By Adam Wakefield
Sony/ATV’s history in South Africa stretches back to 1995, when it started trading independently. According to Naicker, the publisher has always prided itself on building its local catalogue through artists such as Sibongile Khumalo, Mdu, Arno Carstens, and Joyous Celebration who have been with them since the beginning.
“Although regarded now as one of the major publishers, Sony/ATV has always been the smallest amongst the majors, until Sony/ATV acquired the EMI Music Publishing catalogue, which catapulted Sony/ATV to the world's largest major publisher,” Naicker says.
He goes on to explain that many musicians are not aware of how the publishing process works; “Many artists and songwriters have a limited knowledge of the role of publishing and the fact that the laws and procedures vary from country to country.”
The key areas which publishers are involved in, according to Naicker, are:
- Song registration with the various collection societies – Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO)/Composers, Authors and Publishers Association (CAPASSO) and global societies;
- Licensing to third parties;
- Royalty collection - mechanical and performance royalties; and
- Creative matters such as pitching songs to be synched to commercials and films, creating co-writing and collaboration opportunities.
Alluding to the above, Naicker explains that there are three primary means of earning royalties from music.
Mechanical royalties are those generated every time a composition is reproduced, whether on vinyl, tape, CD or in digital formats. The rate in South Africa is 6.66% on published price to dealer for physical copies. This differs to downloads and streaming, which are either paid directly to the collection society by the record labels or the digital service provider (DSP).
“The collection society then in turn pays the royalties over to the publishers less their commissions,” Naicker says.
The second way of earning royalties is performance royalties, which come from each time a composition is performed live, or played on radio, television or film.
“Broadcasters have blanket licenses with SAMRO, which allows them to play any song as often as they want, but in return and as stipulated in the license, the broadcasters have to submit accurate cue sheets and reports to SAMRO,” Naicker explains.
“SAMRO then apportions an amount to each composition based on a model, which is determined by the amount a composition received airplay and on what stations it was played and so forth.”
“Performance royalties are then paid accordingly - 50% goes to the composer directly and the remaining 50% to the respective publisher. The publisher will then pay the composer or originating publisher the performance royalty as based on their agreement. Some writers receive their share directly from SAMRO, whilst others will receive their share from their publisher.”
Lastly, there is synchronisation royalties. Naicker explains that these “usually occur as a once-off fee negotiated by the publisher whenever music is ‘synchronised’ to a moving picture such as film, TV and radio commercials, TV shows, video games and so forth for an agreed term, territory, etc”.
When it comes to knowing how many times a song has been played by a radio station or DSP, Naicker says there is no certain way of establishing how often a song is played on air, but Sony/ATV relies on charts supplied by Entertainment Monitoring Africa, which monitors airplay on commercial stations.
“There is certain amount of reliance on the societies to track and report accordingly with our own internal cross referencing to find any gaps,” Naicker says.
Whilst we have our own challenges, South Africa’s music publishing industry is well-established and regulated, but elsewhere in Africa, Naicker points out that there are still many challenges regarding copyright and legitimate licensing.
However, the continent is gradually becoming more regulated with collection societies such as Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) and Music Copyright Society of Kenya, with CAPASSO/SAMRO signing agreements with both.
“Songwriters and producers are still somewhat misinformed about copyright and we have seen many composers selling their copyrights to labels and the likes, so publishing opportunities become out of reach in Africa,” Naicker says.