Whether your song is streamed on Spotify, played live, spun on radio, or released on CD and vinyl, it’s generating money somewhere in the world. But if your songs aren’t properly registered, that money might never reach you.
To help demystify how Collective Management Organisations (CMOs) work and how songwriters can make sure they’re paid what they’re owed, we spoke with Anna Neale, Director of Creator Relations at CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers. Representing a global network of 228 member societies across 111 countries, CISAC helps protect the rights of more than five million creators worldwide. An artist and songwriter herself, Anna offers practical advice on registration, metadata, and how songwriters can make sure every royalty they’ve earned finds its way to them.
Can you explain what a Collective Management Organization (CMO) is, the types of royalties they collect, and what role they play in a songwriter’s career?
A CMO is an organisation that collects royalties for the use of your work(s). As songwriters, you receive two types of royalties depending on the use of your song: a performance royalty, which is paid to songwriters when their music is used publicly (e.g., radio play, TV, live performances, and public spaces such as restaurants, hotels, shops, and cinemas), and streaming; and a mechanical royalty, which is paid every time the recording of your works is reproduced. This can be for sales of physical products such as CDs, cassettes (if you’re old school) and vinyl, or digital products such as downloads, but also for streaming. Whenever a user (i.e., the listener) listens to a song on a streaming service, it generates mechanical and performance royalties. Depending on your territory, CMO regulations, and the type of service, the split will vary — it can be 50% performance royalty and 50% mechanical, or 75% performance royalty, or even, in some cases, 100% performance. When you join a CMO, you give permission for them to issue a licence for the use of your work, which means they collect this money on your behalf and allow it to be used and paid for across different commercial outputs.
CMOs track the usage of songwriters' works through a complex identification and monitoring system so that they can pay artists and songwriters for the use of those works by other entities. The ISWC (International Standard Musical Work Code) is the key identifier for the works. Nearly all broadcast rights organisations and digital platforms are required to report their usage of works by law, particularly if you’re in the UK, EU, or USA.
Why is it important for songwriters to join a CMO and register their songs?
If you’re not registered, you won’t get paid! It’s as simple as that. Generally, every time your song is ‘used’ (and we use that term to mean listened to, engaged with, played, etc.), it generates potential royalties, whether the song is registered or not. Being a member of a CMO is the first step; the second is to ensure you register your songs. That way, you can get paid when people listen to your music on, say, Spotify and other streaming platforms. In today's market, you really don’t want to miss out on that.
How do CMOs work together across countries to track royalties for a songwriter whose music is streamed worldwide?
CMOs have their own databases of registered works, which are identified by an ISWC code. This international standard musical work code contains the main metadata of the song, i.e., the title, the names of the writers involved, and can be linked to their IPI (Interested Party Information) numbers. On top of that, CMOs manage details on performance and mechanical rights, as well as publishing deals.
When a song is streamed, the streaming service reports usage to the CMOs, depending on territories and licensing deals. Here, the CMOs will run a matching system that will identify the underlying works and who owns the rights involved in these works, which allows the CMO to claim royalties from the service for the works they control and distribute royalties accordingly.
The CMO will proceed with payments to the rightsholder(s) of the streamed song who are directly affiliated. If the rights owners are affiliated with another CMO, royalties once processed will be transferred to this CMO.
Do all CMOs account to songwriters at the same frequency?
No – this very much depends on individual CMOs. For digital use, most payouts are made within 3 to 6 months of use of works, but this can vary on multiple factors such as where the work was used, how it was reported and whether the data on the usage report is correct or indeed if the song is registered properly.
Metadata remains at the heart of royalty collection. What details are absolutely critical for songwriters to include when registering their works to avoid missed or delayed payments?
Make sure the song title and names of each writer are agreed upon and spelt correctly. Typos = missing payments. Also, get your song splits agreed upon and register your co-writers.
If you can ensure you have all the writers' IPI numbers, matching will be quicker and more accurate. You know your IPI number already, right…?
What typically causes royalties to be unclaimed, and how much money are we really talking about globally?
Unclaimed royalties are a global issue. Hundreds of thousands of songs are entered on the system, uploaded to streaming platforms, and used every hour. That is a massive amount of data. Even if huge progress has been accomplished over the last decade, some of the songs end up as unclaimed, predominantly due to issues with metadata. This can be down to multiple reasons: the original registration being incorrect or containing spelling errors and/or missing information (the usual culprit), conflicting registrations by rightsholders, and inaccurate data reporting. It can also happen when songs are not registered or their ISWC was not delivered to streaming services; they’ll still be reported and paid by, for example, Spotify, but if there’s no record of that song, where does that money go? CMOs and music platforms have developed some mechanisms to ensure that this money will flow to rightsholders anyway, based on works that have been identified, which means that unclaimed money may not make it to the songwriters who were involved in the first place.
The important thing to remember is that there is money in the system, but that money won’t reach you unless you are a member of a CMO and you declare your songs and register them properly. You can check your registrations by using the database of your local CMO. I would encourage every songwriter to do this, whether you are self-releasing or signed to a publisher.
If a songwriter fixes metadata errors late, can past royalties be claimed — and if so, how far back?
Again, this depends on each CMO, and the music platform as well as any copyright limitations in a particular country. Check the guidelines for your CMO. Most operate a claims system for unrecouped royalties that you can check online.
What is your top piece of advice for songwriters when it comes to working with CMOs and protecting their rights?
Make sure you agree on your writing splits (if it’s a co-write) and register your tracks with as much information as possible. You can usually check other registrations on your CMO’s system to see if there are already matches.
Keep on top of your registrations, and if you notice something isn’t right, contact your CMO to get it fixed. No one will do it for you; it’s down to you to make sure the data is correct. Make sure you report any usage you’re aware of, such as if you’ve played live. As songwriters, we can’t control or keep an eye on every time songs are used, but where we can take control, we must do so.
Keep an eye on the opportunities CMOs provide, such as training or funding. Many CMOs invest in supporting their members (i.e., you, the writer) to help writers maintain and manage their data, encourage creativity and collaboration, and protect and sustain cultural diversity.