Royalty free vs. Performance Rights Organizations

Some (all?) PROs also collect mechanical rights. At least the Scandinavian PROs such as STIM do, in collaboration with NCB . If a customer buys a song connected to one of the PROs with a mechanical rights partner they would have to pay a fee per copy of the DVD /CD they produce including the song.

Novasera you’re right in parts of your statement, true, all TV stations etc. pay annual license fees, and this money is spread to the registered composers based on usage publicly. But this is only a certain part of the money a PRO collects. If a client buys a track on AJ for use as background music for their homepage and this track is registered to a PRO , this client has to pay usage fees to the PRO , the client, not any organization. Same applies to all other usages of works that are PRO registered, public performance, websites, movies etc.

de_signs said
If a client buys a track on AJ for use as background music for their homepage and this track is registered to a PRO , this client has to pay usage fees to the PRO , the client, not any organization. Same applies to all other usages of works that are PRO registered, public performance, websites, movies etc.

de_signs said
If a client buys a track on AJ for use as background music for their homepage and this track is registered to a PRO , this client has to pay usage fees to the PRO , the client, not any organization. Same applies to all other usages of works that are PRO registered, public performance, websites, movies etc.

The subject of background music adds another layer of complexity to PRO ’s and licensing. This is probably where the real problem exists with Audio Jungle.

If a user buys a song on audiojungle for use on their website, and that song exists in a PRO catalog somewhere, then technically that user of the song would need to purchase a blanket license from the PRO as well. Blanket licenses are expensive and cover a wide range of songs, although most buyers only need one or two songs for their website. This is why people purchase songs for their websites from audiojungle. It is cost effective.

A year or two ago, a major background music provider in the States fought BMI in court. Claiming that they had direct licenses with many of the artists that they were using for background music. The claim was that the background music provider would not need to pay such an exorbitant blanket fee, and should be allowed to pay lower fees to BMI . The background music company won that case in court.

So you really have 2 issues at hand here.

1. Monies paid to artists for use on TV and radio (This money would be provided to artists through ad revenue collected by Networks and paid to PRO ’s as Keith Merrill explained in his post)

2. Background use on website and in store or restaurant uses. Which is paid through blanket licenses paid to PRO ’s from the end user.

The trick is- how do you create a license that allows artists to collect money if their music is used on TV or Radio (Broadcast use)? At the same time, how do you create the license to allow for direct licensing if it is used for website and background, without conflicting with the PRO ’s.

Those are great points Solarsound.

Here’s the thing with stores and restaurants, I think there are very few out there that would mindfully purchase only non-pro music to play in the background rather than pay a few hundred dollars a year to have the freedom to play any popular music from CD’s or satellite radio.

Purchasing that much non-pro music from audiojungle alone would cost more than a few hundred dollars.

As far as websites go, I would think 99% of websites are going to go unnoticed by the PRO ’s because the PRO ’s are looking for websites playing their well-known artist’s songs.

I’m very curious how much of audiojungle’s clientele would be affected by changing the policy to allowing PRO registered music.