Do you find royalties mightily confusing? You’re not alone! To make a living as a recording artist, it’s essential to be properly registered to receive royalties generated by the performance, purchase, and broadcast of your music. Join Olivia Street, A&R Associate with Bent River Records, for a one hour lunch-time Zoom session on Wednesday, April 22, hosted by Alberta Music. She’ll give a guided tour through the SOCAN platform, as well as talk about the many other royalty streams that can generate income for artists, songwriters, composers, session musicians, and more.
Music royalties are a complex bundle. As Vel Omazic of Canada’s Music Incubator has often explained, you have to think of a musical creation as being made up of two distinct parts: “The first is the sound recording of a musical work, which is performed by musicians. The second is the underlying musical work (or song) created by songwriters. There are four major groups of people involved in the making of recorded music. These groups are technically referred to as “rights holders” and they are each entitled to earn royalties for their role in the making of recorded music. In the case of an independent songwriter who performs on and funds his/her own recordings, they hold the rights of all four groups.”
These rights-holding groups are:
1. The performer. This could be a recording artist, band members, session players, someone who played the tambourine in the background… anyone who performs on a sound recording of a musical work.
2. The maker. This means the record label, or if you are self-released, it means you. You own your masters, so you’re the owner.
3. The songwriter/composer. The person or people who wrote the tune. Music, or lyrics, or both.
4. The music publisher. Don’t have a publisher? Then, you’re considered self-published, and you own this chunk.
There are royalty collection streams associated with all of these rights-holding groups. Learn more from 12 pm to 1 pm on April 22nd! Click here to sign up for this free seminar.