A royalties question

[PaulWarning]

the drummer and guitarist are quitting the band I play, no fall out, after 10 years they just don't want to gig 2 or 3 times a month any more, anyway last night the guitarist asked me about royalties on his songs if we carry on playing them with the new members, I said he'd have to take his chances with the PRS system, but seeing as we don't bother filling out the annual form to tell them how often we play them because i's not worth it for the pittance you get he won't get anything, is this correct?

[Mykesbass]

Why not fill the forms in? You may say it is a pittance, but how long does it take? If you don't claim it your share gets divided up by all those who can be bothered to fill the forms in.

[PaulWarning]

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1425118678' post='2704085']
Why not fill the forms in? You may say it is a pittance, but how long does it take? If you don't claim it your share gets divided up by all those who can be bothered to fill the forms in.
[/quote]I did it for one particular busy gigging year when we played the Bearded Theory festival (our biggest gig) and got £24, it really isn't worth my time TBH, I've told the guitarist and he's never even bothered registering with them

Edited February 28, 2015 by PaulWarning

[Mykesbass]

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1425119459' post='2704100']
I did it for one particular busy gigging year when we played the Bearded Theory festival (our biggest gig) and got £24, it really isn't worth my time TBH, I've told the guitarist and he's never even bothered registering with them
[/quote]

Really don't understand this - should take ten minutes tops to fill out a PRS form. That's £144. What did you get for the gig? It's not as if there isn't plenty of downtime at a gig.

Then again, if the guitarist hasn't registered then he doesn't have any right to suddenly start claiming direct from the band - tell him to take a hike!

[PaulWarning]

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1425119920' post='2704103']
Really don't understand this - should take ten minutes tops to fill out a PRS form. That's £144. What did you get for the gig? It's not as if there isn't plenty of downtime at a gig.

Then again, if the guitarist hasn't registered then he doesn't have any right to suddenly start claiming direct from the band - tell him to take a hike!
[/quote]£144? don't understand that, I got £24 for the whole years gigs, but I suppose that's my question, can he claim royalties direct from the band?

[Roland Rock]

Do you have an agreed band split?
Who did that £24 get paid to? You?

The way I read it, you have taken ownership of the PRS thing on behalf of the band (for that year at least) so as far as PRS are concerned you own all the rights to the songs. That is your money, and you are not obliged to share it.

Was there a verbal arrangement where you would act on behalf of the band then share out the money? In which case you have a moral obligation to share it as agreed.

Talk to the band about who wants to bother registering with PRS and filling in the forms. Agree a split among those people and then everyone who cares about the money will get a fair share.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Roland Rock

[PaulWarning]

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1425121294' post='2704118']
Do you have an agreed band split?
Who did that £24 get paid to? You?

The way I read it, you have taken ownership of the PRS thing on behalf of the band (for that year at least) so as far as PRS are concerned you own all the rights to the songs. That is your money, and you are not obliged to share it.

Was there a verbal arrangement where you would act on behalf of the band then share out the money? In which case you have a moral obligation to share it as agreed.

Talk to the band about who wants to bother registering with PRS and filling in the forms. Agree a split among those people and then everyone who cares about the money will get a fair share.
[/quote]I was the one who could be bothered to claim from the PRS, as it was only £24 I kept it to help with postage etc, wasn't worth splitting it TBH.
So, if the guitarist wants his royalties he has to get them from the PRS and not us is that right?

[Roland Rock]

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1425122232' post='2704135']
I was the one who could be bothered to claim from the PRS, as it was only £24 I kept it to help with postage etc, wasn't worth splitting it TBH.
So, if the guitarist wants his royalties he has to get them from the PRS and not us is that right?
[/quote]

You are the only one registered with PRS, so you have no legal obligation to share. The money went on band expenses, so you have no moral obligation to share it.

