There’s a lot to sort out when you decide to become a music publishing company.

*Even if* we wanted to spend the money and time registering with every collection society (like PRS and PPL) in every country where our writers are likely to get play, just the simple acts of registering songs and trying to stay on top of all the admin country by country would take up more time than we even have.

Let alone all the time we need and want to spend on trying to get the music actually heard.

So over the last few weeks I’ve been scratching my head and having meetings with other publishing companies that deal with that kind of admin.

We give them a % of our income in return for them collecting it more quickly than it would come if we waited for it to get to PRS.

If it ever did.

The more I learn about royalty collection, the more I understand it’s NOT a simple matter.

I’ve experienced it myself.  I’ve had tracks registered by a major publishing company that were incorrectly attributed by PRS to someone with a vaguely similar name.

I’ve had royalties that belonged to my co-writers credited to my bank account.

And recently I noticed that I have a few tracks that were given to a publisher in 2011 that have never been registered.

And all that’s happened in my home country.  So how the fuck am I supposed to trust that money due to me in France or New Zealand is being correctly tracked and remitted?

I don’t make enough to be relaxed about that stuff.  My PRS cheques are a few hundred pounds every 3 months.

That’s why I have to get into this myself, and for my friends.  Because ultimately, no-one is gonna care about my tiny bit of the pie more than me.

But goddamn, there is a lot to sort out when you decide to become a music publishing company.


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