Theoretically the distribute that to the artists.
Theoretically…
They were also notorious for going after Girl Guides for the songs sung around campfires. Or the mechanic in the back playing the radio while he worked, or the dentists playing the radio in their office.
Not just recorded, but live music as well. I know a woman who owns a bar* who hates ASCAP/BMI with a passion. She has local bands occasionally play, but they must only do original work, no covers so that she doesn’t get hassled by ASCAP/BMI.
I was hanging out there one night after closing, bullshitting with the band. One of them started playing Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay, and I did the whistling part (the only musical talent I have). The owner came running from the back, yelling at us to stop. She’s that afraid of ASCAP/BMI. (in her defense, she once recieved a hefty fine from them)
*bar, noun, an establishment where alcohol and sometimes other refreshments are served. They were popular during the before-times.
This perplexes me. In my memory I remember reading something about every time a record gets played on the radio (in the UK) it costs the station - £40 or £60 or something like that - and 12 cents just doesn’t seem consistent with the huge total royalty payments mentioned elsewhere in this thread. So I did a bit of googling.
Yes, I found the same Quora page that mentions 12 cents, but I also found this:
My bold - OK, this is specific to a deal made by one station the UK, but you could certainly live on royalties for a much loved song at these rates. 12 cents? It would take a lot of airplay. I remain confused, but it is at least another data point.
Not just bars and restaurants - when I was working as a home based consultant I got a letter and (separately) was rung up by the (UK) PRS to ask if I had a radio playing at work - a license is required. (In fact, I don’t think that applies to single occupancy offices, so I would have been in the clear anyway. But another source of revenue.)
j
Is it possible that this is because of the nature of radio in Britain? There are only 600 licensed stations there as compared to over 15,000 in the U.S. And there is nothing in America to compare with the breadth and heft of the BBC as a national station.
I also remember years of bitter fighting over streaming music channels because of how low their royalties were compared to radio stations.
You may be comparing two extreme ends of the spectrum in vastly different circumstances.
Yes, the rate apparently depends on audience size (those audience rating numbers that also are a guide for advertising rates).
I remember reading an interview with some blues circuit band leader, and he mentioned laughing at the BMI\ASCAP guy. When they played the bar, they declined to pay a license, so naturally the guy was in attendance to make sure he could nail them for using copyright songs. The band guy mentioned they did a lot of the same style blues as Led Zeppelin, who were notorious for ripping off / borrowing traditional blues. So he’d start a song, the guy would start scribbling furiously until he realized it was the traditional song, not the Zeppelin variant.
In the United States, commercial radio stations pay a percentage of their revenues for ASCAP/BMI/SESAC licenses. I suppose that revenues somewhat correlate with audience size. The PROs use sampling to determine how to split the revenues they receive. Many small composers complain that their sampling methods favor the big commercial hits and that they are shortchanged.
College radio stations pay for their licenses based on the size of the student body of the college, even if the audience is primarily the non-college community.
NPR has special licenses that cover its member stations. There are special flat-rates for LPFM stations. I don’t know about other non-commercial stations.
There is no formula like “every time they play a song, the composer get 16 cents” in the United States. Each publisher gets a share of the PRO’s total revenue (after the PRO’s fees). What share each publisher gets is complicated and subject to much dispute.
This applies only to US terrestrial (over-the-air) radio. It does not apply to internet radio or subscription satellite services.
And, I emphasize it applies only in the United States. The royalty structures in the United States are very different from those in the rest of the world.
Yeah, very possible. Hence the tentative tone of my post. There are quite a few major differences between the two countries; but still, a fifty-fold (ish) difference in royalty payments would be surprising (to me, anyway). Plus I still struggle to see how one song, even a biggie, can make you rich for life at 12 cents a pop.
My bolding - re this bolded section, is this income the source of (ie used to provide) the 12 cents from the Quora piece? Or is the 12 cents additional? I’m assuming the former.
j
That Quora answer is entirely bogus. Here is another Quora answer that is much more accurate: See the first reply by Rich Meitin. Remember that Quora is just a forum like the Straight Dope. Anybody can submit an answer, don’t accept it as authoritative any more than you would accept a random answer without a citation on the Dope.
In the US, the only fees that terrestrial radio stations pay for use of music are the licensing fees paid to the PROs: ASCAP/BMI/SESAC. They generally pay a flat fee for unlimited use of each of their respective libraries. The rate is the same whether the radio station plays 50 minutes of music every hour or plays 45 minutes of “morning zoo” wacky hijinks and commercials and 15 minutes of music. (There are reduced-fee licenses for stations that play only a limited amount of incidental music.)
If the station also has a web-stream that plays music, the licensing for that is different.