Music Library - for Music Makers
FAQs
If you do not yet have a Collabhouse account, please register here. Alternatively, you will be sent an invite to create a Collabhouse account the first time a user adds you to a track as publishing royalty split owner.
When a user saves new Music Library Settings for a track on which you are allocated a publishing royalty split, a Publishing Clearance request is generated and an email is sent to all interested publishers containing the details of the track (including the royalty split assigned to you and the Music Library Settings). The email will contain a link to Collabhouse, where the publisher(s) can approve or reject the settings and a track's inclusion with the Music Library. You can review and manage your pending clearance requests from the ‘Publishing Clearances’ section of the ‘My Collabhouse’ menu.
Collabhouse does not set any Music Library Settings on behalf of a user, please contact the uploading Music Maker directly to discuss the details of a particular clearance request. The requesting Music Maker’s name or artist name can be found within the details of the notification email and alongside a clearance request.
Collabhouse shall pay out Music Library any possible earnings to users in accordance with the recording and publishing royalty splits provided for each track by the uploader. License fees generated from a sale through the Music Library are divided into 50% recording royalties and 50% publishing royalties, after deduction of Collabhouse’s 25% commission. Music Library royalties are accounted for and paid out to users on a daily basis, usually within 24 hours after a license was sold.
You can remove your track(s) from the Music Library at any time from the ‘Add to Music Library’ tab of the relevant release in your Collabhouse profile. The selected track is removed from the Music Library as soon as you confirm its removal.
You can change your track’s Music Library Settings and remove or add tracks to the Music Library and change your pricing at any time from the ‘Add to Music Library’ tab of the relevant release in your Collabhouse profile. If you are the primary owner/ controller of a track’s sound recording as well as the underlying publishing rights any changes made to your track’s Music Library Settings are reflected in the Music Library within 24 hours.
If you have indicated that there are third party controllers/ owners (ie. Publishers) of a track’s publishing rights, the track is made available within the Music Library only once all publishing rights holders have approved the inclusion of the track, and the terms under which the track is being made available. Please see the section above titled “What is the process for requesting Publishing Clearances for new Music Library settings and/ or royalties?” for more information.
Please note that when you change the Music Library settings of a track that has already been cleared, new publishing clearances are required from all interested publishers.
You can determine whether you want to offer your tracks for sync in the Music Library for free or against payment, and you can provide your own license fee per content type. The license fee you select or enter per content type in your track’s Music Library Settings is the minimum license fee, or starting price, applicable to 1-year licenses that include up to 30 seconds of use. Price mark-ups apply for licenses that include a longer track use and license term. You can change your track’s Music Library Settings including license fees at any time. Any changes you make will trigger a new publishing clearance request being sent out to all publishing royalty sp[lit owners for approval. Only once all publishing royalty split owners approved the new Music Library Settings, your track will be made live again in the Music Library.
It is free to include your tracks in the Music Library and make them available for sync licensing. Collabhouse does take a commission of 25% on any Music Library licenses sold. The rest is paid out in accordance with the recording and publishing royalty splits provided for each of your tracks.
If your clearance request is rejected or you do not receive a response, please contact the relevant publishing rights holder directly to resolve and amend your track’s publishing royalty splits and Music Library Settings accordingly to send out a new publishing clearance request.
Publishing clearances and approvals, in addition to royalty assignments, can be managed directly within the platform. Publishing royalties are assigned within the ‘Set royalty splits’ section of the ‘Create Release’ menu by allocating publishing royalty splits. When you allocate publishing royalty splits to a publishing rightsholder who does not yet have a Collabhouse account, they will be sent an invite to create an account. Clearance requests are sent once you’ve set and saved a track’s Music Library settings from the ‘Add to Music Library’ menu. The publisher(s) will then be sent an email including the Music Library Settings saved with a prompt to approve the settings and royalty splits and license their publishing rights. Publishing rights holders can manage the publishing licensing requests they receive from the ‘Publishing Clearances’ tab in their ‘My Collabhouse’ menu. You can see the status of the publishing clearance requests on your tracks from the ‘Add to Music Library’ tab of the relevant release, from the ‘Releases’ section of the ‘My Collabhouse’ menu.
Once all publishing royalty split owners have accepted to license their publishing rights into your track to us, and approved the track’s Music Library Settings under which the track is being made available, the track is made available in the Music Library.
The uploading Music Maker will receive an email notification to advise them of the following publishing clearance status updates;
- Publishing clearance request approved and clearance completed; track live in Music Library (when all publishing rights holders have approved Music Library settings and royalties).
- Publishing clearance request approved; awaiting further clearance approvals (when one of multiple publishing rights holders have approved Music Library settings and royalties).
- Publishing clearance request rejected (when any publishing rightsholder rejects the Music Library settings and royalties).
