Hey everyone,

I just got an email from one of my absolute all time favorite music libraries saying I may have some money waiting for me in Europe in the form of "Neighboring Rights". I've heard this term a dozen times or so over the years but don't know exactly what it is, how it pays, how much it pays etc..

Do any of the more experienced production music experts want to chime in?

One questions i have is if you're a music library, do your European distributors usually collect the neighboring rights in addition to the performance royalties? Or are neighboring rights a completely separate royalty stream...

Someone tell me a story of someone getting a phat neighboring rights check.

Thanks!

Hi John ,

"neighboring rights " are the royalties for :
performing artists / performers / recording artists / sound-recording owners (labels) .

This royalty package is usually split into 50% for the recording artist(s) and 50% soundrecording owner ( Label ) .

"Neighboring rights " are collected for example in ...

... the U.S. by SOUNDEXCHANGE ( About - SoundExchange )
... the U.K. by PPL ( International Royalties Collection Service - PPL )
... Germany by GVL ( GVL | Gesellschaft zur Verwertung von Leistungsschutzrechten | )
... Italy by NUOVOMAIE ( NUOVOIMAIE - I diritti degli artisti.NUOVOIMAIE )
... and so on ...

All these organisations have completetly different tariffs for the kind of usage, and - more importantly -
very often a certain usage is remunerated in one territory , but doesn't generate any income in another .
In other words : It's a ( constantly changing ) dschungel .

These organisations are connected the same way like ASCAP with SACEM in France , or BMI with PRS in the U.K. ... ( you know what I mean ), including all the same flaws in such a system. However , I have to add that the neighbouring rights organisations are by far not that efficiently connected internationally like the Performing Rights organisations are ( ASCAP ; PRS ; GEMA ; ... ).

- - -

To be able to get those "neighbouring rights "royalties , you have to be member of one of those organisations mentioned above , and (!!!) the particular sound-recording of a musical work you recorded has to be registered with your "neighbouring rights" organisation. Same procedure like with a composition, just this time for a sound recording ... .

Once this is done , the rules for getting "neighbouring rights" royalties vary in each territory.

- - -

For example , if an artist recorded a song which gets airplay on traditional Radio ( AM/FM) in the U.S. , the artist won't get any money. However , if this same recording gets airplay on traditional Radio within Germany the artist gets paid "neighbouring rights" royalties , which in this case gets collected by the GVL . This organisation will forward this money to the recording artist's "neighbouring rights" organisation. (The same procedure like with PRS and ASCAP ; etc. .).
However , in this example the composer of this song would get "Performing Rights Royalties" in both the U.S. and in Germany through ASCAP/BMI/SESAC and GEMA .

While for singer-songwriter artists the "neighbouring Rights" organisations are not unimportant , in the U.S. especially concerning streams on services like PANDORA , the situation for media composers is a little bit different , because their work is usually exposed on TV as background music , which is a different category compared to a featured POP Song .

For filmcomposers/ library composers/background music composers these kind of royalties are very low and - again -the neighbouring rights organisations are by far not that good connected internationally like the Performing Rights organisations ( ASCAP ; PRS ; GEMA ; ... ).

Another issue is , that "neighbouring rights" royalties are connected to the ISRC Code of a recording , which usually doesn't exist for background instrumentals/score music . This is another reason , why it is hard to get "neighbouring rights" royalties for this kind of media music.

- - -

You want a number ?

Background Music / TV:
For a TV-Episode where I receive 1200.-Euro in "Performing Rights" and 300.-Euro in "Mechanical Rights" per broadcast for the Score Music , I will receive 0,12 Euro - 1,00 Euro in "Neighbouring Rights" Royalties per broadcast within Europe on a main broadcaster's TV Channel ... if at all. You see , there's quite a gap in remuneration , at least in the category "Background Instrumentals".

Pop Song / Radio Airplay / Europe :
An Airplay of a 3minute Pop-Song on tradional Radio (AM/FM) however might result in "neighbouring rights" royalties of 10.-Euros per play on a bigger european radio station , then split between artist and label .

- - -

Nevertheless , when I'm the main-/recording artist I insist on getting "officially" this kind of credit , then being able to register it with my "neighbouring rights" organisation , hoping it will generate money for me .

