Blind Whitebread PerryTypically, this is about nice cents each. You get this mechanical license by going through the agency that reps the artist for such things, places like BMI, ASCAP, Harry Fox.
The music industry, finally having come into the 21st Century, has now included MP3s and other internet media in this licensing process, although this is somewhat tricky, and the cost is about the same. I'll get to the tricky part in a minute.
I bring this up because I am learning how to play El McMeen's arrangement of Jay Ungar's fiddle tune, "Ashokan Farewell" on my guitar. Assuming I ever get it down, I want to post it on my SoundClick page. If I allow people to download MP3s of the song, then I need to send Harry Fox nine cents every time somebody does so. (Practically speaking, what one does is get a license before posting the tune, based upon one's best estimate of how many people might download it. If you figure five hundred, that runs you $45. There is a minimum of 150, and so if you figure that maybe nine people will download it, too bad.)
License is good for a year, and I suppose that if fewer people download it than you figure, you might get change back, but I dunno.
If you are selling the MP3, you might make a profit. If you are giving them away for free, not so much ...
Since this would be the only piece on my site that isn't public domain, or stuff I wrote, I figured I should pony up, so I have gotten the license. Now all I have to do is learn the piece ...
Oh, and that tricky thing I mentioned? If you don't allow downloads, if the material is streaming-audio only? Apparently it doesn't count, though some quirk in the way the rules are worded. So somebody can log on and listen without getting the MP3 and it's no harm, no foul.
Oh, yeah, "Yesterday." Far as I know, that's still the most covered song in history. More than three thousand artists. And even though the rates have gone up on the royalties, if Sir Paul McCartney got but a nickel off every album with that song on it? He'd be a millionaire from that all by itself.
ReplyDeleteSell enough copies to go Platinum, you are putting a nice paycheck into the pockets of the songwriters whose material you cover. Nice.