Royalties are paid quarterly on February 15, May 15, August 15 & November 15 each year. The payment dates are 45 days after the end of the calendar quarter for which the payment covers.
We can collect your royalties in all major territories throughout the world. It's also possible to structure a deal to exclude or include any countries of your choice. For example, if you have a hit in Germany, we can structure the deal to include only the German territory and we'll collect directly from the German society, GEMA. You can specify in which countries you want us to represent you.
Our administration fees are deducted from your royalty statements, so you never have to pay up front out-of-pocket expenses. For general administration, our fees will not be higher than 20%.
We do a thorough evaluation of your catalogue. We analyze number of active works in your catalogue, revenue history, estimated future revenues, size of the territory, number of licenses issued, amount of work to re-direct your revenues and register titles around the world.
There are many reasons. You'll receive your royalties 6 - 12 months faster than any other collection or administration arrangement you can find. We collect directly from the mechanical & performing rights societies in most major territories, thereby not using a "middle man" and maximizing your revenues. Your royalties go directly from a society to us and not via another society or third party. We also account quarterly rather than semi-annually, so you do not have to wait to receive your money as long as you may have to wait with other administration companies.
Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Every deal is customized based on the catalog of the client. We are open to negotiations.
No, it's not necessary. We do all administration out of our main office in Nashville. We deal directly with each society, and as a member they treat us just as a local publisher in their respective country.
In countries where we do not yet have a direct affiliation to the society, we use sub publishers. We have selected the best local publisher in those territories, and the fee we pay them is the lowest possible fee.
We register songs as if we are a local publisher in each country. We use the registration process required by each society.
No publisher can do a financial audit of a society. We can, however, audit the database that contains your song information. We visit societies regularly to make sure that the registrations we have submitted have been entered correctly. In several territories, we are able to access the society database directly online. This means that we can conduct desktop audits on certain foreign societies from our office in Nashville. This is very important because if the registration information for your share of the song is incorrect, then no royalties are distributed for your share.
Each society varies in their procedure for processing and resolving double claims. We closely adhere to and follow these procedures in order to bring about a quick resolution to double claims. In most cases we provide supporting documentation to the society, who acts as a mediator. If a society does not mediate, we have to resolve the double claim directly with counter claimant publisher. Once a resolution is reached, we then notify the society of the resolution.
Our vast creative networks do provide us with opportunities to pitch for local covers and synchronization placements. However, our primary focus in the area of creative services is to provide our administration clients with synchronization pitching on a non-exclusive basis. We certainly have the resources to pitch for local covers. However, because the markets and possibilities for local covers are decreasing fast, we are much more selective in providing this service.
We will conduct the clearance process from our office in Nashville. The artist or producer will have to contact STIM, which is the performing rights society in Stockholm, Sweden, and they will refer that artist or producer to Bluewater Music Scandinavia. We then contact the original publisher for clearance and register the song with the local lyricist as a participant only for that version. This is the procedure for every country.
We issue all licenses for the use of your compositions, register your titles with the PRO's (ASCAP, BMI or SESAC), register PA forms with the copyright office, negotiate synchronization uses and fees, and collect all royalties directly from the source (e.g. labels, production companies, PRO's, etc.). In addition, we conduct a very thorough, multi-tiered review process on all royalty source document statements processed and all client royalty statements generated each quarter. We are a full service publishing administration company.
YES - we audit all major labels on a regular basis.