Who knows : maybe certain Tariffs in certain Territories for certain usage will generate relevant monies in the future .
I think the most important thing as a creator/performer is to get your "claims" for your rights into all existing royalty collecting systems, no matter how low the single payouts currently are .


An important question for you in your situation with the music libraries is :
Are these libraries also releasing the material as a (Recording-)Label ?
If yes , in a perfect world they would have registered the releases with a "neighbouring rights" organisation , including mentioning you as the artist of the particular recordings. You then can join Soundexchange and inform them that you are this particular recording artist , so that you can receive royalties if available.
( A friend of mine - in the U.S. - released several production music works through Warner (USA), which in this case is both publisher and label . All his stuff was correctly registered by Warner with all relevant Neighbouring Rights Organisations in Europe, listing him as performing artist. I have to add that he is a member of the german Neighbouring Rights Organisation GVL . Although he is in the U.S. he joined GVL , because at the time he joined GVL the Neighbouring Rights Organisation SOUNDEXCHANGE didn't even exist in the U.S. . )


Best,
Gerd

John, W/C's registration program registers songs worldwide in one go. Every catalog is set up with worldwide neighboring rights groups too, such as having a "labelcode" with GVL. It's something that is common at the core artist level, and the PM side just gets lumped in through the same registration protocol. But, until now there hasn't been a group that's willing to chase down these (less significant) broadcast royalties across the EU/EEU.

Even if you only got $500, wouldn't it still be worth the 10 minutes it takes to sign up?

For sure..It would be worth it for $50 cause now I get to learn the process first hand instead of hearing about it on a panel haha

Composers I work with are always getting big checks for neighboring rights. Mainly from Brazil. The largest I've heard about in the last couple years was a little over $80,000 for one song placement. a fair number of the composers I know get around $20,000 to $40,000 when they get a big placement in brazil...and that is SEPARATE from the PRO royalties. That is just for the Neighboring Rights.

If you need an organization to collect your neighboring rights worldwide, I have a great one. PM me and I can send you their info. There are no neighboring rights collection organizations here in the US since the US broadcasters do not pay it. I believe internet radio now pays neighboring rights and Sound Exchange collects and pays them for artists/performers in the US. But for traditional broadcast there aren't any in the US.

Hey will do,

I should get someone to collect for me in South America..

I read somewhere I'm not entitled to broadcast neighboring rights because I'm from the USA...is that correct?

That is not correct.

The guy I have collects for the whole world. The composers I know making a lot in neighboring rights are mainly making the money from Brazil and all the composers are American.

PM sent

Etch, are you sure about that what John Fulford heard about US artists rights are not correct?

I looked into Neigbouring Rights myself just some few days ago, and it surely looked to me like US artists/performers or rights holders aren't getting any Neighbouring Rights, because US hasn't signed the Roma agreement about Neighbouring Rights, and since other countries artists aren't getting anything from US-playing, US artists aren't getting anything from other countries playing.

And, it looks like Brazil is a special country, as Neighbouring Rights are collected together with Performing rights there, and for most countries they are not.

Links:
Brazil CMO UBC bolsters neighbouring rights division after signing Sony and Warner - Music Business Worldwide

---
In Brazil, neighbouring rights are licensed together with publishing and performance rights.

That’s differs to most territories such as the UK, for example, where PPL collects neighbouring rights, while PRS handles publishing performance rights
---


And
An Updated Look at Neighboring Rights - TuneCore

---
As discussed earlier, the United States is not a signatory to the Rome Convention treaty. Since the U.S. is a non-signatory country, U.S. citizen musicians do not receive any neighboring rights royalties. This is due to a concept called “reciprocity,” which means that because the United States does not pay neighboring rights royalties to non-U.S. citizens, those countries refuse to pay neighboring rights royalties to U.S. citizens.

This has put U.S. musicians, especially those who are solely featured vocalists and studio session players, such as many of today’s pop stars, in a bind by limiting most of their income to only record (which have steadily declined) and touring sales.

---


But there has perhaps been some recent developments?

