Answers/Glossary

• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Y
• Z

A

• Advance — An advance is money paid to an artist or songwriter up front against royalties they are expected to earn later.
• Aggregator — An aggregator is a company approved by streaming services to deliver music into their catalogues in bulk on behalf of many artists and labels.
• ASCAP — ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, is a US performing rights organization founded in 1914.

B

• Beat lease — A beat lease is a non-exclusive licence to use a producer's instrumental, sold at a low price with defined limits on streams, sales, video views and…
• Black box royalties — Black box royalties are music royalties that were collected but could not be paid to the correct owner, usually because the work or the recording was…
• BMI — BMI, Broadcast Music, Inc., is a US performing rights organization founded in 1939 that licenses public performance of compositions and pays…
• Breakage — Breakage is money a digital service pays a label or rights holder that is never attributed to any specific track — minimum guarantees, advances and…

C

• Catalog — A catalog is the body of songs or recordings a person or company owns. In publishing it means the compositions; on the recording side it means the…
• CD Baby — CD Baby is a music distributor that charges a one-time fee per release instead of an annual subscription — $9.99 for a single and $14.99 for an album…
• CISAC — CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, is the global umbrella body for collection societies.
• Co-publishing deal — A co-publishing deal is an agreement in which a songwriter assigns part of the publisher share of their compositions to a publisher, usually half of…
• Compulsory license — A compulsory license is a licence the law grants automatically, on set terms, without the copyright owner's consent.
• Content ID — Content ID is YouTube's automated system that matches uploaded videos against a database of reference files supplied by rights holders.

D

• Derivative work — A derivative work is a new work based on one or more pre-existing works — a remix, a translation, an arrangement, a sampled track.
• Digital performance royalty — A digital performance royalty is the payment owed for publicly performing a sound recording over a non-interactive digital transmission — Pandora…
• DistroKid — DistroKid is a subscription music distributor that delivers unlimited releases to streaming services for an annual fee and passes on 100% of…
• DMCA takedown — A DMCA takedown is a formal notice sent under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act asking an online service to remove material that infringes your…
• DSP (digital service provider) — A DSP, digital service provider, is a streaming service or download store that licenses and delivers music to consumers — Spotify, Apple Music…

E

• Exclusive beat agreement — An exclusive beat agreement is a contract in which a producer stops licensing an instrumental to anyone else and grants it to a single artist.
• Exclusive license — An exclusive license grants rights to one licensee and commits the owner not to grant the same rights to anyone else.

F

• Fixation — Fixation is the moment a work is recorded or written down in a tangible form stable enough to be perceived or reproduced.

G

• GMR (Global Music Rights) — Global Music Rights is a US performing rights organization founded in 2013 by music executive Irving Azoff.

H

• Harry Fox Agency — The Harry Fox Agency, founded in 1927, is a United States mechanical licensing agency.

I

• Interpolation — An interpolation is a re-performance of a melody, lyric or musical phrase from an existing song in a new recording, rather than a copy of the…
• IPI / CAE number — An IPI number, formerly called a CAE number, is a unique identifier assigned to a songwriter, composer or publisher within the international…
• ISRC — An ISRC, International Standard Recording Code, is a 12-character identifier assigned to a specific sound recording.
• ISWC — An ISWC, International Standard Musical Work Code, is a unique identifier for a musical composition, formatted as T followed by nine digits and a…

M

• Master use license — A master use license grants permission to use a specific sound recording, as distinct from the composition.
• Mechanical royalty — A mechanical royalty is the money owed for reproducing a musical composition — copying the song itself, not the recording of it.
• Metadata — Metadata is the descriptive and rights information attached to a release: titles, artist names, writer credits, ISRCs, the UPC, release date, genre…
• Music distributor — A music distributor delivers recordings to streaming services and stores on an artist's behalf and collects the recording royalties those services…
• Music Modernization Act — The Music Modernization Act is United States legislation signed in October 2018 that created the blanket mechanical licence for digital streaming…
• Music publisher — A music publisher is a company that owns or controls copyright shares in musical compositions and exploits them — registering works, collecting…
• Musical composition — A musical composition is the song itself — the melody, harmony, structure and lyrics — protected as its own copyright separate from any recording of…

N

• Non-exclusive license — A non-exclusive license grants permission to use a work while leaving the owner free to grant the same permission to anyone else.

