ROYALTIES EXPLAINED

We here at Blonde Medicine talk about audio distribution and royalties a lot - with our artists, in green rooms, and nerding out at festivals.  It’s important stuff to understand. So, we made this flowchart to hopefully shed some light on the often murky parts of the industry.  

Please note: This flowchart is for informational purposes only and was created based on the industry circa 2020.

FAQs

Q: What about publishing?
A: Publishing royalties have never existed for comedy tracks as they do for musical tracks. The reason for this is long, complex and boring fascinating as hell.

Publishing rights are designed to compensate songwriters/composers for their contribution to a piece of work no matter who is performing it. Publishing royalties are collected and disbursed by Performance Rights Organizations (PROs) like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, and Publishing Administrators with whom songwriters register. Historically, Spoken Word Works cannot be registered with PROs. 

In recent years, there has been much discussion over whether non-musical comedic works should be represented in the same way that musical works are. This here is the tip of the iceberg. And like everything else in our world, it’s subject to change so stay tuned.