Sonicbids & Songtrust Partner For D.I.Y Publishing
Later today Sonicbds further expands its artist services offering with the addition of a new Songtrust app within each artist's account. The app will help members manage their music publishing rights inexpensively and without the help of a publisher. Songtrust, developed by Downtown Music, simplifies song registration and royalty collections, and is on its way to becoming for d.y.i. music publishing what Tunecore is for digital distribution.
Within the app users can also maximize licensing opportunities and track where their songs are being used. “My Reports” within their Sonicbids Songtrust account tracks income by type of use, album and territory.
“Songtrust alleviates one of the biggest fears that composers have, namely their music being broadcast and used without their permission,” said Panos Panay, founder and CEO of Sonicbids. “Songtrust compliments the next generation of emerging artists. With Songtrust, songwriters can focus on their craft knowing that their music publishing rights are being professionally managed.”
They hide pretty well that they charge you for a year up front and then they never explain whether they are going to take the full publishing share. They claim to give you all your royalties, but then also say something about 100% of the writer share goes to you. That would mean to me that they take half your money for registering your songs! That sounds like a pretty bad deal. Anyone know more? Am I wrong on that?
I can hardly wait. SonicBids get their paws into your publishing…
We were paying an entertainment lawyer a lot of money to handle this part for our band’s business, probably 5x what the Songtrust membership seems to cost. I checked it out and spoke with someone over there and they do not keep any publishing royalties. The confusion is that the PROs (ASCAP, BMI) will pay you 100% of your “writer” royalties directly–like they do for all writers, even Jay-Z and Vampire Weekend. But any royalties that Songtrust collects (publishers share of performance, mechanical royalties, interactive streaming, lyric usage, international etc… are paid out to you, without them taking a cut so the 100% bit is pretty accurate I think. Seems like a good deal, I think I’ll give it a try.
Michael, I agree, their web site is either hiding some info or it’s just poorly done.
Jason, I’m going to call them, too. It seems like a KILLER idea and one I would happily pay for, just need to understand it better.
My information is old and maybe it’s no longer accurate, but when did SonicBids become helpful to artists?
As an artist, my experience with SonicBids makes me skeptical about this new partnership. Sonic Bids is a promoter service based site, offering great benefits to promoters at the expense of the artists.
As an artist recognizing your self-worth, you have to graduate above SonicBids pretty quickly, or pay the high price of losing both your money and your self-respect. That’s how it was a couple years ago. Did something change for the better?
Back then the SonicBids artist sites were uglier and less useful and flexible than what you get with free artist services like ReverbNation and Bandcamp. Not only does SonicBids cater to promoters looking to help finance their ventures on the backs of unsuspecting artists, (or aspiring artists) they charge the artists for their inferior accounts. Not a good deal for artists, and by extension, not a good deal for promoters who care about music.
If you’re a struggling promoter looking for a fast buck, SonicBids is your kinda place!
How much do they charge?
If this is just a monthly fee and they don’t collect any publishing, it sounds like it could indeed be a reasonable deal, but they specify on the site that you receive 100% of the writer royalties. I read that as an intentional omission of anything about publisher royalties. I’d love to know more about that for sure.