eli5, Music industry folks: royalty question

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I understand how performance and mechanical and sync royalties work. I can’t find the answer I’m looking for anywhere: I know the venue pays dues for the right to have people perform; I know the collecting organizations distribute the royalties to the artists who own the IP; but HOW do the organizations know WHICH artists to pay?

If I play 45 songs a night at a local pub, how do I know the artists I actually play, will be paid?

Are set lists supposed to be submitted? Do the collection organizations audit venues to see what was performed? Do all represented artists just get a percentage of all royalties collected, regardless of whether their songs are performed? What is the **mechanism** that puts the money in the pockets of the CORRECT artists? Or IS there one?

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4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

If possible the set lists should be submitted in as much detail as possible. Depending on the type of venue it may even be required. I know for example that radio stations have to record this in very high detail and submit it on a regular basis. So they tend to have special music applications which logs everything so that you can put a playlist on shuffle and still be able to submit the set list. For a venue like a pub or a cafe you might only be required to submit the list of songs in the playlist but not in detail which song is played when. But if you have this information the record companies want it and may give you a discount. You can for example get jukeboxes with counters so you can tally up which songs are the most popular and the artist gets more royalties. With modern music streaming services the work of collecting this data have become easier.

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