1. � What does a music publisher do for a musician? | Main | advice to Magnatune musicians
about music publishing �
Self-publishing your music - how to do it
I have a number of music business books that describe the self-publishing process, as well as
trying to answer the "should I go with ASCAP or BMI?" question.
I found a number of factual problems with the books when I actually did the research work
myself, and the books consistently say "ASCAP and BMI are about equivalent" which I think is
completely untrue: BMI's publishing agreement is *much* worse.
Here is a summary of my opinions on self publishing your music (if you're a songwriter)
- go with ASCAP. It's free, and their agreement is much less evil than BMI's.
- you don't need to incorporate, don't believe the music business books, you just need to pick a
name for your publisher, which is your "doing business as" name. You'll get checks to that
name, so you want to choose a publishing company name such as "John Buckman Publishing"
(ie, your name + publishing) so that the bank lets you cash the checks you receive to that name.
- the musician should be signed up with the same organization as the publisher, and since the
publishing agreement is much better at ASCAP, I'd recommend both musician and publisher
sign with ASCAP. If the musician is already on BMI, they can leave and transfer to ASCAP.
However, I have no knowledge that you'll see more money from one or the other.
- both ASCAP and BMI can collect "DART" royalties for you, which are various digital audio
royalties, and both have a one year cancellation option, so it's a good idea to check that option
in the signup form, and I couldn't see much difference in the ASCAP vs BMI agreements for
this.
- The ASCAP publisher signup form is here (go to "Publisher Applicants"):
http://www.ascap.com/about/howjoin.html and it costs nothing to join
-----
ASCAP vs BMI? I thought they were the same, then I looked at the agreements. The big
differences are:
- BMI wants $150 for you to be a publisher. ASCAP is free. BMI wants even more if you're a
registered company.
- The BMI agreement is for 5 years, automatically renewing in 5 year terms forever, and you can
only cancel in a specific window a few months before the 5 year term expires. The ASCAP deal,
on the other hand, can be cancelled any year, if you notify them between 9 and 6 months before
the anniversary of when you signed with them.
- The ASCAP agreement asks for less rights than the BMI agreement does. The BMI
agreement, in my opinion, goes way overboard in the rights they get.
Here are some examples. The BMI agreement:

2. Bmiassing
Whoa! In case you missed it, you "sell, assign and transfer" (that means you lose these rights
completely) *all* the rights to perform or license the work to be performed, anywhere on the
planet. This means you cannot sign up with a foreign publishing company as well, if you go with
BMI.
Now, because both ASCAP and BMI were sued by the government and they are forced to let
musicians do their own licenses, BMI grants you back a license to do this (since you just gave
them all your other rights)
Bmigrant
whereas ASCAP just asks for the rights they need, which is much friendlier than BMI's
agreement, which asks for all your rights and gives you permission to do what the government
forced them to.
Note that under BMI you are required to notify them of any side agreements you do, since BMI
now owns your rights, whereas under ASCAP you do not need to, since ASCAP has a non-
exclusive right to start with:
Bmi30
this means that if you're a musician and self-published under BMI, and you're signed to
Magnatune, you need to send BMI a copy of your signed Magnatune agreement within 10 days
of signing with Magnatune. No such requirement exists with ASCAP. As I understand this, if you
assign a creative commons license to your music, and your publisher is signed with BMI, you
also need to send the Creative Commons license to BMI, as that's also a performance license
and BMI commits you to telling them of it within 10 days.
Compare the all-rights-go-to-BMI approach to the ASCAP agreement:
Ascap1
Ascap2
ASCAP asks for a (non-exclusive) right to license your music, and the right to sue people to
enforce your copyright. That's all a collection society needs to do its business, it doesn't need to
own the rights as BMI does. That strikes me as much more reasonable.
Next BMI, gets all kinds of rights unrelated to their central mission of collecting performance
royalties:
Bmibad
This means they have the right to make CDs of your music, as well as the right to license that
right to anyone else. The exceptions are: as long as it's not to sell the CDs to the public, to sync
the music with film or TV, or distribute via cable. Obviously, those seem like the main reasons
you'd want to make CDs, but I can think of lots of other reasons, for example, they can make
thousands of your CDs and give them away for free, or license them to a car company who
would include the CD in their cars (or hotel CD collections, libraries, etc... anything that's not "to
the public")
Clause C. gives them the right to adapt or arrange the work, however they want (think "techno
remix") for performance use. I don't see ASCAP getting this right in their agreement.

