Welcome to episode 99 of the Bandhive podcast.

It is time for another episode of the Bandhive podcast. My name is James Cross from here with Matt Hose of Alive in Barcelona. How are you doing today? Matt, I am doing awesome. James, how's everything over there on the east side? That is great to hear. I'm having a fun day. I keep mentioning that we record on monday because I just love Mondays. But yesterday I had a really truly amazing sunday. It all started off when I woke up just after five a.m. And I hate waking up that early.

Like I'm usually a 7 to 7 30 kind of guy. I like that. But 55 30. No, but it was all worth it because I got to fly a plane. I took my first lesson yesterday. It was a total blast. I got to take off. I did not get the land, but I did some turns. I did some climbs and Descents during the landing. I did most of the approach is just before we got to the ground that the instructor took back over. So it was truly a blast and now comes the long wait through the Vermont winter for me to start lessons next spring.

That's absolutely incredible. I'm super jealous of you. You went during the daytime. Yeah, yeah, it was like 8 30. So there wasn't like airplanes in the night sky, like shooting stars. No, I don't like where this is going. I feel like you're gonna steamroll me with a pond. I already did and you didn't even notice it. That's the line, what song that is? Hayley Williams and B. O. B airplanes. Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky like shooting stars. I could really use a Wish right now.

Wish right now. You know that song? I know you know that song I got to say, I know mostly Paramore songs. I don't know a ton of Hayley Williams songs. So I will go listen to that song after we're done recording here. Yes, it's B. O. B. Featuring Hayley Williams. Oh, so it's not even her song. It's got you. Got you got you. No wonder, I don't know it. No, you do. I promise you. You know this song and this was like on pop radio that's like not knowing like a lady gaga song like you, you know it, I promise you'll hear the song and be like, oh yeah, I know this song, I have a massive gap of knowledge in my musical expertise when it comes to pop songs.

So it's quite possible that I actually have not heard the song as terrible as that sounds like there's a lot of pop songs. So I'll be like, oh, what's this? And everyone's like, that was the biggest hit of last summer, I'm like, I've never heard it, it's not a hit. But anyway, This is episode 99. So we have to mention of things in the sky balloons like to fly. So maybe uh 1990 belongs maybe or if you're a normal person and you don't speak German 99 red balloons, I like the goldfinger version.

That's a fun cover, which is actually related to what we're going to talk about today. I didn't even plan that. I was just talking about that song and well today we're gonna talk about income streams, income screams, today we're gonna talk about income streams from songwriting. So, I mean, how perfect is that? To segue from a cover song to income streams of songwriting, right? We've got 99 episodes and income streams ain't one, but we're hoping to change that. That's why we're telling you about these income streams, because if this works out and you use these, you'll have five of them.

So here's hoping so pretty much everybody knows that you can earn money from music sales as a songwriter. If you sell a copy of a song as a recording or if it gets streamed as a recording, you're going to get a little payment from, that's going to be a small amount. For example, if somebody sells a copy of your song on a cd you as the songwriter, disregarding any royalties that you might have as the artist, You get 9. 1 sense for that song. As long as the song is under five minutes, if it's more than five minutes, then it's calculated on a permanent rate, which is beyond the scope of what we're going to talk about today.

Everyone knows about that. You sell a song on a CD or a digital download, you get paid. If it gets streamed, you don't get paid a flat rate, but you still get paid a couple of fractions of a penny. But there are other ways to earn money from your song. It doesn't even have to be your recording of the song. You will still earn money anytime a song that you write is used, whether it's in a recorded form or a live setting or even things like sheet music and lyric books that kind of stuff, those all result in payments to the songwriter and ultimately there are five different income streams.

But before we get into those matt, I want to talk a little bit about the difference between a song and recording when it comes to copyright and I also want to make the caveat here that we are not attorneys, we are not experts in law. So if you need legal advice, please go seek legal advice from a qualified entertainment or intellectual property lawyer. I have a great intellectual property lawyer here in Vermont. So if you're in the US and you need an I. P lawyer, feel free to reach out to me.

I can put you in touch with him. He is a musician himself. So absolutely recommend you work with him if you need somebody because he gets it. He's a musician. But there is a fundamental difference between the song and the recording. The song is the actual song itself, so your melody, your lyrics, anything that makes your song identifiable as your song. Whereas the sound recording is a separate copyright typically owned by the record label if you're on a label and that sound recording is that specific recording?

