The Unsung Royalty: The Mechanical Royalty
I refer to the Mechanical Royalty as the lost royalty because when most people think of publishing they almost always think of ASCAP or BMI. These performance rights organizations collect the so-called “public performance royalty”. Public performances can include play on television or radio, in clubs and restaurants, on websites, or on other broadcasting systems. When your song is publicly broadcasted in one of the aforementioned mediums, a royalty is generated for which your PRO collects and pays out. Public Performance royalties could make up a large chunk of your publishing income. Another large chunk of your publishing should be coming from your mechanical royalty. The problem is a lot of producers and songwriters are not collecting them.
Mechanical royalties are generated when a copyrighted work is reproduced in digital and physical formats. Songwriters and producers are paid mechanical royalties per song purchased, downloaded and/or streamed on digital platforms. The current statutory mechanical royalty rate for physical recordings (such as CDs, Vinyls, etc) and permanent digital downloads is 9.1¢ for recordings of a song 5 minutes or less, and 1.75¢ per minute or fraction thereof for those over 5 minutes. Although vinyls and physical reproductions of music are still alive today, majority of your mechanical income will likely derive from streaming as we enter a new…
