What is the difference between performing mechanical and synchronization rights

Also a very specific form of written permission, theatrical licenses are very common in the theater industry. The license is required any time a copyrighted work is performed on-stage in front of an audience. Still have a question?

We're here to help! Contact us. Related Questions. Knowledge Base. The 6 Types of Music Licenses Real-world examples of music licenses and how they work. Public Performance License This license is perhaps the most common form of music license issued today. Print Rights License This license refers to the physical copy of the sheet music that an artist has created.

Theatrical License Also a very specific form of written permission, theatrical licenses are very common in the theater industry. To understand the difference between the two types of copyright, think of cover versions: each newly recorded cover version will have its own master copyright, but the original piece of music, containing the harmony, melody, and lyrics, is covered by the composition copyright.

So, only the copyright holders of the musical composition are paid performance royalties. For the full overview of royalties in the music industry, check out our introductory breakdown of the royalties on both sides of the music copyright.

So, public performance royalties are generated when a musical composition is performed in a live venue, played on the radio, TV, and film, or streamed on a digital streaming platform. How are these royalties collected and distributed? The royalty pipeline differs based on the medium or venue, so in this section, we explore how each type of performance royalty works.

Generally speaking, radio stations pay Performance Rights Organizations PROs for blanket licenses that give them the right to play virtually any music in existence. Then, they report the plays to the PROs through broadcast logs, which are used by PROs to distribute royalties to songwriters and their publishers. But generally, streaming services pay out performance royalties through PROs, who, in their turn, distribute them to publishers and songwriters.

Most of the time, such public performance platforms acquire blanket licenses from PROs — just like radios do — and log all the tracks they broadcast back to the collection societies so that they can divide the royalties up between corresponding songwriters. When a piece of music is used in a TV show, movie, or advertisement, the owner of the composition copyright is owed public performance royalties for the right to broadcast their works.

The thing is that sync fees are paid out for the prominent and intentional use of compositions or masters as an integral part of a broadcasted piece of content. So, a song played at random during a live broadcast does not require a sync agreement, but if the song is inserted intentionally by the producers, then a sync deal is required. Besides, public performance royalties often become a critical point of consideration when the sync deals are negotiated.

For example, if the final content will be widely broadcast, like an ad for a major company running 20 times per day on national TV — well, the songwriter can expect a lot of performance royalties to pile up on top of the negotiated sync fees — and ber sure that the sync agencies will be well-aware of this fact.

Those two types of royalties are often mixed up, since they sometimes travel through the pipe together — streaming services, for example, treat public performance and mechanical royalties as a single All-In Royalty Pool.

In reality, however, they are very different. While performance royalties are paid for the right to play a composition in public, mechanical royalties are paid for the right to reproduce a composition through the process of recording, manufacturing, and distributing the work. So, if a label wants to produce a CD bearing the composition, they have to pay mechanicals for each copy they make. To learn more about mechanical streaming rates, check out this deep dive. There can be a catch here: In order to collect these mechanical royalties, you need to have a music publisher, a publishing administrator , or your own personal publishing entity.

Traditional publishers and publishing administrators typically have direct relationships with pay sources, making it easier for independent creators to access royalties than it would be without any help. YouTube is another crucial pay source when it comes to mechanical royalties. This is in addition to any micro-sync royalties a publisher or publishing administrator will collect for you.

To learn more about this type of royalty, check out our blog post. Attempting to do this yourself would be tedious, costly, and complex. PROs and CMOs license the songs in their catalog and use performance data to allocate money to publishers and songwriters. Much like mechanical royalties, performance royalties are determined through split sheets and the conversations you have with co-writers. Depending on your publishing situation , you may only see a portion of the publisher's share of the performance royalties.

When your song generates performance royalties outside of your home territory, your domestic collection society will obtain these royalties through reciprocal agreements with the collection societies in those territories and countries.