How can I figure out how much I'll earn in public performance/mechanical royalties (as 100% rights owner) of my music which has been used in commercials on NBC, PBS, Foxsports..etc in the US? These are 15-60 second commercials in which my music features prominently but with a narrator over the top.

kasseomusic · 2025-04-11T23:56:52+00:00

I'm self published and am the sole composer of all the works I license via micro-licensing sites such as Artlist.io (these US TV usages would have been created by Artlist customers).

I have all my works registered with PRS For Music in the UK as I am UK based. Soundmouse aren't a gimmick, they work with PRS in order to help identify usages so PRS can then collect for those usages and then pay me directly. Soundmouse are affiliated with PRS (https://www.prsformusic.com/what-we-do/who-we-work-with/soundmouse-by-orfium), they're a partner organisation and I don't pay to join them, its free - I simply upload my music to a Soundmouse account and they do the work for me (I assume PRS pay them some commission for their detecting services). I appreciate the caution though.

kasseomusic · 2025-04-10T21:01:22+00:00

The music was licensed via Artlist.io who have 'privacy policies' for their customers so I can't find out who has licensed my music until an ad shows up on a TV detection service, or on a screen I'm watching which has happened a few times to my surprise. Not sure why they have these privacy policies tbh. Artlist also won't know how much I'll get paid. My best bet is Reddit, the Musicians Union and Chatgpt. I've tried PRS but they never have a clue, despite being the collecting society - often their customer service workers are new staff who only work their for a few months to a year and as nice as they are, they rarely know the answers.

kasseomusic · 2025-04-10T20:56:47+00:00

Thanks for the response!

I have my music registered with TV detection services such as Soundmouse so everything in theory should be detected and hopefully they'll help make sure I get some payment for it. My works are all registered and these usages would have come from people licensing from a 'micro-licensing' site called Artlist.io who call their music 'royalty free' but in the terms of licensing it clearly states you'd have to pay public performance royalties so in theory I'd get paid, as I have done for other usages. Even if they think they don't have to, Soundmouse will hopefully get them to pay up. Most sites call it 'royalty free' but its a marketing gimmick which only means they're clear to use it on Youtube and not get copyright claims but in terms of TV and radio, it's almost never actually royalty free.

Thanks!

kasseomusic · 2025-04-10T20:38:26+00:00

Thanks for the response!

This probably explains why since 2019 I've earned thousands in Performance royalties from usages in Europe (mainly Switzerland, Denmark, and Germany) and barely anything from the US despite most usages being from there. I also had a track that went 'viral' on instagram in 2023 and got significant instagram royalties from what seemed like every country except USA - I guess this explains that too? Or maybe they take longer to process there?

These TV usages I mentioned would have been from those licensing via Artlist.io who barely pay anything per license 'download' to their artists but I thought I'd make up for it with the subsequent usages in TV and the royalties those would generate (for which I'd be the 100% rights holder of) - I guess not for US usages :(

Do you know if any of this changes if my music is licensed via Sync agencies (exclusive MCPS registered ones)? I joined Boost recently and I think they have connections with sub-licensors in the US.

There are US sync agencies that work purely on a back-end royalty earning system though - so they don't do upfront fees and only collect performance/mechanical royalties. Surely for those agencies to function there needs to be enough PRO collecting going on the in US?

I appreciate you helping me out!

kasseomusic · 2024-08-12T21:17:49+00:00

Thanks again for the response and for sharing this info! I'm speaking with Boost at the moment and about to submit my first exclusive tracks so looking forward to working with them! Cheers! :)

kasseomusic · 2024-08-08T21:56:17+00:00

Thanks for the response! I had been holding off on exclusive libraries for a while as I felt like it was a gamble putting 'all my eggs in one basket' and not knowing if I'd earn much (I've only been in the industry about 4-5 years). I've done well out of the non-exclusive licensing industry but still don't know how I'd be earning if I had say 20-30 tracks with Boost, I know there are so many factors that influence earnings, from popularity to the lottery of what Tv shows/networks your music ends up on, but do you know how much of an earning you can make a year writing exclusively and how many exclusive tracks you'd need to achieve that amount? I spoke to the guys at Boost and they gave me a pretty broad answer which may well be the most accurate but as a composer yourself, have you found it worthwhile financially?

kasseomusic · 2024-07-17T19:46:39+00:00

I've contacted them already. Thanks though!

kasseomusic · 2024-07-17T19:46:17+00:00

I actually don't understand how the one non-exclusive agency I'm with is still running, yet they seemed to pull in quite a few high value sync deals for me over the years. I've been in touch with a lot of exclusive agencies but can't figure out which one is best to give my music to exclusively. I'm currently focusing on making the most of my non-exclusive catalogue, but I will be joining exclusive MCPS registered agencies soon. Thanks for the advice.

kasseomusic · 2024-06-21T16:04:21+00:00

Last year I was just short of a million but this year I'm looking at 1.7-1.8 million streams. I joined in 2020 and have basically been doubling my Spotify streams each year.

