By Paul Bordenkircher
In our Recordkeeping segment months ago , we covered the key items a publisher is responsible to maintain as part of their duty to Promote , Protect and Collect . So far , we ’ ve covered registrations and credits , now comes another hurdle : tracking actual uses of your original works . Such an un-sexy way to end this series , don ’ t you think ? But all this work is for nothing if you don ’ t get paid for your work .
Pitch a song , they say yes , and you wait for the checks to arrive . You ’ d think this would be easy , right ? Naturally , it ’ s never quite that simple . And frankly , if I covered it all , this would be an incredibly long article , so I ’ ll try to keep it brief .
Tracking Uses of Your Music //
In theory , every time music is used as part of a television show or any live broadcast , it is supposed to be logged --when it ’ s used , how much , and whether it is in the foreground or background--onto a cue sheet . Each episode of every show has its own cue sheet , and the cue sheets are supposed to be filed with performing rights societies .
In reality , this often does not happen .
There are a few different ways a song can be accepted for use and can make it difficult to track . Here ’ s just a couple examples .
▪ A sport channel picks up your song for use in game broadcasts . Your song is played in one of the bumpers , either going to commercial or coming back from a commercial . The song is used during live broadcast , and only plays for 5-10 seconds .
▪ A news documentary channel picks up your song for what they call their pre-cleared library .
For the sports channel , songs used in the bumpers are often picked live on the fly , and therefore , aren ’ t documented . Some channels claim that the use is so short , is does not require documentation .
In the case of the documentary channel , many companies will create their own collections of outside music for which all licensing paperwork has been completed . Their underlying productions are now free to grab any song from their own library to drop into show episodes , because all the songs have been cleared in advance . Problem with this one is , your work may never get used , or sporadically over many years .
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