And, as to agreements with publishers, if one signs away all rights in a 'work for hire' agreement, then I would think the publisher owns the artist/performer Neighbouring Rights too, for those tracks, right? Or not?

John, I guess I know from which publisher(s) you have received the mail. I received the same mail.
Just get yourself into such collecting societies. I am with GVL for the world except Czech Republik.
In Czech Republik I am with NRG.
Those rights are your rights as a musician and instrumentalist on your own tracks or tracks from others !
You will get 100% and you don`t have to share with publishers and/or labels. Such organisations mostly charge around 15%
from your collected rights.
Don`t expect super much, it`s not like a nice Ascap or BMI statement. You willl receive a couple hundred bugs up to a couple thousands a year. It`s little money but still ok for doing exactly nothing!

How do they know if you are a US citizen or not? The composer is not the performer so the neighboring rights societies do not look at composer info... it's just a composer registered with a collection agency. That is it.

There are no US neighboring rights collection societies except for Sound Exchange which only does digital radio and streaming....

So in order to even get NR royalties US composers need to register with a collection agency/society outside the US. And then at that point how does the other collection agencies know the performer is from the US? The collection agencies collect money for the performances, there are names attached to an ISRC or song title... that is it.

It is no different than how some composers on this forum are registered with ASCAP/BMI for their uses in the US, PRS for their uses and Europe and SGAE for their uses in central and south america. How do you know if the composer is a US citizen, a foreign citizen living in the US, or a foreign citizen living in a foreign country? You can't.

The only thing signatories to the Rome Convention can do is not pay any money to any US collection society. And because we have non, it's a moot point. Now we have a digital NR collection society... but because of the Rome Convention the foreign collectors do not pay Sound Exchange and SE does not pay them.

But if you join a collection agent or society in Canada or the UK or Mexico or Brazil... then... you collect all your neighboring rights worldwide regardless of where you are a citizen.

But to each their own... If you don't want to believe me, then go right ahead. But just notice PPL does not collect for uses inside the UK because the UK did not sign the rome convention either as far as I know... when you go to the PPL website they specifically say right on the home page they don't collect for UK, only uses outside of the UK.

Wow. Been in the biz for nearly two decades and never heard of NR! I have about 1200 copyrights going back many years, all with major libraries. You reckon it could be worthwhile then?

Would you mind if I PM'd you for the info on an organization to collect them? You seem to have a great knowledge of the industry and I would place alot of value on your recommendation. I am based in the UK btw.

p.s. A colleague just asked me if this would annoy publishers. I don't understand it enough to answer but anyone a thought on that?

Many thanks.

Oh, and thanks Gerd, that is a tremendously informative post.

in the UK I believe it's the PPL that collects neighboring rights. I don't have any experience with them but you should try to contact them directly to ask more questions...

International Royalties Collection Service - PPL

Oh, it's also not really based on how many copyrights you have. It's whether you are listed as the artist/performer of those copyrights.

That is why library music makes so much money from NR for the composers (since composers are their own artists and performers on most of their works), but things like film scoring does not make ANY money for the composers because the composers are not listed as "artists" or "performers" on most of their works by the film production company.

so it really depends on what types of music you did and how they were used. Not all uses pay NR and it varies from country to country. Maybe only in-show programming gets NR in one country but in-show and TV commercials get NR in another country? As far as I know it's not standardized... and the rates vary. Some countries pay more for NR than others.

Also with neighboring rights... 50% goes to the record label, 45% goes to the listed performing artist, 5% goes to all other listed supporting musicians. So if you played/programmed all the parts for your compositions then you get the 45% as the artist and the 5% as the musician.

Performances royalties are split 50% publisher, 50% writer. Neighboring Rights royalties are split 50% record label (not publisher), 50% artist/performer (not writer).

This is where someone like a Beyonce comes in... she is the artist but not the writer for a lot of her songs. So she makes the NR royalties but not the PRO royalties. Likewise her label would make the NR royalties but are not entitled to any PRO royalties.

here is some interesting info as to why the US doesn't pay NR in a traditional sense but does pay them for digital streaming...

Kobalt | What Are Neighbouring Rights and Why Should Creators Care?

and here are some interesting facts about NR...

According to WIPO, here is the list of countries that signed the Rome Convention and pay NR royalties.