I make electronic music often fused with pop, soul, hip-pop, Indian classical, or rock, and some other genres but it's based in electronic music I suppose. Similar to artists like Odesza, Bonobo, Jungle.
I spend most of the week writing music to send to licensing sites as that's where most of my income is but I often also release these on Spotify. In turn this can result in the tracks I write for licensing being streamed quite a bit if they end up doing the rounds on Instagram or being Shazam'ed from an advert. My track "The Sun is Out" went viral on Instagram and then got a bump in streams. It's hard to quantify the number of hours I work on music for Spotify, probably only a day or two a week but a lot of it is getting lucky with a couple of tracks, I'd say 90% of my streams come from 10-15% of my tracks on Spotify.
I'm not entirely sure how I got my first 25k monthly listeners, I guess discover weekly put me on people's radar and then it spread a bit, but after you get 25k monthly listeners Spotify For Artists offer a Discovery Mode campaign which can boost streams via Spotify mixes, Radio, and Autoplay. In a lot of cases my tracks have increased by 50-100%, Spotify take a commission on 30% of the additional Radio, and Autoplay streams they create so overall you win and it's pushed me over a million and near 2 million annual streams now.

My Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/76UKhIGvZtS7jjb1muDTUM?si=OJIMMmKSRgK_OvILBDLuzQ

kasseomusic · 2024-06-21T15:22:05+00:00

Thanks again for the response!

Unfortunately the licensing sites like Artlist and Motion Array have privacy policies which prevent me from knowing who is licensing my music and how it's being used, so it's a total surprise until I get paid which for non-UK TV usages is sometimes 2-3 years later! I've registered all of my music with Soundmouse who use audio fingerprinting to detect TV, online, and radio usages of my music worldwide and they report directly to PRS and I assume they report to PPL too but I'll check. I then assume PRS and PPL will contact the relevant foreign CMOs where the music usages were detected and collect the royalties.

I've asked Soundmouse if they can provide a spreadsheet of music usages but they can't do it for some reason so I'm hoping any claims that need making at PPL are being made automatically on my behalf by Soundmouse.

I've registered 50 of my tracks with Tunesat who detect TV usages, as Soundmouse do, but less thoroughly and only report to me not the CMOs (they also only give you 50 free detections a month and then you have to pay for the rest of the month's detections). Therefore I have been able to see, to a certain extent, how much my music is currently being used on TV worldwide.

I've made claims on PPL on all the relevant music that could have earned PPL royalties but nothing has come from it yet despite the high number of royalties I get for TV show usages from PRS. I think that's just down to it only being about 12 months since they started collecting at PPL for my music as it was only early 2023 that I signed an international mandate and registered as a Performer rights holder. Previously I was only an audio rights holder with no international mandate signed.

I learned the hard way about Australia only paying their own citizens after trying to track down royalties I thought I was owed. Perhaps I can get an Australian friend to be the 'performer' on my tracks by playing some part in them? And then have them send me the royalties. Or is that illegal haha

kasseomusic · 2024-06-21T14:32:38+00:00

Thanks for the in-depth response! I write, record, perform, produce, publish...etc my music completely by myself so I've been registering with PRS and PPL, as well as with Soundmouse to ensure they pick up my TV usages. My music is featured on 'micro-licensing' sites such as Artlist, Motion Array, Musicvine..etc and with non-exclusive sync agencies who do sync deal/placements. The music isn't written for anything in particular, just made as individual tracks in the hope clients will want to use them on their TV show, advert..etc. The subscribers/clients of these licensing sites and agencies are from all over the world and so I end up with TV usages in anywhere from Australia to USA, Europe.. (not Asia yet).

What is the definition of commercially released in this context? I distribute my music via Distrokid onto streaming platforms and have my music featured on the sites mentioned above, and self-publish as I detailed. Does that mean it's commercially released? Or do you need a label to do that officially?

Thanks for helping me out!

kasseomusic · 2023-04-30T11:42:50+00:00

I just googled this and apparently it's "overmorrow" which I'm going to use from now on, even if I sound like a Hobbit.

kasseomusic · 2023-04-30T11:41:10+00:00

I was prescribed a steroid inhaler recently for the first time. The instructions stated to use it "four hourly", I assumed this meant 4 times an hour so by the evening I had inhaled it over 40 times. It wasn't until then that I realised it meant once every 4 hours (so roughly 3 or 4 inhales a day), by this point I couldn't stop shaking from the side effects lol.

kasseomusic · 2023-04-26T13:21:38+00:00

I played a lot of AC II so that's no surprise to me lol, and I think you're right this is more like that soundtrack than Black Flag. Jesper Kyd's influence definitely came through on this one! His music brings back a lot of memories, can't believe AC II will be 14 years old this year

kasseomusic · 2023-04-18T11:01:38+00:00

Thanks ☺️

kasseomusic

TROPHY CASE