In South Africa, you have SAMPRA (South African Music Performance Rights Association), which deals with needletime music that goes with your music videos.
You have SAMRO (South African Music Rights Organisation), which is the performing rights society that represents your music on a performance scale.
Then you have CAPASSO which deals with mechanical rights. Make sure you do your research on all three societies. The more that you sign up with, the more agencies have your back in terms of collecting your royalties on your behalf.
Now it’s very important to be a professional artist who is releasing music that is performing on radio, that is on TV, that is being used in some way in all these content-driven streaming platforms. They’ll be able to track down the royalties to give you the money that you deserve. You might enter a waiting list for some of these societies, but a waiting list is better than being on no list at all.
Make sure you sign up with distribution agencies or DSP aggregators because these platforms will ensure that you have an ISRC code. These are codes that track a specific song or album. If your music is out there, then it is professional. If your music is available on YouTube, played on radio or TV, being used in a store, or played by a DJ at a club, it is likely because they have obtained a blanket license to use it. This is how they collect your royalties on your behalf and why you have to register your songs before releasing them.
Make sure you have a paper trail of all the music you are creating. When creating music on various platforms, the sessions are assigned specific dates. When a song is out, write it on a piece of paper. Write your ten songs, go to the police station to get them stamped and dated to make sure that if somebody claims your music, you have a record that shows that it’s your work and when it was created.
The more proof you have or the more receipts as today's generation would say, the better position you are in to prove that what you have created is yours and it is your copyright to own.
If you’d like me to help you with registering your music on the above-mentioned platforms, then please book a ONE-ON-ONE CONSULTATION SESSION with me. We can also assess where you are as an artist and figure out the next step in solidifying what you are building as an independent artist especially when it comes to copyrighting your music. I’ve helped many artists, and producers as well to sign up with these performing societies.
REMEMBER you can also book a FREE GROUP CONSULTATION where I answer any question you might have about being an independent artist.
Thank you for your constant support and encouragement. If you’d like to show your support for the work I do, here are some of the ways you can do that.
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