Yes, he will need to register with PRS and someone needs to fill in the forms if he wants any money.
However, as far as PRS are concerned, you are the sole rights holder at the moment, and he can't just register and say he wants a cut - If that were the case, I could just write to them and say I'd like 50% of the Rolling Stones' rights please :-D

This is why an agreed band split is vital. Everyone who gets a split needs to register individually and the PRS need to know the percentage split for each song.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Roland Rock

[PaulWarning]

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1425122771' post='2704143']
You are the only one registered with PRS, so you have no legal obligation to share. The money went on band expenses, so you have no moral obligation to share it.

Yes, he will need to register with PRS and someone needs to fill in the forms if he wants any money.
However, as far as PRS are concerned, you are the sole rights holder at the moment, and he can't just register and say he wants a cut - If that were the case, I could just write to them and say I'd like 50% of the Rolling Stones' rights please :-D

This is why an agreed band split is vital. Everyone who gets a split needs to register individually and the PRS need to know the percentage split for each song.
[/quote]ok thanks, at one time I did suggest we draw up some sort of agreement to split royalties, (we'd just made a CD and were all optimistic!) but no one seemed very keen on the idea so I didn't pursue it, To be fair to the guitarist he's not getting arsey about it, he just asked the question

[Musky]

I'm a bit confused over who has registered what. Am I right in thinking that only you have registered the songs with PRS? Did you register yourself as the sole songwriter or as a co-writer, and are any of the other co-writers actually registered with PRS?

Anyone can claim a credit on a composition (even a Rolling Stones song) and PRS will open a dispute until it's resolved, though I doubt that would take long in the case of the Stones. The guitarist is entitled to royalties whether he's a PRS member or not, although obviously most people go with PRS because it takes so much of the leg work out of claiming. You don't need to pay him as that is the venues responsibility - he will need to contact the venues you've played, find out the set list and try to pry the money out of them. Good luck to him with that, and is exactly the reason why people go with PRS in the first place.

[Mykesbass]

[quote name='PaulWarning' timestamp='1425120235' post='2704106']
£144? don't understand that, I got £24 for the whole years gigs, but I suppose that's my question, can he claim royalties direct from the band?
[/quote]

Sorry, was posting on my phone and missed out "an hour" as that being the rate for the amount of time it should take.

But, back to the important bit, it is down to him to claim through PRS, meaning he'd have to go to each gig to listen for his songs being played and filling the form in and making his claim that way, not through you.

[lefrash]

Just a follow up question from this... hopefully someone can answer as I can't work this out...

Let's say band members A,B,C and D write load of tunes. Only A and B register at the time and the songs get registered as written by A and B. If C decided at a later point decides to register, can he be added as a registered writer? I assume it'll need to be with agreement from A and B, or perhaps C has missed the boat? Either way... C has made a complete C of it.

Hypothetically speaking of course.

[lefrash]

Actually... ignore my question.. I think 2 posts up answers it.

[chris_b]

PRS is collected from the promoter not the band.

There seems to be a lot of guess work going on here. Contact PRS and get the correct information.

[BigRedX]

There's a lot of speculation and misinformation in this thread; so here, for the benefit of all the songwriters on Basschat, is BigRedX's guide to songwriting royalties for gigging bands.

This only applies to people who write songs that are being performed at gigs.

In order to get your share of the royalty money available for song performance at gigs, all of the following needs to happen:
1. The songwriter needs to be a PRS member
2. The song needs to be registered with the PRS and each songwriters share needs to be allotted. This will very much depend on what is agreed among the band members and can vary from one member claiming all the songwriting for a song, to equal splits between the members of the band and anything in between.
3. The gig set list must be recorded with the PRS.

If all those conditions have been met then every time a song written by you is played live you will get your share of the performance royalties.

So how much is that?

Last time I looked the royalty allocation for "Pubs and Clubs" (most pub venues and small clubs) was £6.00 for the gig. This is divided up between all the songwriters of all the songs played at a gig. So for the average three band gig where each band plays 10 songs all written by the band, and all the songwriting in all the bands (who all have 4 members) is equally divided that would work out at 50p per songwriter for the gig or 5p a song. That doesn't look like anything worth bothering with. However...

