[Jazz Paladin]

Originally Posted by GermanSeabass

Hi, I'll jump in here for some additional clarity. (Hi Kentaro Sato, nice to see you here!)

The music industry worldwide does not have great methods in place for royalties in buy-out situations. For example, a lot of AAA game soundtracks, or those composed by in-house composers for game studios, are buy outs, and this complicates many licensing flows.



However, outside the US, music rights are collectively managed. In Japan, Germany, and elsewhere, mechanical royalties are paid to PROs (Performing Rights Organizations), who collect and retain those royalties. It is the responsibility of rights holders to come forward, register their songs, and claim these royalties. Claiming periods also expire, so in some countries, if rights holders are negligent and do not claim their royalties, the royalties expire after 2, 3, 5 years.



Most DIY distribution companies do not allow territory carve-outs. Professional label distribution companies do allow this.



Yes, Amazon and iTunes are directly responsibility for many rights. They need to have licenses in place with PROs, publishers, and other legal entities to be able to sell or stream music in each territory. For example, LINE Music does not have licenses in place with rights holders in the United States, and therefore cannot stream music in the US yet.


[*]Publishers and rightsholders are responsible for claiming and collecting their rights, delivering catalogs to appropriate agencies, and making sure they are paid for all uses.[*]In all cases is it appropriate and sensible to ask composers and rights holders for licenses. Unfortunately, not many game companies are interested in licensing rights to individuals, do not have an understanding of the music world, or do not have time to fulfill their obligations on an international level.[/LIST]

It is indeed a very complicated world. I have extensively spoken at panels and tradeshows, and have spent the last decade educating the video game music community on these rights, in the hopes that more composers are paid accurately and fairly.

( If any of you are at GDC, come to my panel on music rights! https://schedule.gdconf.com/session/...t-panel/860237 )

Thanks for chiming in as well, was hoping you would have something to add to the discussion!

So would you call CDbaby a DIY distributor then? What would you make of their marketing that they offer "Worldwide Licensing" (via Eashsonglicensing, I believe). I am just curious as to whether the reasoning behind the fact I could never select territories may be the result of their supposedly obtaining this kind of licensing...It certainly seems this may be the case since they once explained to me that something sold in Europe or something had automatically had a fee levied...which again, makes sense. My understanding is that Sound Exchange is NOT a PRO in the way it handles royalties, and much of the burden of getting royalties dispersed resides with the copyright owner actually opening an account and claiming their property--the process is more automatic outside of the US from what I gather...

Glad to hear about what you have to add on Amazon, etc having added responsibilities in this regard, though it does make sense now that you mention it. Otherwise, people filing DMCA complaints would have no way to really put pressure on them to remove content if you think about it. As I previously mentioned, I have seen cases of neglect in reporting (such as uploading content without consent) that should really not be the burden of the artist when they have tried to be outspoken about cover fees not being appropriately applied, etc...Sadly, it seems to be the cases that many publishers are quite explicit when they state that once the content leaves there hands, there is little they can do about changing things, it all rests with the platform itself to deign it has the time and ability to deal with seemingly "small" matters such as content removal...

One thing I DO wish were true is that non-copyright holders had some capacity to report illicit use of copyrighted material. I see so many instances of this going on, and due to the aforementioned reasons you offered (companies not having enough time to prosecute or seek the removal of the content), it is frustrating seeing so many people raking in big dollars while not having to pay any royalties to VGM composers at all. Internet policing takes its toll in too many ways, it seems there is just not enough time in the world to see certain matters dealt with appropriately...

Thanks again for chiming in, and making a positive contribution to educating the community!