MC = musical composition, SR = sound recording, PP = public performance, MR = Mechanical Royalty (by which they really mean the so called “streaming mechanical” ).
Berklee College of Music/Rethink Music just issued a rather defensive follow up in response to our criticism of their original Kobalt Music/Google Ventures funded report on fair pay and transparency in the music business.
Well we must confess we’ve been laughing our asses off all day at these guys. Why? Because while Allan Bargfrede and Panos Panay have been busy taking the low road by suggesting we are luddites and comparing us to “birthers” (WTF right?), they’ve also been distributing digital royalty flow charts that are completely wrong . Guess they thought we stupid and ignorant artists wouldn’t notice.
There are at least two major errors in the flow charts above, maybe more depending on what the authors were trying to illustrate (it’s actually not clear). I teach a music publishing and digital royalties class at UGA. I teach undergraduates but I guarantee you that after week ten 90% of them will be able to spot the errors in these charts. I will be using these faulty charts on my tests in the fall!
So look I don’t want to come out and explain what’s wrong here. Let’s have a little fun here. First person to most accurately describe the flaws in this chart and submit a hand drawn “markup”, chalk, paper or whiteboard illustration of the errors gets $100 “professor whiteboard” prize! We will publish winning submission here.
Here is a link to a higher res copy.
The Trichordist 
David
Hope all is well.
Working from my phone but my quick responses are as follows:
On the chart for Pandora, it shows a PP royalty of 10.5% going to the publishers. In this case no payments are made to the pubs, only to the PROS. Rate prior to latest BMI decision was 4.3%, now up to around 5%.
For interactive streaming, it also shows a royalty of 10.5% going to the publisher with a separate payment to the PROs. The 10.5% is reduced by payments to the PROs, not an additional payment to the PROs.
How am I doing so far, Professor?
BTW, will be using this chart in my class this AM.
Best, Steve
Whoops, finally got to a real computer and just saw that for interactive, there is a mention of the deduction of PRO royalties from mechanical payments.
But in digital sales picture, it shows the artist getting 15%-30% of the 9.1 cent mechanical royalty, instead of a direct payment from the label.
S
On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 7:31 AM, Steve Winogradsky wrote:
> David > > Hope all is well. > > Working from my phone but my quick responses are as follows: > > On the chart for Pandora, it shows a PP royalty of 10.5% going to the > publishers. In this case no payments are made to the pubs, only to the > PROS. Rate prior to latest BMI decision was 4.3%, now up to around 5%. > > For interactive streaming, it also shows a royalty of 10.5% going to the > publisher with a separate payment to the PROs. The 10.5% is reduced by > payments to the PROs, not an additional payment to the PROs. > > How am I doing so far, Professor? > > BTW, will be using this chart in my class this AM. > > Best, Steve
I believe we have a winner!
There is a least one more mistake:
Pandora (and other non-interactive digital sources) pay SoundExchange.
SoundExchange pays the featured artist (Beyonce, Sean Paul), the owner of the sound recording (Columbia) AND PAYS 5% to non-featured artists (via the American Federation of Musicians, AFM).
Good point