So how do you track all the possible uses of your original works? We’ ve all been working on that for a few decades now … but yes, there are a few ways to potentially track usages.
Most of the work will be done via your performing rights society by collecting those cue sheets the shows are supposed to send them. But again, the PROs cannot catch everything. Beyond that, rights owners do it the oldfashioned way: lots and lots of phone calls. I’ m told that many publishing companies spend a lot of time skimming through shows or channels with which they’ ve secured deals to try to detect uses, and then verify the cue sheet logging with the PRO’ s. As you can imagine, this is extremely time-consuming. If you don’ t know how and when your works are used, and don’ t have a staff to manually track them, it makes collecting far more difficult.
The only turnkey service I have read about is called TuneSat, and it claims to track all possible uses of your works on network and cable TV. However, I have seen multiple posts in music forums claiming it’ s not quite that good. In fact, one post I read actually claimed their PRO showed more uses than TuneSat. But since their free account allows up to 50 songs to be tracked, it’ s worth a try.( Full disclosure: we signed up for our own free account over a year ago, but have not seen any uses logged.)
At the very least, a publisher should accurately track every contract or agreement involving their catalog, so potential uses can be monitored. This info also becomes very important should you enter into an exclusive publishing deal. Those works will probably need to be withdrawn from any non-exclusive services.
Long story short, the work is not over when the contract is signed. You’ ll need to track those uses to be sure when it happens, the checks end up in your mailbox.
In Conclusion //
I hope you’ ve gotten a lot out of this series, and that you’ re a smarter and savvier in your business dealings because of it. My goal in doing this series was to help some talented people keep pursuing their musical goals. Hopefully, I’ ve helped at least a few of you. Surprisingly, it’ s been more fun than I originally thought to pull this together, and I thank Kiki and the passionate staff of ION Indie Magazine the opportunity to share with you.
Unfortunately, it’ s time to part ways. This cruel mistress we call the music business has claimed another casualty, and this time it’ s me.
As life often does, it takes you in directions you never could have predicted. When I graduated high school, I was on my way to the U. S. Military Academy at West Point to be an electrical engineer( let’ s just say that didn’ t work out and leave it at that). A year later, I transferred to my third university and began what I called“ The Pursuit,” which was as a studio engineer.
After a few years in dark smoky rooms not seeing daylight for days at a time, I diverted into working at record labels--majors at first, then on to form an independent label.
A decade ago, I launched my first software product; last year, my second. In between all that, I was a professional live sound engineer for 12 years, in addition to being a college instructor.
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