So if somebody records a cover song or if you record a new version, that is a separate copyright for the sound recording, but all three of those versions, the original, your rerecord and the cover have the same song copyright your copyright. So that's just the bare bones difference between the two copyrights, you have the song and the recording today. All the income streams we're going to talk about are your song specifically Now? Matt, you've been a songwriter for over a decade. What's your experience like have you registered for copyright with your songs?

Have you gone through the process of publishing? Can you tell us a little bit about what you do in that area? Yeah of course there's a couple different companies that you can register with. This is B. M. I. And ascap it's very very important that you register your works with these agencies because this means when you go around on tour and you're playing, you can actually use, like the BME or the ascap portal in order to claim that you played a show at a certain venue on a certain date.

Each venue across the country is required to pay. If they're going to have live entertainment, they're required to pay either the BME or the ascap fee, which that's what allows for, say, somebody to come to their venue and play a song and the original artist to actually still get paid for it. So, I'm sure everybody has seen at a local venue, a sign that says no covers the reason that this sign is up is because that venue has not actually paid to have their profile with BMI or ascap set up and these venues you should try to stay away from because this basically eliminates one of your main revenue streams, the more your music is played, the more you should get paid for it, the more you go on tour, the more you should get paid for it.

And if you're having royalties that are split up, you know, it's like, yeah, you're going to go on tour and you're going to make that one time payment of your cd sale, your one time payment of your merch sale and things like that, but when you go home and you have some downtime in between tours, it's really nice to have some type of income essentially that hedges against your expenses for why you're not on tour. There's a point in your career where touring full time is making a huge commitment and not touring enough is kind of making a huge commitment.

And when you right in the middle is where you meet and once you get there it's like, oh how am I going to find a job for one month? You know, how am I gonna make ends meet for this three weeks that I'm home? So I know we've talked about the gig economy and things like that. So those are great things to supplement that as well, but it's also great to have this passive revenue stream because technically this is money that you're owed for the work you've already done, you've already registered with B. M. I. R. Ascap.

So they know your songs, the rights are all registered. Then when you go you play a venue, you record this and B. M. I. A. And then B. M. I basically sends them bill, they're supposed to pay the bill and then once a certain amount of funds is basically tied up in one of these companies, they'll send you out either record early check or a monthly check, depending on, I can't remember what the current law says for when they have to pay you out, but I think they'll pay you out every month but it has to be over a certain threshold.

And if you're not at that then they'll do quarterly. So it changes and it might be different between BME and Ascap. I'm not sure if their business model is bound by law or if it's an internal system that they have set up. So the laws regarding those companies has changed a lot in the last few years. So like James said earlier, if you're going to be getting into intellectual property and rights in general, it's best to have a lawyer because there's a reason that these people literally go to school for eight years to learn the language that's used in contracts because it's totally different.

So you need to have these registered and once all of these are registered and you're going on tour, you're reporting these then after the course of like the next month or whatever you will get paid. Now, the reason that the music industry is kind of like the Wild West is that there's a lot of like relying on other people, let's say you have a hit song and people cover it. I've seen lots of big bands cover other big bands songs. Hey monday. One time I watched them perform and halfway through their set they played a Jimmy Eat World song.

It was phenomenal. Now part of me wonders did they actually get on BME and record that they played the Middle by Jimmy Eat World Now they should have because if they did and if the venue pays their BMI or ascap fee, then Jimmy Eat World will make money off of that song being played, the rights to the song will go to Jimmy Eat World, the writer and the publication rights will go to whoever owns the publishing rights for said song. It's all kind of like the honor system.

And so it's important for like those of us in the music industry. It's like when you get to a venue and you play it and you go to like record a song and their venue does not exist inside of the BMI or asCAP database. That's a problem. And that means that this is a venue who's basically trying to not pay out artists for their basic royalties. In order for the venue to register with one of those companies, they have to pay a certain amount. I can't remember what the fee is.

Maybe it's like $500 a year or whatever, but they have to pay something essentially. And to them that's another startup cost and they don't want to do that. They exist all over the place. It's not like these are few and far between. It's important for you to make a list of them. And honestly, if you end up getting in good with one of your B. M. I. Or your ascap reps, you can literally send information to them about these venues and they will actually pursue the venues as a means to get them to sign up because they're supposed to and honestly that's your money, If they're going to hire in entertainment, they need to be willing to pay them.