In practice it is very rare that every band playing will be PRS members or submit a set list. Looking at my most recent PRS statement, I can see that for the songs that I have 25% interest in I'm averaging 15p per song performance. That starts to look a lot more promising especially if your band is gigging regularly.

Once you have registered your songs with the PRS and submitted a couple of set lists, the on-line form for doing this should take you about 5 minutes to complete - unless you have a vast catalogue of tunes and completely change your set at every gig in which case it should still only take 10 minutes.

There's also a separate category for "concert venues" and festivals. This is a bit more complicated to fill in since you need to download and complete an Excel spread sheet. Still IME it only takes 10-15 minutes to complete. In these instances the royalty payment depends on what PRS is charging the venue or festival for their licence. Looking at my royalty statements it varies between 1p and 75p per 25% share of a song. In my case these are for smaller venues and festivals and there is definite correlation between the size of the event and royalty paid, so I suspect that big gigs and festivals will be paying even more.

Based on this and on my actual PRS royalty statements, for a 4-piece band who split their songwriting 4 equal ways and who are doing 30-40 gigs a year, that should be worth at least £50 per band member. And that's just for gigging your own songs.

Hope all that was of some use.

Edited December 16, 2015 by BigRedX

[BigRedX]

And after all that here's some specific advice for the OP.

The only realistic way that your ex-guitarist is going to get any of his songwriter performance royalties is through the PRS. Therefore before anything else happens he needs to become a member. For songwriters the joining fee is currently £50. Many musicians don't think this is worth paying (although IME a songwriter whose overall contribution to the whole set is at least 25% should make this back in their first year provided that the band is doing at least 30 gigs a year).

If he does decided to join get him to supply you with his CAE number and then add his contribution to the already registered songs (if he isn't already, and if he is add his CAE number to the registration) plus register any new ones.

That just leaves the question of who submits the set lists. IMO if the band is doing 2 to 3 gigs a month playing mostly self-penned songs, then unless you are doing lots of house parties and similar unlicensed venues, it should be more than worth your while to take the 5 minutes os it requires to complete the on-line form after each gig. If you really can't be bothered then why not email him the set lists and let him do the work?

[PaulWarning]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1450275771' post='2931265']
And after all that here's some specific advice for the OP.

The only realistic way that your ex-guitarist is going to get any of his songwriter performance royalties is through the PRS. Therefore before anything else happens he needs to become a member. For songwriters the joining fee is currently £50. Many musicians don't think this is worth paying (although IME a songwriter whose overall contribution to the whole set is at least 25% should make this back in their first year provided that the band is doing at least 30 gigs a year).

If he does decided to join get him to supply you with his CAE number and then add his contribution to the already registered songs (if he isn't already, and if he is add his CAE number to the registration) plus register any new ones.

That just leaves the question of who submits the set lists. IMO if the band is doing 2 to 3 gigs a month playing mostly self-penned songs, then unless you are doing lots of house parties and similar unlicensed venues, it should be more than worth your while to take the 5 minutes os it requires to complete the on-line form after each gig. If you really can't be bothered then why not email him the set lists and let him do the work?
[/quote]cheers for that, although I didn't pay £50 to become a PRS member, is that a recent thing or have I registered for something different? the guitarist has not mentioned it again, I think when I told him it involved actually doing something about it himself he quickly lost interest

[BigRedX]

PRS joining fees change all the time. It was completely free back in the early 80s when I became a member.

They have at various times deducted the joining fee from your royalty payments - which might have been your situation and would also explain why your actual royalty payment was so low - also IIRC at one point it cost £100 to join.

I suppose the current £50 fee up front is to try and weed out those whose works aren't going to generate enough income to be worth the administration costs, with it being so easy to release your own music these days I suppose there are a lot more people looking to join and hopefully get some performance royalties. I also suspect that there are lots of members who earn very little. I know that my account was completely dormant for almost 10 years from the late 80s.

Edited December 16, 2015 by BigRedX