Music Publishing and Recording Rates and Royalties 2023: Past, Present and Future

 Songwriters and Music Publishers

In the United States and in most foreign countries, the "performance right" is one of the most important rights of copyright and, in many cases, the most lucrative. In the United States, there is no statutory license under the Copyright Act for this right. Songwriters, composers, lyricists (jointly "writers") and music publishers join these organizations, which in turn negotiate licenses with the users of music, collect the license fees from those users and distribute the monies to writers and publishers based on surveys of performances, specific payment schedules and distribution rules, as well as other factors. All performance monies are distributed 50% to writers and 50% to music publishers.

The four primary Performing Rights Organizations (PROs) in the United States are the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) founded in 1914, Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) founded in 1939, SESAC founded in 1930 and Global Music Rights (GMR) founded in 2013. As to revenue, the four U.S. PROs collected around 3.6 billion dollars in 2022 with ASCAP and BMI being responsible for approximately 3.1 billion dollars of that total license fees are arrived at through voluntary negotiations between each PRO and an individual user or an industry-wide negotiating committee (e.g., the Radio Music License Committee, the Television Music License Committee, etc.). If an agreement cannot be reached in the case of ASCAP and BMI and any user, federal "Rate Courts" (Southern District of New York) — pursuant to consent decrees with the government dating back to 1941 — determine "reasonable" license fees, terms and what is actually licensable. In the case of SESAC, license fees are arrived at through voluntary negotiations, but due to antitrust settlements involving local radio and local television, mandatory arbitration takes effect for those two media if voluntary agreements cannot be reached. As to Global Music Rights, all license fee negotiations are voluntary as there is no consent decree, Rate Courts, mandatory arbitration or other dispute resolution procedure other than copyright infringement litigation in effect.