Differences Between: Performance & Mechanical Royalties

Anytime you put out a song, you’re actually putting out two separate things; A master recording & a composition. The master recording is the original physical copy of the song which in this era would be the actual .wav or .mp3 file of the song. The composition is the total idea behind the song including; the melodies, sounds, lyrics and rhythms in the song all put together.

Now whenever the master is used commercially, the composition is also used because the composition is found in the master. And whenever the composition is used, it generates money known as publishing royalties. This is divided into 2 categories; performance royalties and mechanical royalties.

Performance royalties are generated whenever the song is played or used in any commercial setting; radio play, TV ad, bars, restaurants, clubs, pubs, offices, business premises. They are collected by and paid through P.R.O.s. Mechanical royalties are generated anytime the original composition is duplicated. For example; back in the day, in order for stores to sell records, they had to print multiple CD copies of the original song to sell to multiple fans. Every single time they made a copy, a duplicate of the song was created and so songwriters were paid a mechanical royalty for each copy created.

This mechanical royalty was completely separate from the money that they were also paid per sale of each record. In modern day where CDs are no longer in use, anytime a song is streamed or downloaded from Spotify, Apple Music or any streaming platform, the songwriters are paid a mechanical royalty which is also separate from the money from sales and streams already paid out by the distributor. Mechanical royalties are collected by an agency called Harry Fox, and so in order to collect your mechanicals, you would have to register with that agency in addition to your P.R.O.

If you need help collecting both your performance and mechanical royalties, we can get you started. Click here to start the registration process today so you can earn more from your music.