That is like one of the key fundamentals about the entertainment industry and why so many entertainers are angry people at their core is because we're naturally, we love everybody and we want to entertain people and then people want to take advantage of entertainers. And so if you don't have that guy that's willing to walk into the venue with a crowbar, so to speak, then at every turn in this Wild West, people will try to rug pull you when people rug pull you, you end up on your butt.

So signing up with BMR ascap is absolutely integral. This is really what's going to help you get a whole bunch of your passive revenue stream and it's going to come in on a more scheduled basis, which will really really help you to hedge against your liabilities and hedge against all of your expenses while you're not on tour. And sometimes even if you're on tour, it's a nice little extra cushion for maybe helping you not eat cup of noodles one night. Yeah, absolutely. And so that all describes the performing rights licenses, which, like you said, matt are one of the biggest income streams for artists when you're playing shows, there's all kinds of details in the weeds here.

And then you could get by without signing up for BME and ascap and do so legally, if they license the songs that each artist plays individually, but they're not going to do that because if they're not going to pay be my or ascap, they're not going to bother with licensing songs. So what happens like you were describing that is if you go there and even if you only play covers, those songs still have to be licensed. And these venues typically are not the kind of venue that has bothered to license those songs from you directly.

If they haven't bothered to do it in bulk with ASCAP or B. M. I. And so when you then report your set list BME and AScap will go collect that debt by forcing the venue to sign up for their service, they will take it to court if they need to because they know that there are other artists also playing that venue who should be getting paid Now. This is also not just for live music. The performing rights licences also cover recorded music in public settings, so bars, restaurants, airports, sporting events, any kind of stuff where music is being played, specifically the Prost mean, Ascap, which are performance rights organizations only collect the songwriters share of the royalties.

So, if there are any sound recording royalties owed that is collected separately by the label or other organizations, ASCAP and BMI, you can sign up any time. They are very open to working with artists. There are differences between the two, we're not going to get into that. They both have pros and cons, but ultimately they both do the job, which is collect money for you. There's also see sack, but they are an exclusive club that you have to be invited to to sign up with having a bureau.

Super vital. One thing to keep in mind is that P. R. O. S are only located in one country, so BMI and ascap only operate in the US. They might have international divisions, but BMI and ascap directly only work in the US other countries will have their own performance rights organizations. And in fact, most countries only have one. It's very abnormal to have two or even three like we do here in the States. So for example, in europe, Germany has game A G E M. A. Other countries have their own, if you've ever been to europe and you try to watch a video on Youtube specifically in Germany and it says, oh, this has been blocked by universal music group or one brother records.

It's actually not them. That's game a blocking it. So you can thank them for that being super restrictive. In Germany pet peeve of mine, they block everything. It's like, but Youtube pays you. Yes, but they don't pay us enough. But something is better than nothing, right? And especially when it's like a US based artist who is being streamed in Germany, they're not even from Germany like why are you overstepping your bounds with this anyway. That little rant aside, I think it's time that I'm going to just do a quick review of the mechanical royalty, which is what I was talking about earlier.

That is when your song is sold as a sound recording. So like I said, it can be your version, it can be somebody else's version, but it is what's called a phono record, basically an album or a recording of any sort cover versions, compilations or derivative works. And this is the part that I didn't hit on earlier in our intro, a derivative work is when somebody takes your work and changed in some way to make it at least partially their own. So this could be something where somebody modifies the original and they do a cover, but they do it in a totally different style and they change some of the lyrics, which if lyrics are changed typically you need a special derivative license, but it's still considered a subset of a mechanical license.

Again, not lawyers don't take this as legal advice. Get all this stuff started out with an intellectual property or entertainment attorney. But for example, a mash up of the song would be a derivative or if somebody wants to take a sample of your song and I don't mean just a drumbeat or something. If they want to take a sample of your vocals where the lyrics are actually included and you can tell like these are the lyrics that is going to count towards the mechanical royalty. The next one.

This is a big one that I see a lot of artists really want to exploit and with good reason it can get your music to a lot of new audiences. I've been watching tv shows and now everyone knows where this is going. I've been watching tv shows and like this sounds awesome, who is that? Who plays that? And you know, I go, hey Siri, what song is this? And it says, oh this is blah blah blah by so and so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna pull them up on Spotify.