WIPO-Administered Treaties

There are 93 countries total... although, I didn't think the UK paid NR but it is listed as a signatory... so i don't know if some countries have since backed out? But there are some countries that signed on fairly recently (Algeria signed in 2007, Armenia in 2003, Bahrain in 2006, Israel in 2002, and Qatar in 2017!)

It looks like some countries may have only signed the agreement with a caveat that it was for a limited time. I see something about some countries ratifying the Rome convention only through December of 2001. So I don't know if that means after 2001 they no longer pay NR royalties or not? The UK is one of the countries that states "in intellectual property laws and treaties from June 1998 until December 2001". as does Sweden, Switzerland and others.

But then some others do not have that clause and just list their "entry into force" date.

Thanks Etch, all very interesting!

Appreciate your insights.

You are welcome , Chris !

Best,
Gerd

Chris , the neighbouring rights royalties are not related to - and therefore completely seperate from - publishing royalties, which means that you won't take away any money from the publisher. Therefore listing you as the performer for a track is just additional neutral metadata to the publisher . (At least in a perfect world. )

However , there might be the following , but very rare scenario ... ( ... and now we are talking about the bad guys in the business ... ):
The publishing company is also a label / is related to a label , and the label actually does register the track with neighbouring rights societies , mentioning that it will also collect the artist's royalties on behalf of the artist ( ... similar to those music publishing contracts some songwriters have ... ) , but without telling the artists anything about that . In such a scenario the publisher would be upset ... , ... and when you find out about it you will get upset , too , ... and then everybody gets upset ... and so on ... .


- Gerd

That's more in the record label world with 360 deals. In a music library deal I can't see that ever happening.

As the artist and performer you are entitled to your 50% of the NR royalties and the master recording owner/label/library is entitled to the other 50% of the NR royalty. From what I have seen at least in my experiences with it, you can't list a company has a performer or artist just like how you can't list a company as a songwriter with ASCAP or BMI.

The other thing I should reiterate... now that a lot of composers are probably salivating over the potential hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars waiting for them...

Not all uses pay NR, and as we stated before not all countries pay it.. .and among the countries that do, the NR royalty rate is not internationally standardized, so it varies wildly from country to country and use type.

So keep that in mind... you could very well have 3000 titles registered at your PRO and they are getting licensed all over the world constantly and you have no (or very little) NR royalties waiting for you.

The guys I know who make big NR royalties usually always make it off of one track and one placement of that track. The guy I know who made over $80k had a placement in a very popular Rede Globo Telenova where they used 10 or 20 seconds of his cue as the "theme" for one of the characters... every time the character came into the scene, his cue would play... And they used it in every episode for two or three seasons until the character was killed off... And the composer had no idea what NR royalties were... so when he finally signed up with a collection society they said "hey, did you know you have $86,000 in NR royalties waiting for you for this one cue?" Cha-Ching!

Some of the other composers I know who get $20,000 to $40,000 frequently in NR royalties will have one or two cues used a lot in a sports program or in a TV show. Formula One in Brazil used a song from a composer friend of mine and they used it as the theme song for the 2017 season... so tons of promos, tons of snippets used during the races... etc. He saw around $20k for that after about a year had passed. But in that same time span he had THOUSANDS of uses in Brazil that didn't make any NR royalties...

so realize you might have money waiting... you might not. If you've been doing this a while and have A LOT of international placements then you probably do have at least some.

I'm sure you are absolutely right here !
Nevertheless I had to mention this scenario , because I've seen this happening to people I know (filmcomposers/songwriters) in the past.
And the more we (composers/musicians/artists) know about what can go wrong , the more we can focus on correctly claiming our rights and royalties , even then when there's no lawyer around who is able to check our contract.

The overall amount of NR royalties might be lower and rather a lottery to collect compared to writing&publishing royalties ( see my first post above ), but I always take care about my NR in my publishing- and production contracts (score / TV ).
You can never know what's in the box ... even if it's somewhere in the distant future and from a territory you never thought of .


What's also really amazing here - besides that these are NR royalties - is the fact that the brazilian currency is quite weak compared to the U.S. $ , and that it is still a five figure number the composers receive. This is really stunning.

