It’s almost that time again! That time that most of us ECCO members look forward to! Cah-ching $$$! Royalty time! Tomorrow, Wednesday September 23rd, 2015 the Eastern Caribbean Collective Rights Organization ) will disburse to its members another royalty payment for 2015, for use of their music work/compositions.

Investopedia.com defines royalty as “a payment made to the legal owner of a property, especially patents, copyrighted works, franchises or natural resources, by those who wish to make use of it for the purposes of generating revenues or other such desirable activities.” Investopedia.comadds that “in most cases, royalties are designed to compensate the owner for the asset use, and are legally binding.”

Representing music authors, composers and publishers within the Eastern Caribbean, ECCO is responsible for ensuring that according to existing copyright legislation within the Eastern Caribbean, Music Users (such as radio stations and promoters/organizers of live music events) obtain the necessary clearance for public use of copyrighted music, by paying for a public performance license. Public performance include airplay on radio and TV stations, publicly playing music at venues (for instance at restaurants, hotels, stores), and live performances at events.

ECCO’s royalty disbursement for the year 2015 is as follows:

• Foreign Distribution July 2015 (completed)
  [Disbursement of royalties received from foreign societies to ECCO Members]
• Live Distributions July 2015 (Completed)
  [For Festivals within 2012/2013)
• Broadcasting & General distribution (23rd Sept, 2015)
  [For the period January to December, 2014]
• Pending Identification distribution (30th Oct, 2015)
  [For the periods 2012 – 2014]
• Live/Carnival Distributions (20th Dec, 2015)
  [For 2014]
• Jingles (20th Dec, 2015)
  [For 2014]

The upcoming Broadcasting and General Distribution royalty payment slated for September 23rd covers radio and television airplay as well as licensed venues and live music events in 2014.

For a seamless distribution process, ECCO urges members to ensure their payment instructions are up to date. Additionally ECCO reminds members that distributions cannot be made for any work which was publicly broadcasted but has not been registered with ECCO or with other collective rights organizations affiliated to ECCO.

Of note therefore is the Pending Identification Distribution, scheduled for October 30th, 2015. Pending Identification refers to royalty revenue collected by ECCO which the organization has been unable to disburse to the respective members because there is no registration or identification information for the musical works. In October, ECCO will seek to disburse to the respective members any outstanding royalties’ payments for the years 2012 to 2014, provided that registration/identification information has since been received.

As such, ECCO reiterates to members the importance of registering all their works by completing the registration of works document and submitting an mp3 of each recording of their works to ECCO.

Should you have any questions related to the upcoming royalty distributions please do not hesitate to contact ECCO via email at ecco@eccorights.org or telephone 1-758-451-6436

References:

Picture retrieved from http://soundslikejoe.com/music-royalties-basics/