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Song placements Terms and Conditions
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| Terms & Conditions |
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Song Licenses and Placement Royalties FAQ
What is a mechanical license?
A mechanical license is a broad term that refers to the reproduction for distribution or sale of musical compositions in the form of sound recordings. Any time you reproduce a recording of a composition you do not control - including through physical and digital means - you need a mechanical license. Many publishers require a separate license for each use.
What are the mechanical royalty rates in the US?
For physical mechanicals and DPDS:
For recordings under 5 minutes in length: $0.091.
For recordings 5 minutes in length or longer: $0.0175 per minute or fraction thereof.
For ringtones:
$0.24. per ringtone, regardless of song length.
For interactive streaming and conditional downloads:
A per stream royalty, based on 10.5% of a service's gross revenues, less royalties paid to performing rights organizations (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC), and certain other deductions. These rates are calculated quarterly and applied pro-rata to all recordings streamed during the quarter.
What if I don't know who the songwriter or publisher is for some of my tracks?
In order to license on your behalf, Limelight requires that your data submissions include all songwriters and publishers for each track. If you do not know the songwriters or publishers for some or all of the recordings you need licensed, you can use the following resources to research this information:
ASCAP - www.ascap.com
BMI - www.bmi.com
SESAC - www.sesac.com
All Music Guide - www.allmusic.com
Limelight also recommends checking against other resources such as non-US rights societies, www.copyright.gov, MySpace, and a general Google search.If you are still unable to determine songwriter and publisher information, RightsFlow can research it for you for additional fee of $1.00.
What is synchronization?
Synchronization - often called "sync" - refers to the combining of music and visuals. The typical example of this is the use of a song in a film, TV show, or commercial. However, it can extend far beyond these venues into the realms of user generated content (i.e. YouTube), corporate videos or presentations, and any other combination of music and visuals. .
What info do you need from me?
The nomenclature can sometimes be confusing. Below is a brief description of what each piece of information means:
Song Title - The title of the song or musical composition you want to license.
Examples: Yesterday; Symphony No. 5 in C minor; Theme to Star Trek
Songwriter - This refers to any of the following: songwriter, composer, lyricist, author. We require information entered FIRST NAME, LAST NAME
Examples: John Lennon, Paul McCartney; Leopold Stravinski.
Publisher - This refers to the company or entity who owns (or administers) the copyright. This is frequently a different entity from the songwriter or the recording artist. Many times, a publishing company will hire songwriters (or buy existing songwriter catalogs) and become the default licensing entity for songs by that songwriter. Moreover, songwriter's catalogs are often split up among multiple publishers. For example, much of the Lennon/McCartney catalog is controlled partially by EMI Music Publishing and partially by SonyATV music publishing. In order to get the proper license for your recording, we need to know ALL of the publishers that have a stake in the composition. Websites such as ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and Harry Fox are good resources for researching this information.
Examples: EMI Music Publishing; Warner Music Publishing, Wixen Music Publishing, Integrated Copyright Group.
Artist - This refers to the artist who has performed the song you wish to license. In the context of this website, you should think of this in two different ways:
Original Recording Artist - This refers to the original artist who recorded the song - or, a well known one. For example, if you wanted to license the song "With A Little Help From My Friends" you could tell us the artist was "The Beatles" OR "Joe Cocker."
Why do we ask for this? We want to make sure that the song we are licensing is in fact the song that you want. There are many songs that have the same name, so it can be difficult to know which song you want without a frame of reference.
Performing Artist - This refers to the name of the artist who made the cover version you are trying to license through this website. For example, if your band's name is "The Drinks" and that band has recorded a version of the song "With A Little Help From My Friends" you should put "The Drinks" under this field.
How is mechanical licensing different in the US than in many countries?
In many countries around the world, mechanical royalties are paid directly by the manufacturer (in the case of physical products) or online service (in the case of digital products) to one central rights society. Publishers are then paid by the societies.
In the United States, royalties are paid directly to the publishers or their agents. Moreover, most online services pay record labels inclusive of mechanical royalties. It is then the record label's responsibility to locate and pay the publishers.
Music videos or song clips must be encoded in PAL, NTSC, or SCAM (Sequential Color) for consideration for placements in video podcasts. Please follow all requested guidelines when submitting material to ensure proper consideration.
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Copyright © Songplacements.com, INC 2009. All Rights Reserved
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