I found some really cool artists through that and what this is called is a synchronization license or a sync license. It covers any audiovisual work, including tv commercials, movies or video games, any kind of stuff like that. And it's typically a flat fee for all future use related to that project. So they will pay you a flat fee of, you know, it could be a couple 100 bucks, it could be thousands, it could be hundreds of thousands or even millions depending on how big you are and how badly they want that song that really depends on how aggressive they are with.

We want this specific song versus oh we'll take any song that's like a poppy love song that our diamond dozen. So we'll take it. But if they want the big hit that's going to cost them, this is negotiated between your publisher and the music user. Now we'll get into publishers later there is an option to self publish. But again we'll cover that later. Sync licenses are a great way to get your music out there like I said and they can be a really good income stream if you get things going the right way and you know how to make those connections or you have a publisher who already has those connections there sites out there that will let you pitch yourself.

But it's always going to be easier if you can get a publisher. Yeah you have to pay the publisher but it's not as bad as you think. It's important also to note that with a sync license it doesn't have to be a flat fee. It can in fact be some type of recurring payment. And that has kind of been something that's new that came into the scene with streaming as streaming has become a lot more mainstream especially with tv netflix and really just the whole industry of streaming as a whole.

They all really work well together. And so they are rarer but I have heard of artists who have licensed their song specifically to a T. V. Show and they are paid essentially a streaming royalty. So anytime that show is watched their paid, you know fractions of a penny but it essentially converts that one time payment into a slow residual payment. So this is possible and it's definitely something that if you start working with the publishing company, you might want to just write out upfront, Say like, hey, when we want to focus on publishing, it's much more important to us to get one cent per stream than it is for us to get $500 for them to use this indefinitely.

When money is converted from a one time payment to a subscription based payment or, or a residual payment, then what you're doing is you're essentially harnessing that business on your behalf. Seiler, for example, is a band who, they were a metal band, they went around on a couple tours, opening for people and what not. They dropped a song that got picked up by the Oakland Raiders. The Oakland Raiders now play Seiler for everything related to them and they were able to work out a pretty sweet deal to where it kind of threw them into the big time.

Not only because it gave them a big, huge check, but it also put them in a venue where they're constantly being heard. The nice thing about that is like, you know, in the last few years, they have gone from being an opener to being a headliner and to like being able to take whoever they want out on tour, so like, never underestimate the power of like a good individual publishing contract. It can literally only take one and before, you know it, it's like, oh, this is now a incredibly recognized song in a highly centrally located geographically area.

You know it's like oh everybody in Oakland they might not know who Seiler is but they definitely know that song. And so it's kind of like back in the day when we had like headstrong it's like even if you didn't know who trapped was, you had heard that song or if you didn't know who smash mouth was, you had heard all Star. It's through publication deals that a lot of these single little like hidden gem songs from artists that might not ever make it into the mainstream.

Seiler's are pretty heavy band and then for them to have a song that's picked up by not only like mainstream but one of the largest industries in the United States. That's really incredible. So it's important to remember that we've talked about this when it comes to contracts. You can set up your business however you want to. There are certain industry standards that people will try to push for. But if you develop a good quality relationship with a publisher then you can actually bend those a little bit and you have a little bit more room to negotiate and to try to push for what's more important to you remember that if you want to be a musician, you're in this for the long haul.

So things like residual income can be very very very powerful tools to carry you through the lulls that you have in your music career. Absolutely. And another great thing to note about residuals is when it comes to T. V. Shows, reruns of tv shows can actually result in performance rights licence royalties because it's a rerun, it's on a different network, then they have to pay a performance rights license rather than an additional sync license. So there are other ways to get stuff on the back end that can come in really handy.

And again, you know, I'm getting into the weeds here. I'm going to stop myself from digging down into the rabbit hole. We're just trying to cover the five main ways that you can earn money as a songwriter. Again, if you have questions, please feel free to reach out to us. But we're not lawyers. If you really have like a specific situation or something that involves legalities by all means. You know, let me know and I'll put you in touch with my guy, he's a musician and a great lawyer or you can find somebody in your area either way.

