How Are Music Royalties Generated?
Blanket Licenses: A license that blankets all songwriters or artists within a specific region or territory that Right Society controls eg. BMI and ASCAP for the United States.
Basically if you have music anywhere on the internet, royalties have been generated regardless. Websites must legally acquire a license from you before they are allowed to use your music on their platforms. And for that license, royalties must be paid to you as the songwriter or rights holder.
So who issued a license for your music? And where are your royalties?
How to collect these royalties is that you must affiliate as a Songwriter with your local Performing Rights Organization before you are able to claim and collect your music royalties. However this ONLY accounts for royalties generated within your region or country and not for royalties generated in countries outside of your PROs controlled territory. This is where Songwriter needs a publisher or and administrator to have these royalties also collected.
Royalty Flow Chart
So what royalties could be I be missing?
* Check dropdowns for type of music royalties you can collect from rights societies.
Music Rights Societies issue automatic "Blanket Licenses" to online platforms where mandatory royalties are then paid. These royalties get paid to rights societies from all over the world, generated from the date your music was first played online, meaning you could also potentially be missing royalties and have unclaimed royalties back dated years.