Mechanical Royalties – how to make more from your streams
If someone chooses to stream your original song online, it is generating a mechanical royalty that a publisher can collect for you!
In a nutshell, mechanical royalties are generated whenever a composition is reproduced in some form.
Mechanical royalties originally came from the physical reproduction of original music. If a label wanted to print Vinyl for one of their artists – the songwriters and composers needed to be compensated for the reproduction of their work. This idea was then used on other forms of physical media such as tapes, CDs and digital downloads.
Today, we consume music in a different way – but that doesn’t mean composers are no longer earning mechanical royalties.
Every time someone chooses to listen to your original music on any streaming service, a mechanical royalty is being generated and given to a Mechanical Rights Organisation (also known as an MRO). They will then put your earnings into a ‘pot’ and wait for them to be collected.
How do you collect Mechanical Royalties?
Mechanical royalties can be collected by a music publisher or by the composer themselves.
However, signing up to your local MRO can be a difficult and long process for a composer, with multiple applications and verifications.
Signing up to a music publisher like RouteNote Publishing means you skip the verification process, and all your publishing royalties will be collected together in one place, rather than being spread over multiple societies.
RouteNote Publishing collects mechanical royalties worldwide! This means no matter where your music is being streamed, you will not miss out on a single penny.