The Next Step

I recently noted that some of my work was used in a political ad. There's bad news and good news about this.

The Bad News

The bad news is that I'm potentially leaving money on the table. There are performance rights organizations out there. These PROs, as they're called, work out agreements with broadcasters and others who use music, to make sure that the composers who wrote the music are fairly compensated. Since I'm not a member of a PRO, I'm potentially leaving money on the table if someone who licenses my work on Pond5, Luckstock, or Motion Elements then uses it in what the PROs call a "performance."

The Good News

However, there's a catch-22 of sorts. In order to be eligible for membership in some PROs, like the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), you have to have had your work performed in public. So the good news is that I now qualify for ASCAP membership. Yesterday, I hopped on line and applied for membership in ASCAP. I plunked down some money for both an artist and publisher membership. I hope there are no problems being accepted (I've never been through this process before, so I don't know). Either way, I'll post updates in this blog.