But it is so important to have an understanding of these different license types and that's why we're talking about this today on episode 99 99. Left belongs. Has so many covers all over the world in different languages and you know, in translation, that's a derivative work, that's just one example of going back to mechanicals and derivative works. I said I was going to stop going down this rabbit hole and here I am still rambling. So I'm going to move on to print licenses and this is probably one that's not going to be a thing for most D. I. Y. Artists.

Just because it's very particular and this is lyric books or sheet music or tabs or anything like that. It's arranged as a flat fee for a certain number of copies produced. So for example, let's say a book publisher wants to make a songbook with your top 10 songs and they include the sheet music and tabs and the lyrics and they're going to make 1000 copies of it. They'll say, yeah, so we'll pay you a dollar a copy for 1000 copies. Do you agree? And you can negotiate on that? You know, there's no regulatory flat fee like with mechanical licenses.

The 9. 1 sense I mentioned that's actually law. It's called the statutory rate for mechanical licenses. You can negotiate below that 9. 1 sense. But, and this is again going to get into the weeds here with mechanical licenses. As long as you've put out the original version of the song, it's fair game for anyone to say we're covering this and we're going to pay you 9. 1 cents per copy and we're doing this, whether you like it or not, it's legal for them to do that as long as they notify you and they pay you, However, if they extend the courtesy of reaching out to you and negotiating with you, you might well say, hey know what we're going to charge you two cents per copy instead of 9.

1 cents per copy because we like you and your nice and you reached out to us rather than just saying, hey we're doing this, here's notice that we're taking your song and paying you for it. I had, that happened once, it was like 2. 175 cents per copy I think for a cover that a band I was working with back in the day, I negotiated that deal and we were like, well we got like a 75% discount and it was a high profile of song. This was paper planes by M. I. A back in 2011.

So the song was still relevant back then, but their publisher was super chill was like, yeah, you know what, like we'll work with you guys on this so that all aside print licenses, if you're getting stuff printed good. But for most D. I. Y. Bands probably not going to be a major source of income, but as you get to the bigger levels, you might have people say, hey, like we want to put this out. Now. One thing I got to say is pet peeve artists or rather songwriters who block their stuff from being shown on ultimate guitar, come on.

Like I get it. But if your songs are not available as a songbook, don't block them from Ultimate Guitar. If you're trying to push a songbook, that's totally fine. Like I would gladly buy that song book, but if you don't even have one, there's no reason to block it from being on Ultimate Guitar because people just want to learn your songs and it erodes a little bit of trust when somebody goes to learn a song of yours and it says, oh, this has been blocked by the songwriter.

It's like, oh man, you don't want your fans to learn your songs. That kind of sucks and you're alienating your fans. That's right. If somebody takes the time to learn your song and tab out your song so that other people can learn your song. That is nothing but a compliment. Take the compliment. Smile. Move along. Its that simple. Also, one thing I wanted to know about print licenses, you're absolutely correct James. This is very rarely something that you're going to run into is a D. I. Y artist.

However, this is like a late game type of practice essentially. How many of you have ever been to a guitar center or a music shop and you see tab books like, oh, learn all the Beatles songs. Here's a bunch of hits from the 70s. Here's a bunch of tablature from this movie. They have all sorts of things like that. All sorts of music books that you would see inside of these stores and that's where a print license is really going to come in handy later on in life and who knows you can do it earlier.

There's nothing stopping you from creating your own sheet music ahead of time. To me, that kind of seems like a very hipster kind of thing to do. Like I could see some band that's like, oh yeah, I have all of my stuff recorded on tape and vinyl and you can also buy my sheet music and that might be your stick and that's super cool. Like if that's what you're going to rock then own it, stay consistent with your brand and that's, that can be very, very good branding.

But like James said earlier, it's not generally speaking, it's not an early gameplay. People aren't going to be out looking to purchase books on your tablet sir, unless you have an established fan base already. So keep that in mind as well. Yeah, like you said, it's a long game and when all you got to keep is strong, you keep pushing and keep pushing at it and then you move along. Sorry, I was waiting for you to finish, he said move along like two minutes ago and she's like, oh, I'm so ready, this is happening.

