Absolutely. You are liable for all of the content you submit.
This includes music, pictures, metadata, files and any other material uploaded by you to the platform.
This means that Apple Music Distribution and/or our partners, in addition to any other third party, may take legal action against you if you infringe copyright, trademark or any other intellectual property rights.
Our contract also states that we, as your music aggregator, as well as the partners we distribute to and do business with, are exempt from any and all proceedings that may arise in the case of any infringement.
Digital retailers may remove the following categories of content from their services (Note that these categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive or exhaustive):
1.1 Copyright-‐Infringing Content Digital retailers may remove artwork and/or sound recordings used without the rights holders’ permission.
1.2 Trademark-‐Infringing Content Digital retailers may remove trademarked artist names or logos in case these are used without the permission of the trademark owner. This includes misrepresenting a track as originating from or featuring another artist, or using an artist’s name in a misleading way. A party complaining about such infringement would need to evidence a valid trademark or exclusive ownership in each claimed territory. Alternatively, the complaining party would have to demonstrate to the channel that the potentially infringing content is misrepresenting itself as content of the complaining party and that such content is likely to deceive users of the channel´s service.
In cases under 1.1 and 1.2 where ownership is not clear ,the parties may be brought together and will be expected to provide the channel in question with a mutual conclusion on the right to use the content/trademark. Generally, channels reserve the right to remove relevant content until a satisfactory conclusion is reached.
1.3 Offensive/Abusive/Defamatory/Obscene Content Digital retailers may remove content that, in their opinion, is likely to incite hatred or discrimination of any kind, whether related to race, religion, sexuality or otherwise, or content that is deemed offensive, abusive, defamatory, illegal, pornographic or obscene in any way.
1.4 Certain Recent Public Domain Content At the digital retailers´discretion, recordings less than 90 years old that by operation of law may fall into the public domain in some territories may not be treated as public domain recordings. Such recordings will be treated as protected by their last applicable copyright in a relevant territory.
1.5 Nazi-‐Related Content Digital retailers may remove Nazi-related content and content recognized as harmful by the BPjM (Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende medien), prohibited by German authorities or as otherwise recognized by anti-Nazi laws in any applicable jurisdiction.
Fair Use is an exception in the copyright law that allows small portions of a work to be used without permission for nonprofit, news, educational, or parody purposes.
The doctrine is however often misunderstood. To fall under "Fair Use", only a small portion of the work may be used and the use must not affect the value or marketability of the work.
Selling concert recordings or photocopying sheet music without permission would not fall under fair use.
Check out the following links for more information on Fair Use:
Copyright.gov - Fair Use
The official Copyright Office explanation of Fair Use.
What Is Fair Use?
Useful resource from YouTube about Fair Use.
"Copyright and Fair Use Overview" on Stanford.edu
An article covering Fair Use in detail.
Usually it is a matter of days for your music to go live in the stores after you complete the order and delivery process.
However some digital stores have their own internal procedures and may take longer to make you music available on their front-end retail services.
iTunes: Most releases take 48-72 hours to go live in iTunes but since there is no commitment from the store it can be up to 15 days.
Spotify: 48-72 business hours
Amazon MP3, Deezer: 3-7 business days
Google Play: about 2 weeks
All other stores take 1-3 weeks
Remember these are approximate timelines only, and we can not guarantee the exact time your music will go live in these stores as we have no control on the digital retail stores' internal content management and integration processes.
You can follow the progress of your release's distribution at anytime from the "history" tab of your release(s).
*Times DO vary and releases DO take longer to go live between Nov-Jan of any given year.
Keep that in mind when planning your release!
WHAT IS ITUNES RADIO?
iTunes Radio is a non-interactive streaming radio service iTunes launched in early September 2013. iTunes Radio offers Featured Stations and over 200 genre based stations for listeners. Listeners also have the ability to create their own customized stations based on particular artists, songs, genres, and more. Your personalized stations will adapt based on the music you play and download, and you will be be able to rate the music that's currently playing to have the station continuously learn your music preferences. When your music is in the iTunes store, it will automatically become available for iTunes Radio. Not only will you be able to reach more iTunes users, but all your revenue from iTunes Radio streams will go directly into your royalty account.
