3 Minutes of Music Knowledge: International Revenue, Who Owes You Money?
If there is one revenue stream in the music industry that seen the most significant change it is the way in which foreign territories pay artists in the United States.
In a global marketplace dominated by streaming, countries all over the world are seeing incredible year over year revenue growth.
The most encouraging part of this growth in streaming music is driven by countries that have never had a legitimate music industry previously.
Regions like Latin America, India and Eastern Europe are all seeing double digit growth every year as consumers in these markets now stream legitimate music on their phone and through apps. This music is monetized with revenue flowing back to artists.
Streaming & Global Music Industry:
The music industry has been in decline since its record year of 2001. Streaming has turned this around and currently streaming music accounts for 65% of global music revenue. Projections say that the global music revenue for 2019 will be well over $20 billion.
Brief History of Global Music:
The United States was (and remains) the largest music market in the world. Countries like Japan, Germany, Canada, France and Australia were among the largest music global markets.
Complications with music distribution in smaller countries as well as conflicting laws and physical product shipments were among many headaches of the international music business.
The introduction of iTunes and downloads in 2004 helped to change the industry into a digital age and selling and collecting globally began to change.
Who Has The Money?
In the last 15 years there are many organizations negotiate and collect money on music in their countries in same way ASCAP, BMI or Soundexchange does in the United States.
Over 90 Performance Rights Organizations (PRO’s) around the world. More info here
Over 25 Collective Management Organization (CMO’s) in different countries in the global marketplace. More info here.
How Do You Get Your Money?
Most of your streaming revenue can be collected in a couple steps.
Publisher: Have you registered with ASCAP, BMI or SESAC? That is great, but you still need to have a Publisher or a Publishing Administrator in order to collect your international publisher share of revenue. This will allow you to collect on public performance rights
Soundexchange: If you are registered for Soundexchange as a Featured Artist or as a Copyright Owner, you can give Soundexchange the right to collect your revenue for the revenue streams they are responsible for. This includes things like online radio, cable television and satellite radio.
Online Video: There are 4 ways to collect money from YouTube. Your PRO will collect your Publishing Royalties from YouTube in US and can also do so for other territories if you opt in. It is important to register your content for YouTube ContentID in order to properly capture your plays around the globe. Contact us here for info about how to do this.
It’s time to get serious about the business of music.