I'm going to all americans reject that. I don't have a comeback for that comeback kid comeback story of the year. I have a simple plan and that is to move along and roll with the punches. Like randy newman suggested. There we go, just keep rolling, rolling, rolling. I I like to party party. How's that for a throwback? Oh Madagascar anyone, I like to rock and roll all night and party every day. Now we just went hair metal at this point, everybody has stopped listening. That's right. So to bring this back on topic because I sidetracked with too many terrible puns and encouraged matt to do the same and it just, you know, snowballed and rolled down the hill and I'm not thinking of pun to wrap this all up.

That's what happens when you're in bad company like bad wolves. Thank you for the opportunity. Yeah. Oh anyway, there's one final type of license that you can earn money from as a songwriter and it's really not a separate license, but it is a separate license and that is foreign licenses and this is just the other four types of licenses but in a different country. So let's say you're based in the US and somebody in Australia wants to do a cover song that's a foreign mechanical license. They want to use it on an Australian tv show.

That's a foreign sync license. They want to put out lyrics in Australia. Yeah, foreign print license or somebody covers your song in a live show or plays it in a bar restaurant in Australia. Foreign performing rights license. So all four of those can be foreign licenses. Typically with foreign licenses you are going to have what's known as a sub publisher basically your publisher will work with a different publisher in that area to get this sorted out. So you don't have to deal with people all over the country directly.

Your publisher handles that for you. And a quick note that's also for print licenses. Typically that's handled by a sub publisher who works with your actual publisher to get that sorted. But yeah, those are the five types matt. You want to just give us a quick recap on what they are. Absolutely. So we have mechanical royalties, we have sink royalties or synchronization royalties, you have print royalties, you have performance royalties and you have foreign royalties. The word royalties can be supplemented for licenses as well. You will have licenses for all of these categories which will in turn grant you a royalty for said category.

These are all very important. This is like having a youtube and Spotify and emerge store and cds at your live show. You know, these are all little tiny facets that go into building the machine. All of these are your business, 99% of this stuff is done on a computer before you ever have to go anywhere. You register your stuff, you sign up, you make sure you have your portal, you make sure you're registered artists on those registered songs and then you carry on. The important thing that you have to remember is that every time you play a show you're going to have to report these things, this is not like a set it and forget it type of thing.

This is a, when you get to the end of your day and you are loading up your trailer and you are settling up with your venue and you are counting your merch and paying your merch rate. You're also recording that show, your tracking that show. So that is another final piece of your day and you have to make sure you do every single one of these things is an important thing to add to your list. I'll tell you what, it's a huge, huge, huge pain in the butt to get through a week of touring and then have to go back and like plug in all of those venues individually.

Just do it every day, spend five minutes and make sure you get it done because otherwise I've done it before where I like, waited until the end of the week. And I was like trying to go back and find addresses and some of them didn't exist. And it was like, I wasn't sure if I had the wrong address or whatever. When you're sitting there at the venue with the promoter, you can say like, hey, so what is this? And when that promoters like sees you actually tracking this show for one, a lot of the time in your B. M. I or your ascap app, you actually have to have the promoter sign off on the show, depending on what you're using.

And so when they have to sign off on it, this is going to do two things. Number one. It's going to tell you if this venue is somebody that actually pays their ascap B. M. I. Fee, but also it is going to help you make sure that you get the correct address and that that show is on the books and you're guaranteed to make the payment that you deserve. Absolutely. Having that part of your nightly process is super important. And if you want to hear more about processes and checklists for your band, so you never leave your bass player behind.

Check out episode 92 you can find it at Bandhive dot rocks slash 92 or in your favorite podcast app. The episode title is never leave your bass player behind the power of checklists. So, again, that is that band, I've got rocks slash 92 If you want to hear about that because you know, matt, this is a perfect example. Like you said, added to your list. You should have a settlement checklist. That's one thing that we didn't mention as an example in that episode, but that is a prime example of not forgetting anything because that is a critical moment for your business every single night when you're doing a settlement with the talent buyer or the promoter, you want to make sure that you do not forget anything and entering your songs into your P. R. O. That is definitely one of the things that should be on that list.

Now, a quick note about publishing in general. There's a couple of ways you can do publishing and we might later on actually get to a more in depth episode about publishing. But this is just an important side note that everybody should keep in the back of their mind. It is a publisher's job to exploit the song. They are a booking agent for your music, a booking agent. When they book your show, they get paid regardless. Right? Well that's kind of how publication works. So with the standard publishing deal it's a 50 50 split between the songwriter and the publisher In a contract.