WHERE IS ITUNES RADIO AVAILABLE?
iTunes Radio is only available in the United States and on the following devices: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, PC, and Apple TV.
HOW MUCH DO APPLE MUSIC DISTRIBUTION ARTISTS GET PAID WHEN THEIR RECORDINGS ARE PLAYED VIA ITUNES RADIO?
When your music is played/streamed on iTunes Radio, you get paid the sum of a per play fee and a proportionate share of iTunes' net advertising revenue per month calculated on terms set out in our blanket agreement with the store. Payments may fluctuate each month, depending on the amount of advertising revenue generated and how often your music was streamed. Listeners are able to click the "Buy" button on a track they're listening to download instantly from iTunes. Or a listener can add a song to his or her Wish List and come back later to purchase the song through the History page.
iTunes Radio will be ad-free for iTunes Match subscribers. Learn More about iTunes Radio here . IMPORTANT : There is no way to exclude your music from iTunes Radio if it's live in the iTunes Music Store.
Pandora is a music streaming and discovery platform that utilizes its proprietary Music Genome Project® to deliver personalized music tailored to the tastes of music listeners. Pandora has 3 tiers of service: Tier 1: Ad-supported radio, with listeners getting extra skips and limited replays of a recently played track by watching a 15-30 second video. Tier 2: “Pandora Plus” limited interactive radio, with more replays and skips and the ability to listen to offline radio stations including Pandora’s most popular feature, Thumbprint radio. Tier 3: "Pandora Premium" with full on-demand music selection and playback functionality.
Pandora may not make your content available in Pandora Premium if they are unable to clear the necessary publishing rights.
Please note that your music may not be available for streaming on Pandora Premium until Pandora is able to license certain music publishing rights for the underlying musical composition(s) of your sound recording(s). Pandora relies on Music Reports Inc. to clear these rights. Therefore, in certain cases, your music can’t go live on Pandora Premium until whomever publishes the musical composition behind your music is registered with this company. If you both wrote and self-published the music you’re distributing, you’re welcome to sign up for Apple Music Distribution's Publishing Administration service, available in the artist services tab . Once you sign up, we will, on your behalf, take care of getting your music properly registered and licensed to be streamed and sold in any major store.
NOTE: Apple Music Distribution cannot guarantee that delivered content will be added to Pandora’s playable library, which is curated. Please be aware that the following types of content will not be added to Pandora’s playable library: • Spoken word or other non-music audio • Karaoke • Ringtones • Nature sounds • Content using Middle Eastern, Asian or Cyrillic script. • Soundalike covers
GO LIVE TIME
IMPORTANT : Not all content will become available in Pandora . Pandora has their own review process (which can take at least 3 weeks) and curates all music that is delivered to them. As a result, we are not able to provide a time frame for when content will become available in their services (if ever).
PANDORA TERRITORIES (WHERE MUSIC SELLS)
Pandora is available in the United States.
HOW PANDORA SELLS YOUR MUSIC
Does Pandora sell your music via?:
DOWNLOADS STREAMS
No Yes
PAY RATE (HOW MUCH PANDORA PAYS YOU)
For Tier 1 plays, Pandora will still be paying a portion of revenue through Sound Exchange. For any questions pertaining to money paid to Sound Exchange, please contact Sound Exchange directly.
Paid Streams: When a subscriber streams your music, you get paid a proportionate share of Pandora's subscription revenue per month calculated on terms set out in our blanket agreement with the store (this usually excludes streams during a subscriber's free trial). Payments will fluctuate each month, depending on the amount of subscription revenue generated and how often your music was streamed.
GOOD TO KNOW: We've built our Music Publishing to get songwriters (the person or entity that controls the copyright to the lyrics and melody of the composition) all their royalties from sales and use of their compositions around the world. To learn more about the additional separate royalties you earn as a Songwriter, see our Publishing Help section.
