Making sure you’re not getting on a plane to nowhere
You may wish to find out if your release is eligible for RouteNote Publishing before getting in touch with the Publishing team. The following types of release are ineligible:
– Covers
If you’re covering someone else’s song, then unfortunately, you won’t be able to collect any other royalties in addition to the Master Recording Royalty (Sound Recording Royalty) that you receive from RouteNote or another distributor already. This means you won’t be eligible for RouteNote Publishing. You can collect mechanical royalties if someone else covers a piece of music you have written.
– Public Domain releases
When the terms of copyright have elapsed on a piece of music, it moves into the public domain. This means you cannot collect royalties for it, as the rights do not belong to you or anybody else.
This also applies to traditional music, which includes works such as folk songs, hymns, and religious music – anything that functions as a marker of identity for a particular cultural group.
– Arrangements
You will not be able to collect royalties for arrangements of musical works. For instance, if you release an arrangement of a Western Classical piece of music, you will not be able to collect Compositional royalties.
– Releases with unknown composer names
The majority of agencies and organisations within the music publishing world require legal names to be attached to releases. For this reason, tracks without a proper, legal composer name are not eligible for RouteNote Publishing.
– Releases which are already signed to another Publisher
If you have a release signed to a publisher, then I’m afraid RouteNote Publishing won’t be able to collect on that release at the same time. If two Publishers attempt to claim the same composition it creates a conflict, resulting in the earnings being received by nobody until the conflict is resolved.
You can also have one album signed to one Publisher, and your second album signed to a different one. Just make sure you’re clear with everyone involved about your wish to do that.
For further information, check out our blog post below!
If you have any further queries, feel free to get in touch with us!
See also:
What type of royalties do RouteNote collect?
How can I monetise with YouTube through RouteNote?
When do I get my money from the SoundCloud network?