The following information is regarding TuneCore's Publishing Administration service
What is this campaign?
TuneCore, along with many other music publishers, entered into a settlement agreement with YouTube for unclaimed accrued royalties from two years prior to the current year. As part of this settlement, YouTube opens its accrued royalties pool so publishers can claim on behalf of their writers for a short window annually. Please note that this is only for domestic (US-based) YouTube mechanical reproduction royalties.
If you do not make a claim by the annual deadline, you may never be able to collect unclaimed accrued amounts unless you pursue your own legal action.
Shouldn't you already be collecting my royalties because I have opted in to YouTube Monetization?
There are two copyrights to be considered here: the sound recording and the composition. TuneCore is monetizing the sound recording asset and paying through 100% of those royalties, but there are additional royalties to be collected from the activity related to the underlying composition on YouTube. By signing up for TuneCore Publishing Administration, we will ensure that this accrued YouTube income is collected, in addition to any potential monies from other services (such as Spotify and Apple Music, for example). You will also ensure publishing royalties are collected on a go-forward basis so you don’t leave any money on the table!
When should I expect to get paid these royalties?
We anticipate royalties will be included in the November royalty distribution following each year’s deadline. Royalties will be paid in accordance with our standard payment schedule. Please read this article to learn more.
I already have a publishing administrator. Are they not collecting these royalties for me?
If you are concerned that you have royalties that are not being collected on your behalf, please contact your publishing administrator immediately!
How much in royalties are unclaimed/how much should I expect?
Unfortunately, we don't know the specific dollar amounts tied to the usage, as YouTube does not share that information with us until royalties are released. We anticipate royalties will be included in the November royalty distribution following each year’s deadline. Generally, how much you can expect in royalty payments is dependent upon how many times your composition was viewed.
You can learn more about how your composition collects royalties here: Do I get Paid When my Composition is Streamed?
How do I make sure I claim these royalties?
If you haven’t signed up for Publishing Administration yet, you’ll need to do this to get started. You can do this by clicking on the publishing tab in your account and following the prompts to sign up for publishing administration. You will also need to sign up for a performing rights organization (PRO) separately. Your PRO will assign you a CAE/IPI number, which you can then add to your writer profile in your publishing account by going to the 'Writers' tab and adding a new writer.
If you’ve got all this in place, then the next step is to make sure you have registered your works within your publishing dashboard. You can find a more detailed guide on registering your works here: How do I register my songs for publishing?
If you’ve already signed up for publishing and registered the works in question, then you are all set and don’t need to do anything else!
I have already registered those splits/songs with my PRO (BMI, ASCAP, etc).
BMI and ASCAP are performing rights organizations and collect performance royalties only. They’re not a publishing administrator and have nothing to do with the mechanical reproduction royalty stream that you’re currently missing out on. When you register your works with TuneCore Publishing, it’s a one-time thing. We will register your works with your PRO (as well as hundreds of other societies worldwide) on your behalf.
By using us as your publishing administrator, you will be maximizing the writer’s share of your performance royalties at your local PRO and ensuring you are not leaving any money on the table. Not only will we collect this accrued YouTube income, but we will also collect any potential mechanical (from DSPs like Spotify and Apple Music) print, sync, micro sync and performance royalties (publisher share) for you. You can learn more about the type of royalties TuneCore Publishing collects in relation to your PRO here: What royalties do you collect in addition to what the PROs/performing rights societies collect?