HOW DO I SET UP A GOOGLE PLAY ARTIST PAGE?
Follow the instructions below to claim and set up your Google Play Artist page:
IMPORTANT: Before proceeding to the first step, at least one of your releases must have already gone live in Google Play. If you set up your Google Artist Page before your music has gone live, you will have to pay $25. Be sure to wait for your music to go live before setting up an Artist Page.
Visit music.google.com/publish
Sign-in with the Google account with which you would like your artist page associated.
Search for your artist name. When found, click the Select button next to your artist name.
You may be asked to provide a verification code to verify your identify. Go here to request a verification code.
Accept all the agreements and terms of service.
Google Play requires you to provide credit card information using Google Checkout, as this protects against artist impersonation. You will NOT be charged money so long as one of your releases has already gone live in Google Play. Once your card is verified, you will have instant access to begin editing your artist page.
Good Things To Know :
When you distribute your music to Google Play through Apple Music Distribution, we do not maintain or update your Google Artist Page.
It is up to the artist or artist manager to provide information to Google Play for the Artist Page.
To upload and publish content through Google Play's artist portal, users must be residents of the United States (including its territories, protectorates and insular areas).
To edit an artist page, you can be located anywhere in the world.
Here is the list of roles you can add to your release when uploading to Apple Music Distribution:
Main Artist - This is the Main Artist of the song or album
Featured - This is the Featured Artist on the song or album. There can be 1 or many Featured Artists
Songwriter - This is the person (or persons) who wrote the lyrics and/or wrote the music for a song
Producer - The producer oversees and manages the production of a sound recording
Actor - This role should be reserved for Soundtracks/Theatrical recordings only. Ex. Bing Crosby (Actor) on “Singing in the Rain”
Composer - This role should be reserved for Classical music only. A Composer is the person who wrote the music for a Classical piece. Ex. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (composer) “The Marriage of Figaro”
Lyricist - Reserved for theatrical performances i.e. plays, musicals etc. Person (or persons) who wrote the lyrics
How does the Facebook Monetization service work?
With Facebook Monetization, users will be able to use your music in the content they create and share on the Facebook and Instagram platforms (in the future this will include a searchable Audio Library). Once you’ve opted-in for the Facebook Monetization service, your music is being monetized (please note, you will not see a visual confirmation, such as an ad, on videos that use your music).
How much does it cost to monetize my music on Facebook?
Opting into the service is completely free. You will keep 80% of the revenue Apple Music Distribution collects from Facebook.
How do I send my music to Facebook?
You can opt-in to Facebook Monetization any time by going to your account and selecting which tracks you wish to have monetized.
When will I start getting paid revenue from Facebook Monetization?
We plan on paying our artists for Facebook usage in the third quarter of 2018. The exact month that payment will occur is dependent on when the first payment from Facebook is delivered. After the first payment, revenue will be paid out quarterly.
What's the difference between "eligible" sound recordings that I can monetize and "ineligible" sound recordings that I cannot submit to the Facebook Monetization service?
Eligible: You can submit specific tracks to the Facebook Monetization service that:
Use only your own material for which you have exclusive rights.
Use third-party material for which you have exclusive rights.
Ineligible: You can not submit tracks to the Facebook Monetization service that:
Contain public domain clips or speeches
Contain any audio library samples, sound effects, or production loops (such as GarageBand loops)
Contain any third party content that you do not have exclusively licensed (such as samples you do not have exclusively licensed)
Are karaoke versions or sound-a-like cover versions
Are part of a compilation/various artists' albums
You have previously licensed to a third party, on an exclusive basis
Have already been submitted for monetization on Facebook through another distributor
Are video game soundtracks (unless you are the video game publisher)
(Violations of these guidelines may lead to permanent blocking of your account from this service.)
How much will I get paid for Facebook Monetization?