3. I will stop criticizing the BMI agreement after this last point:
Bmilawyer
this says that BMI is your lawyer and can act on your behalf in any way they see fit, and are
under no obligation to act in ways that you direct them to. Compare that to the ASCAP
agreement, where they only get the right to sue to protect your copyright.
I could go on and on about this BMI agreement, it's really that bad.
Bmi1- Perhaps it's silly, but the BMI agreement is an ancient scan of a typed agreement, with
two "page intentionally left blank", and you can't search the text, because it's all graphics. The
ASCAP agreement is a word processing document, can be searched and is clean and new.
BMI's agreement is 36 pages, vs ASCAP's 12. The BMI document has a bad attitude from the
very start, with a huge-font disclaimer as the cover page page that you should expect a 6 to 9
month delay in getting paid, longer if it's foreign performance money. I'm sure ASCAP has the
same issue with delays, but the whole look and tone of the BMI agreement is off-putting, with
the bad-quality scan, don't-bug-us-about-delays, nasty rights grants and bad print quality.
- Also perhaps silly, but the BMI agreement has several lobbyist-smelling exceptions to the
agreement, such as for Opera and Ballet, next to some particularly nasty looking legalese. This
makes me think that this legalese is bad news, and that some powerful lobbies got them
removed just for their case.
For example:
Ballet1
Ballet2
- I have no affiliation with ASCAP or BMI. My wife is an ASCAP member, and she's never
received a check over $10 from them, so I was in no way previously biased toward ASCAP
(biased against them, truth to tell, due to the paltry checks). But, this is how I interpret what I
see...
The usual disclaimer: I'm no lawyer, this is not legal advice, and you should consult a lawyer
before doing anything, such as using any of this advice.
Posted by John Buckman on May 14, 2006 at 10:49 AM | Permalink
Comments
The ASCAP music publisher agreement states that the songs have to be copyrighted. Have you
found that a Creative Commons label serves as a copyright, or do they make requirements on
having government copyrights filed?
Also, re: the name checks are written to, the ASCAP agreement has a box to check and a line
to fill in that allows you to specify the name the check should be written to if you'd like to have a
publishing company name that's different from that.
Thanks for a great article - I hope you read old comments!
-bill (Heuristics Inc.)
Posted by: Heuristics Inc. at May 23, 2006 4:13:47 PM

4. The BMI "work registration form", which you can find at
http://www.bmi.com/songwriter/resources/forms/work-reg-e.pdf explicitly allows for works with
no publisher at all, in which case the publisher's share is divided among the writers. So the
premise of your preference for ASCAP over BMI has no validity.
I do not work for BMI, but I do have a piece registered with them and this clause is one of the
things that swayed me in my choice of PRO.
Posted by: Paul Dickson at May 24, 2006 6:51:48 PM
ahh and the plot thickens.
Posted by: Ryan Sawhill at May 25, 2006 4:12:32 AM
opinions of small-town bar owner about to file bankruptcy because of BMI. In my opinion, there's
really no reason for any songwriter to sign with either of these publishing corporations unless
your songs will be played on the radio. you see, what most musicians dont know is that only the
artists currently being played on the radio will be receiving any royalties from these "soprano"-
esque (& i'm mainly talking about BMI here) organizations. and most songwriters are unaware
of the shady business practices being conducted on "their" behalf when it comes to the
bar/restaurant industry. they (BMI) harass, threaten, send in spies,(we're talkin border-line
extortion/racketeering here) to get you to pay outrageous annual licensing fees for offering live
entertainment (bands playing cover tunes or karaoke). We would've been more than happy to
pay reasonable annual dues. but, the amount they "billed" us for was laughable! (based on
CAPACITY, not annual sales) we NEVER have anywhere NEAR the amount of people our
capacity allows, & already pay a license for the jukebox ($800/year) for a small-town bar that
only brings in avg. $100/night mon-thur & $400 on fri or sat nite, that's a lot of dough. they
wanted us to pay for an additional license ($1200) for our weekly karaoke and 2 times/month
live band performances, but we called our attny general's office & they were unaware of any
LAW that required us to do so... so we blew it off. BMI was ruthless in its taticts. they harrassed
employees, sent threatening mail, and sent in spies to document copywrite infringements of
"their" artists' music. (14 violations) then hit us with a lawsuit stating they have the right to collect
up to $1.5 million from us. we are a small-time business in a small town barely able to pay our
payroll taxes each month, let alone an amount as enormous as that. we'll probably have to sell
the business we've been building for 7 years, be forced to file bankruptcy, and face the
possibility of losing our home &/or all assets. meanwhile, we've had to stop karaoke & live band
performances (the only potentially busy nites for the bar); and the only time the bar has more
than 20 people in it. so, it's looking pretty bad for us. what really pisses me off though, as shady
as their collection tatics are, the distribution policies of these funds to "their" artists are even
worse! they only pay out a questionable amount & only to artists with songs in rotation on a
small sampling (20%) of radio stations nation-wide. so, even if a band does play a cover of gary
stewart's "empty glass" or david allen coe's "you dont have to call me darlin"... neither of them
will be seeing any royalties cause their songs arent being played on the radio anymore. ashlee
simpson, kelly clarkson, & kenny chesney will be receiving a check. not the artists whose songs
are being performed. basically, it's a bunch of b.s. cuz a karaoke or live performance of a song
might even help the sales of that record. & i'm pretty sure that most musicians wouldnt want
businesses like ours going under so that the multi-million dollar artists whose songs are
currently on the radio can have bigger checks and BMI can afford to pay the $200,000.00 a
month lease for their corporate offices in NYC. but that's just my opinion.
Posted by: sunday freedman at Jun 14, 2006 10:48:28 PM

5. whoa. what a story.
sorry man. that really sucks.
Posted by: Ryan Sawhill at Jun 15, 2006 4:50:37 AM
I used to sing once I sung at TCL when it was open. But based over an illness I'm not able to
sing anymore. My illness grew worse over time. Now the only time I sing is like around the
house. I do write songs and I have a website if you would like to check the site out. I try to get in
contact with all singers and songwriters-publishers and producers so on. If you have any
questions let me know.
Thank you,