P

• Per-stream rate — A per-stream rate is the average amount a recording earned per play, calculated after the fact by dividing royalties received by streams delivered.
• Performance royalty — A performance royalty is the money owed when a musical composition is performed publicly — on radio, on television, in a bar, at a venue, or in a…
• Pre-save — A pre-save is a link that lets a listener authorise a streaming service in advance to add an upcoming release to their library automatically on…
• PRO (performing rights organization) — A performing rights organization licenses the public performance of musical compositions and collects performance royalties for songwriters and…
• Pro-rata allocation — Pro-rata allocation is the method streaming services use to divide royalties: all revenue in a market and month is pooled, a contracted share goes to…
• Producer points — Producer points are a producer's percentage share of the sound recording's income, expressed in points where one point equals one percent.
• Public domain — Public domain works are works whose copyright has expired or never existed, free for anyone to use without permission or payment.
• Publisher share — The publisher share is the half of a composition's performance and mechanical royalties that belongs to the publisher of the song.
• Publishing — Publishing is the business of owning and exploiting musical compositions — the songs themselves, not the recordings.
• Publishing administrator — A publishing administrator collects a songwriter's publishing royalties worldwide for a commission without taking ownership of the songs.

R

• Recoupment — Recoupment is the process by which a label, publisher or distributor recovers money it advanced to an artist out of that artist's future royalties.
• Release date — A release date is the day a recording becomes publicly available across streaming services, set in advance when the release is delivered by a…
• Royalty pool — A royalty pool is the total sum of money a streaming service sets aside for rights holders in a given market and month, before it is divided among…
• Royalty-free — Royalty-free means a licence is paid for once and carries no ongoing per-use royalty obligation.

S

• Sample clearance — Sample clearance is the process of obtaining permission to use part of an existing recording in a new work.
• Section 115 — Section 115 of the United States Copyright Act creates the compulsory mechanical licence for musical compositions.
• Self-publishing — Self-publishing in music means owning and administering your own compositions rather than signing them to a publisher.
• SESAC — SESAC is a US performing rights organization founded in 1930. Unlike ASCAP and BMI it is a privately held, for-profit company and is invitation-only…
• Session musician release — A session musician release is a short signed agreement in which a hired performer confirms their contribution is a work made for hire or assigns…
• Songtrust — Songtrust is a global publishing administration service for songwriters. It registers compositions with collection societies worldwide, collects…
• Songwriter split — A songwriter split is each writer's percentage ownership of a musical composition. The percentages must total 100% and are what The MLC, ASCAP and…
• Sound recording — A sound recording is the fixed capture of a performance — the master — protected as its own copyright separate from the underlying musical…
• Sound recording royalty — A sound recording royalty is income earned by the specific recorded master of a song, as opposed to the underlying composition.
• SoundExchange — SoundExchange is the United States organisation designated to collect and distribute the digital performance royalty on sound recordings from…
• Splice Sounds — Splice Sounds is a subscription sample library that grants a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence for every sound you download.
• Split sheet — A split sheet is a signed document recording each contributor's ownership percentage of a musical composition, along with their legal names, PRO…
• Statutory damages — Statutory damages are a fixed range of monetary awards a copyright owner can elect instead of proving actual losses. Under 17 U.S.C.
• Statutory rate — A statutory rate is a royalty rate set by law rather than by negotiation. In United States music, it usually means the mechanical royalty rate under…
• Store delivery — Store delivery is the process by which a distributor transmits a finished release — audio, artwork, metadata and rights information — to each…
• Sub-publisher — A sub-publisher is a publishing company that represents another publisher's catalogue in a specific foreign territory, registering the works with the…
• Sync license — A sync license grants permission to synchronise a musical composition with visual media — film, television, advertising, games, online video.

T

• The MLC (Mechanical Licensing Collective) — The MLC is the non-profit organisation designated under the Music Modernization Act to administer the United States blanket mechanical licence.
• TuneCore — TuneCore is a music distributor offering both annual subscriptions and pay-per-release pricing, delivering to 150+ stores while artists retain 100%…
• Two copyrights — Every released song contains two separate copyrights: the musical composition, owned by the songwriters and publishers, and the sound recording…

U

• Unmatched royalties — Unmatched royalties are royalties a collecting society has received but cannot link to a registered work or recording.
• UPC — A UPC, Universal Product Code, is the 12-digit barcode number identifying a music release as a product — a single, EP or album — as distinct from the…
• US Copyright Office — The United States Copyright Office is the federal agency, part of the Library of Congress, that administers copyright registration and records.
• User-centric allocation — User-centric allocation is a streaming royalty model that divides each listener's own subscription fee among the artists that listener actually…

W

• Work made for hire — A work made for hire is a work whose author, in law, is the employer or commissioning party rather than the person who created it.
• Writer share — The writer share is the half of a composition's performance royalties that belongs to the songwriters.