When an artist creates a song, it becomes subject to copyright law. The artist has the right to let other people use it or to prevent them from using it. When dealing with music, copyright also details who owns the rights to the song. The owner of a song has a claim on the royalties earned. However, collecting royalties can be extremely difficult in today's complex economy and is usually delegated to a professional. These "professionals" are known as a 'copyright collecting society.'
A copyright collective is a non-governmental body created by copyright law or private agreement which licenses copyrighted works on behalf of the authors and engages in collective rights management. When you sign up for a collecting society, you transfer to them your rights to:
Enforce your rights.
Sell people non-exclusive licenses to use your work.
Collect your royalties and distribute them.
Arrange for other collecting societies (for example, in other countries) to collect your royalties.
Copyright societies operate by acquiring the right to license works from the owners and then negotiating and licensing the works to others. The copyright societies create and publish tariffs for the authors they represent. The tariffs decided by copyright societies are based on the kind of event or venue of the licensee and usually allow the licensee to access the entire repertoire of works available to the copyright society.
Over the years, copyright societies have been losing power in the music industry. The evolution of technology and the influence of music aggregators like Spotify and Apple Music are changing the existing copyright licensing system. Streaming services have more control over how and what they pay out. Their business structure has created an almost frictionless process for new and existing artists leaving collection societies to figure out how to remain profitable.
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