This will look a little bit confusing because you're part of the contract will look like you get 100% of the songwriter share. But that's out of a 200% total. So publishing works on a 200% model where basically each party gets 100% because they subdivide what they're actually called. So a publishing deal is basically just a 5050 split. That's the easy way for you to remember it. It's also important to remember that if you're going to try to fight for more of this than what you're fighting for is essentially the connections that you already have.

So if you want your song to get into a video game, you need a publisher to do that. Unless of course you are really close friends with Rockstar video games, you've got an in with the guy who made grand theft auto sweet. If you do, then maybe fighting for more of your publishing rights is a good thing because then you'll be able to make more money. However, this is generally not the case. Generally, it's these established businesses like record labels or publishing companies in general that have these relationships with other established media businesses.

And so a lot of the time sacrificing 50% of your money is a great deal because using some basic math for the sake of argument, let's say you get $1000 split 50 50 okay, that's $500 That's a lot more than you getting 100% of $0 because you don't know the people who made the latest marvel movie, you don't have ends at Disney or at Universal Studios or 20th Century Fox, you don't have these connections. We always say it's like D. I. Y. Has delegated yourself, finding a great publishing company is the same thing as finding a team member who is a part of your band that works for you.

So don't be afraid of the oh my gosh, we have to split, we're gonna make less money because you have to pay money to make money. It's like buying a tool, you can manufacture something yourself Or you can buy tools that make the process easier and quicker. So both will end up working in the long run, assuming that you know what you're doing and assuming that there is not a specific tool required to get you there, I can use a hammer and nails to build a house or I can use a framing Naylor, I can use a shovel to dig a foundation or I can use a backhoe, there are different tools and they're going to get you to different places at different speeds.

So it's important to remember that just even though 50% of your income might sound painful, just do a little basic math and in the end it'll all work out towards your benefit, what you need to weigh in this particular formula is your connections versus their connections. There's a good chance that as a publishing company, they have a lot more connections that you do and if they don't, then they are not a publishing company, that's literally what a publishing company is, is a network of people. So find yourself a good quality publishing company, make sure that whoever it is that you work with seems to have an interest in your project and then you guys as individuals and really it's important to make them see that you are like your head is in your business because if you roll up to a publishing company and you're like lackadaisical about how your business is run, it's their job to make money.

So the most important thing to keep in mind is that you only get paid when you get paid some of the time having other people in the mix that it's like a I'm going to collect $2,000 and give you $1,000 Or you can collect $0. It's not a hard decision at all. The thing is you just kind of like have to relinquish a little bit of control, which is hard for some people. So read up on what some other smaller artists have done when it comes to publication and read up on some what some larger artists have done when it comes to publication because everybody has a different system that works for them.

If you want to have your song in a video game then maybe it's best that you don't have your own publishing rights. If you're an established artist and you have connections in the video game world and tv world and movie world and Book World then sure maybe retain your publishing rights. But no matter what all of these things center around one thing and that is your network of people. The only reason that you're going to bring in a publishing company is if your network of people is not large enough.

So keep in mind that just like everything, it's all about your team, the team you build the network you create and how many of those people are there to work for you and to build your business into what it really can become. Mhm mm That does it for this episode of the Bandhive podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening and for the songwriters out there. I really hope that this episode has given you some new ideas on how you can exploit your songs to make some income off of them.

Like matt was saying, mailbox money is always a good thing to have. There's five different ways you can earn money with your songs essentially without even lifting a finger if you're working with the publisher. So it's absolutely worth exploring those connections and seeing what kind of deals you can get. I got to say, I'm curious if anyone in the community is already working with a publisher, I would love to hear from you in the Bandhive community, you can search for banned Hive on facebook or go to Bandhive dot rocks slash group to be automatically redirected.

And if you got a couple minutes, just hop in there, please let us know how you got your publishing deal and what it's been like for you. Has it been a good experience? Have you gotten placements or has it not been so great. I don't know everyone's experience is different and I would love to hear years. Let's get some good discussion going there. So band, I've got rocks slash group or search for banned Hive on facebook. We'll be back next Tuesday at six a.m. Eastern time with another new episode and it will be a special episode because it's number 100 so matt and I have a fun plan cooked up for that.

In the meantime, I hope you have a great week, stay safe. And of course, as always, keep rocking.