Collecting Societies by country

Different countries, different customs

All Collecting Societies (or CMO for Collective Management Organisation) around the world work differently. As a rule of thumb, the ones in the United States of America like BMI or ASCAP are flexible. Most ones in Europe like SGAE (Spain) or SABAM (Belgium) are not flexible at all.  

So what do you need to check before uploading your music to Jamendo?

Does your Collecting Society collect only for the works that are registered with them or do they collect for everything that you create? Are they registered by your name or the titles of your work?

Some examples

Let's have a look at four different examples

Case 1: You are registered with SGAE (Spain). They register you by your name, so everything that you will create from the date of your registration will automatically be registered with SGAE and they are legally allowed to collect for your works. It does not matter whether you register each separate song with them or not. Even if you create music under a different artist name. They are legally allowed to collect for any of your future works. 

Case 2: You are registered with SIAE (Italy) or SOCAN (Canada). Those PROs (Performance Rights Organisations) only register your tracks. This means that they will not collect royalties for the tracks that you do not register with them. And for your account on Jamendo, this means that you can upload any tracks that are not registered with your PRO.

Case 3: You are registered with SACEM (France). SACEM is becoming more flexible, so you can now register your tracks under Creative Commons (CC) in order to join Jamendo Music. This is an awesome first step and we hope SACEM will open itself up more and more! Basically, it means that you can upload your tracks under CC on Jamendo Music, however, you can not yet sell licenses through the Jamendo monetizing services.

Case 4: You are registered with BMI (USA) or ASCAP (USA). You are registered with a very flexible PRO and you can decide how to manage your tracks. If you wish to join Jamendo, you must inform them, so that they will not collect royalties on your behalf for every license sold through Jamendo.

You are not yet registered with a P.R.O

If you are not yet registered with a P.R.O, there are a few details that you should consider before making this step:

• A PRO is a great help in collecting royalties for your music across countries, however, it is not mandatory to register with a PRO in order to distribute and protect your music.
• Every country has a national collecting society. You do not have to register with one of your country, but rather you can choose with which country you'd like to register.
• Many independent companies are offering similar services. The European Union has recently created a new status called IME = Independent Management Entity. It allows private, commercial companies to collect artist's royalties and thus offer a wider range of options to artists.

Jamendo has adopted the status of an IME in 2019 and will be soon be offering collecting services to its artists. Read the news here.