties in lieu of fee? If they are members of the Musicians Union there will be a standard minimum fee you’ll have to pay them.

• To prove you own the recording rights (the P owner) you need to register the

recording with PRS for Music/MCPS/ PPL. You will have to pay an upfront advance against sales (CD & downloads)

• Assign product a barcode, ISRC (unique code per track), catalogue number.

• A CD can hold up to 79’59 minutes of music, anything over that and pressing plant will reject it.

• Distribution: You’ll need a physical distributor who will take a % cut and get your CDs in stores and although you can get product on iTunes and Spotify yourself, a digital distributor will be able to manage a lot more online stores for you and also help with in-store promotion.

• Income: Once everyone takes a slice of the pie (retailer, distributor, MCPS royalty, plus the cost of CD packaging) a label ends up making between £3-£4 per unit.

• Sync licensing – There are two rights involved with licensing and each will earn a fee for the use of the music in film/TV/Ads. The recording owner (P owner), which is usually the record label, and the copyright holder of the music (the publisher or composer).

Licensing

As revenues for the sale of recorded music fall, it is becoming increasingly necessary for labels, publishers and artists to seek out alternative revenue streams. Over 20% of label revenue now comes from secondary rights/sync licensing.

Advertising agencies

Brands

Educational products

Film/TV

Labels: compilations etc.

Computer games


Recent sync deals

Anna Meredith Hands Free in Prada advert

Howard Skempton Chamber Concerto in Michel Gondry’s Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?

Barry Guy After The Rain in Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life

James Dillon Traumwerk in

Emmerdale

Industry Resources:

Music Think Tank http://www.musicthinktank.com/

Sound and Music http://www.soundandmusic.org

AIM http://www.musicindie.com/home

Sentric http://sentricmusic.com

Music Week http://www.musicweek.com/

BPI http://www.bpi.co.uk/category/visitors-area.aspx

BASCA http://basca.org.uk/

MPA http://www.mpaonline.org.uk/

Useful list of music industry acronyms (Sentric)

http://sentric.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/the-blomia-the-big-list-of-music-industry-acronyms%E2%80%A6/


http://www.musicthinktank.com/

http://www.soundandmusic.org/

http://www.musicindie.com/home

http://sentricmusic.com/

http://www.musicweek.com/

http://www.bpi.co.uk/category/visitors-area.aspx

http://basca.org.uk/

http://www.mpaonline.org.uk/


















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