Photo Credit: Bridger
Songwriters can now easily register collaborative musical works, and all the rights holders of a track can begin collecting their copyright in just a few minutes.
The following was created in collaboration with Bridger, a company DMN is proud to be partnered with.
Registering musical works is one of the most complicated administrative duties artists and songwriters have. A single track can sometimes have ten or more co-writers, which is why Bridger’s new collaborative works feature is so important. It removes a serious pain point for musical work registration and furthers Bridger’s mission to make copyright accessible to all.
Bridger’s new collaborative works registration feature is now available to all of its members at no additional charge.
The feature primarily serves DIY musicians and non-published independent artists who need to register musical works written and/or composed by several people. Musical work registration is a crucial step in the copyright collection process. It ensures that every rights holder receives the income they deserve for their contribution to the music world.
“Artists finally have the possibility to easily register and manage collaborative musical works on an online platform. This is a highly anticipated feature for many musicians,” Jocelyn Seilles, Founder and General Manager of Bridger, tells Digital Music News. “The possibility for the collaborators to validate or make a counter-proposal of the split is an exclusive feature that no other Collective Management Organization offers, and we are glad to see that even some publishers have already validated our tool.”
How Bridger Collaborative Work Registration Works
When an artist or a songwriter registers a musical work on Bridger, they are asked if there are other rights holders who have participated in the track’s creation. If so, they will enter the names of the other rights holders and their contact info, then suggest an applicable split for the rights share.
Photo Credit: Bridger
Regardless of whether the other co-authors are Bridger members or members of other organizations, they will have to validate the proposed splits. They can also make their counter-proposals, which helps avoid future disputes over the split.
An estimated $655 million of royalties generated on streaming platforms do not get paid out to the relevant rights holders. This ‘black box’ of unpaid royalties accumulates because large numbers of non-affiliated songwriters, along with bad track metadata, make it impossible for the rights holders to be identified. So, the royalties they have earned cannot be distributed to them. Bridger hopes its new collaborative musical works registration feature will improve metadata accuracy and reduce this black box of unpaid royalties.