Apple Music Distribution has negotiated a lump sum payment from Facebook for their Monetization service that covers the next 2 years. In the first year, Facebook will not provide any usage reports for activity on their platform to any providers (this is the same situation for all distribution companies and major labels). As a result, Apple Music Distribution will be using a pro rata payment method for all music that has opted-in to the Facebook Monetization service during that time. After the first year (mid-2019), or once Facebook provides usage reports we will pay artists based on their actual usage in Facebook.
Yes.
We have a very sophisticated email notification process that allows us to notify you as soon as your Release is delivered.
(Once delivered, your content has to be ingested and made available in stores by the digital retail services, please refer to the FAQ for information on how long it will take for your music to go live)
1. Quality of images. The cover art must not be any of the following: blurry, pixelated, mismatched, misaligned, rotated, incorrect, or have other quality issues.
2. Links and webpages. The cover art must not contain website addresses, websites that sell music, mention to social media, logos of any store or services related to entertainment, mention to phisical formats, or any external reference of the digital release.
3. Credits and collaborations. The cover art must not include credits or other artist's names who are not the primary artist of the release. Mention of composers, arrangers, producers, etc. are also not acceptable. All information must be assigned in their corresponding fields.
4. Tracklisting. The cover art must not contain track listing, as the image will be generally visualized in small formats.
5. Descriptions and biographies. The cover art must not include albums' descriptions, nor artist's biographies.
6. Telephone or email addresses. The cover art must not contain any telephone number and email addresses.
7. Digital Product. The cover art must not include references to it being a digital product.
8. Pricing. The cover art must not include references to pricing, nor any information with promotional purposes.
9. Pornography. The cover art must not contain pornography or a URL for a website that contains or links to pornography.
10. Misleading information. The cover art must not be misleading. For example, prominently depicting or referencing an artist even though the artist does not perform on the album.
11. Missing Content. The cover art must not contain references to content that the album doesn't contain, such as “included DVD” or “includes lyrics.”
12. Offensive Symbolism. The cover art must not contain any kind of symbolism that offends a specific group of persons or ethnicities, such as nazi symbolism restricted by the Strafgesetzbuch section 86a.
13. Irrelevant information. The cover art must not include additional information which are irrelevant to the content's identification, Such as "descriptions", "biographies", "credits", etc.
14. Dimensions of cover art. The cover art must accomplish with all following requirements.
Proportion: Must be squared.
Minimum size: 3000 x 3000 px.
Maximun size: 5000 x 5000 px.
Acepted formats: JPG, TIFF or PNG.
Mode: RGB (CMYK is not acceptable)
Maximun size of file: 36 MB.
The images not meeting with all the above requirements will not be accepted by the platform.
You can login at any time to the My Account section to withdraw your money (royalties from sales).
Withdrawals requests are possible only if your account balance is equal or greater than twenty (20) USD
Account balances lower than twenty (20) USD will be rolled into the following month.
You can withdraw your music using your PayPal account or alternatively we can issue a bank transfer (for larger amounts, additional bank transaction fees may apply).
If you don't have any PayPal account, you can create one here.
www.paypal.com
To request your payment please log in to your account
Then go to Sales > Balance and click on Request Outpayment.
Apple provides a tool named iTunes Link Maker, allowing you to:
1. search and find your Music on the iTunes store
2. create buy-links pointing to your Releases or Tracks that are available on the iTunes store.
Please go to https://itunes.apple.com/linkmaker and use your Release or Track title or artist name to run the search.
Apple Music Distribution is constantly adding new stores and territories to offer you the greatest number of channels for delivering your music to.
Here are the stores we currently distribute to (updated January 2020):
7Digital
Akazoo
Amazon Music
Anghami
AWA
Boomplay
Beatport
Claro música
Deezer
7 Digital
Dubset
Facebook Rights Manager (Instagram)
Google Play
Gracenote
iHeart Radio
IMI Mobile
iTunes / Apple Music
KDigital Media
Kkbox
MonkingMe
NetEase Cloud Music
Pandora
Pyromusic
Rhapsody / Napster
JioSaavn
Shazam
Soundcloud
Spinlet
Spotify
TikTok
TIDAL
Xiami Music
Yandex
YouTube Content ID
YouTube Music
Zvooq
Music publishing refers to the royalties you can make as the copyright holder of the music you write.