- Best
Gerd

Just to be clear to all reading this. Neighboring Rights ARE NOT royalties for composers or songwriters. A film Composer or a Songwriter are NOT entitled to any NR Royalties.

ONLY the featured artist performing the musical work and the secondary musicians performing the musical work are entitled to NR Royalties. If you are a composer, and you write an amazing orchestral piece... and then you send it to Eastern Europe to have it recorded with an 80 pc orchestra, you are no longer the performer... if you kept it all midi and played/programmed the parts yourself, then you are the performer.

If you are a songwriter and you write a song that someone else sings and another drummer, bassist, guitarist and pianist record for you... you are no longer the artist or performer, you are just the songwriter and are not entitled to NR Royalties. If you programmed all the parts but did not sing it, then you are still one of the secondary musicians. If you sang it yourself then you are the featured artist.

So keep that in mind. I think I mentioned it earlier, film composers and songwriters usually never get any NR royalties because they are never the artist/performer of their own works. As famous examples, how many film scores has Silvestri or Williams actually played/performed on themselves? Likewise how many songs has David Foster or Dianne Warren etc actually played on themselves? That is why they are not getting any part of the neighboring rights.

With library music, because most things are programmed, the composer BECOMES the artist/performer out of the sheer virtue that there is no money to hire other performers to record the music.

I'm aware of that , as I wrote in my original answer to John in the beginning of this discussion .
My fault , in my last post I should have been using the terms "composers who perform (on) their own compostions's recordings / songwriters who perform (on) their own composition's recordings" .


I have to add that in some territories you get NR for being the musical director for a recording , too :

So , when writing scoremusic for TV , I can get NR royalties through my NR Organisation for both being the musical director for the recording AND for being an instrumentalist performing on the recording , if this is the case.
This is at least true/possible in some (european) territories.

If I am however the main artist - let's say for a solo piano piece - or featured artist , I can only receive those NR royalties , but cannot receive NR royalties for being a musical director .

Of course all this has to be mentioned / laid down in my (composer) contract , which I can send later to my NR Organization as a proof / for verification .

Sorry to be reviving such an old thread, but this seems to be the only discussion about neighbouring rights I can find online!

AlanJay, I notice you said that you're with NRG in Czech and GVL for the rest of the world. I make production music, and have just been contacted by NRG saying I could be missing out on neighbouring rights royalties, and that they would collect for me from every country. Is there a reason you don't use NRG for the whole world, or was it just that they're quite a new company and perhaps they were only offering collections from Czech back in May when you wrote this post? And likewise, was there a reason GVL didn't collect from Czech?

They've told me they take 15% for admin costs, is that a pretty standard figure?

Hope you're still around to answer my question!

Interesting I just got an email from a company who wants to help me claim neighbouring rights money. I'd have to give them 20% which I think is quite a lot.

Does anyone know whether I'd be able to do this work myself or whether there are any benefits getting someone else to do it for me?. I am already a PPL member in UK.

For those who signed on with NRG, you should be getting your first statements in the coming days (via snail mail from CR). Looks VERY promising. Absolutely worth all the hoop jumping.

If its in France, there are 2 entities for performance & neighbouring rights. Spedidam & Adami, both cost around $20 to sign up (17€) but the thing iswith these, apart from neighbouring rights, is that there is a part of the distribution of money that is from a tax on printable CD's. Every year alone pays more than the 17€ sign up fee, there is really nothing to lose by enrolling. This of course is on top of any other neighbouring rights.

Whats more, these rights are payable for up to 10 years in the past so any rights due will be paid for all that period.

Yep, got mine yesterday. Absolutely worth it.

Looking into signing up for this w/NRG.

BEFORE I sign up, they want:

Full name
Birth Date
Address
Bank acct # and routing #
Full Social Security #
Passport - full scan with photo

Is this a scam, or a joke, or....?

Sending all this info to an Eastern European country is not a comfortable feeling. They haven't cleaned out my bank accounts yet. If I didn't know the guys as one of our subpublishers, there's no way I would have done it. They are really hustling to get all these contacts in place. I think they're pretty on the ball, but you should only do what you feel good about.