Copyright law protects songwriters by giving them exclusive rights to grant or deny the reproduction, distribution, or performance of their work.
When you write / compose original music and register the copyrights correctly and comprehensively, you will be able to start collecting royalties on that music in the following forms:
Public Performance Royalties
Mechanical Royalties
Sync Royalties
Foreign Royalties
Printed Music Royalties
As a registered publishing company, we are also offering publishing deals to a very limited number of songwriters.
You can submit your music here
U.S. copyright law requires you to obtain permission (a license) from the owners of a song when you record a cover of it, no matter how you use it.
This is true even if you are giving away your project for free, or if it's for a non-profit.
You do not need permission to use songs that you wrote yourself or songs that you know are in the Public Domain.
Additionally any cover version of an existing work must always respect the "Moral Rights" of the original author or composer.
This means:
respect the copyrights of the original writers by displaying their names in the song credits.
maintain the integrity of the lyrics and the music.
In all Civil Law jurisdictions, such as most European countries, if the cover song is faithful to the original work, it is sufficient to just mention the owners of that work, and it is not required to obtain an authorization to use the work. However, all rights holders (writers and publishers) shall be credited.
In Common Law countries like USA, it is always necessary to obtain a Mechanical License for distributing a cover song.
You may obtain a licence from one of these services:
Loudr
Easy Song Licensing
Harry Fox Agency
It can also happen that in some situations, the publishers or copyright owners should be contacted for an authorization / approval:
When performing what is commonly known as a "transformation" or "variation" or "derivative work" of the work.
When the cover differs from the original work, or have different arrangements (such as a "Pop" song performed in "Salsa" style).
The abovementioned cases may infringe the moral rights of the original writers and shall be subject to an authorization.
WARNING: Cover songs must not be understood as a Remix. If a Remix or the use Samples (of other songs) are made, it is always required to request the corresponding permission from the owner of the original master (which has been used in part) and from the writers/publishers. In other terms you have to clear Master and Publishing rights for remixing and/or sampling an existing song.
You can see your sales at any time from the user interface.
To see your sales reports, go to Sales > Reports from your Dashboard.
To see the sales trends and real-time* analytics, go to the Sales > Analytics section of the interface.
*digital stores usually provide the royalty statements with (at least) one month delay after the effective sale date
Stores usually report an entire month’s sales on a 2-3 months delay.
Payments are issued within 60 to 90 days after the last day of every month.
For example, sales made in January will be issued no sooner than late March (or early April)
The reporting and digital revenues payment is a 2-step process:
1. Upload royalties
Every month between the 10th and 20th*, all available sales data reports are uploaded to the platform.
These sales data reports contain estimated sales and are reflected as such in the Sales > Analytics tab.
In this tab, each channel is displayed in a different color and sales data can be filtered by date, channel, label, release or track.
What is reflected in the analytics tab, are estimated gross sales before deduction of bank fees.
2. Sales confirmation
When we receive a payment from a channel, we confirm the corresponding sales report (between the 20th and 30th)
These sales are reflected as confirmed sales in the platform and added to your balance, accessible from your user account.
In this confirmation process, the platform deducts taxes, bank and transaction fees, in case these have been deducted by the channels or banks during the payment process. Due to this, confirmed sales may be lower than initially shown as unconfirmed (gross) sales.
Once a sales report has been confirmed, the system redraws the graph in the "Analytics" screen, taking into account the new values.
*Except for January, as a result of year closing and auditing, the sales will be made available on the 20th
Note: There may be delays in payment cycles which may prevent us from issuing your payments in a timely manner. This is usually the consequence of digital services reporting and/or paying late.