Music Library Settings allow Music Makers to add their tracks to the Music Library by determining their own license fees (or base price) and the types of projects (“Content Types”) that tracks may be used in. Content Types include Social Media, Podcast, Live Streaming & Private Filmmaking, Game & App, Radio & TV, Corporate & Non-Profit, Ads and Film. More information on what type of media each Content Type includes is provided on the ‘Music Library Settings’ page of the relevant track, When you choose to add a track to the Music Library, you will be taken to the ‘Music Library Settings’ page and asked to provide these settings.
To make a track available for use in a specific Content Type, such as ‘Social Media - Branded (incl. Ads)’, simply check the checkbox alongside that Content Type. You then need to select the pricing (either ‘Free’ or ‘Paid’) for that particular Content Type.
If you select ‘Free’ for a particular Content Type, Content Creators are able to obtain a license to use your track in their content for free. You may prefer this option if your main goal is to increase the use and exposure for your track.
If you select ‘Paid’ for a particular Content Type, Content Creators must pay a fee to obtain a license to use your track in their content and you can determine the base price of a license. You can either choose from our pre-filled ‘LOW’, ‘MID’ or ‘HIGH’ suggested price tiers, or choose ‘CUSTOM’ to determine your own license base price which can be anywhere between €0.25 and €10,000.00.
The final license fee for a track is determined by the base price you select as part of the track’s Music Library Settings in combination with the Content Type, license term and track length selected by the end user.
You can set Music Library Settings on a release level, by selecting the ‘Per release’ option before inputting your settings, to add all tracks on a release to the Music Library with the same settings. Or you can set Music Library Settings on a track-by-track basis by selecting the ‘Per track’ option before inputting your settings. You can choose to add some, all or none of tracks to the Music Library.
You can change your track’s Music Library Settings, including pricing, at any time. Any changes you make will need to be approved by all publishing split owners before your track is re-included in the Music Library.
You can submit tracks to the Music Library directly for which you own or control both the master rights as well as all of the underlying publishing rights worldwide and for which you have allocated all publishing royalty splits to your own profile. Upon submission to the Music Library, your tracks will immediately go live without further publishing clearances required.
Tracks to which you only own or control the master rights worldwide but not all of the publishing rights and for which you have allocated publishing royalty splits to other profiles, will only go live in the Music Library after all such publishing royalty split owners have accepted to license their publishing rights into the track to us, and approved the track’s Music Library Settings under which the track is being made available. You can use Collabhouse’s ‘Publishing Clearance’ functionality as described here below to obtain the required licenses from the publishing royalty split owners. Should one of the publishing rights owners refuse to license their publishing rights into your track, we advise you to contact the rightsholder directly to resolve.
Once a track has been submitted to the Music Library it will first undergo our Quality Control process:
- each individual track is listened to and accepted or rejected, based on overall recording quality, musical style, copyright compatibility and potential
- each individual track is rated
- all tracks are tagged with an AI-based music tagging system (style, mood, energy, etc.) in order to improve their visibility and optimize their sync potential
1. Create a profile and upload a release
First create a Collabhouse profile and make sure to select ‘Music Maker’ as one of the roles. Once you have a profile please go to the ‘Releases’ page in your ‘My Collabhouse’ section and follow the steps to create a release.
You can upload single tracks, EPs or albums (with a maximum of 15 tracks). For each release, you need to provide artwork, release and track name(s), audio files, together with other important information that helps identify your tracks in the Music Library. You are able to add songs that are already distributed to DPS (not via Collabhouse) to the Music Library - in this case please make sure to skip the part where you submita the release for distribution.
Provide Recording and Publishing Royalty Splits
After uploading and completing a release, you must indicate how both recording and publishing royalties earned on the tracks included on your release must be paid out. To allocate royalties to someone else, simply add their email address. When the person or company you are looking to give a royalty split is already on Collabhouse, you can select their Collabhouse profile. An invite to join Collabhouse is automatically sent, when the person or company you are looking to give a royalty split to is not yet on Collabhouse. Please note that approval is required from the person and/or company you allocate a publishing royalty split to before your track(s) are made available in the Music Library. Further details on Publishing Clearance requests are provided below.
3. Select tracks and set your Music Library Settings
Next step is to select the tracks you want to add to the Music Library and provide your Music Library Settings for each track. You can do this on the ‘Add to Music Library’ tab of the relevant release in your ‘Releases’ menu. You also have the option to set the same Music Library Settings for all tracks on your release or provide different settings for each individual track. After selecting your tracks and providing your Music Library Settings for each of them, you can submit them for inclusion in the Music Library.
4. Publishing Clearance requests
- If you or your profile owns or controls all publishing rights into your track and you have allocated 100% of publishing royalty splits to your own Profile, your track is made available in the Music Library immediately after submission.
- If you or your profile does not own or control all publishing rights into your track you must indicate the parties that own/control such publishing rights by allocating publishing royalty splits to these parties using the ‘royalty splits’ screen of the relevant release (please see above). When you submit your track to the Music Library by setting and saving your Music Library Settings, a publishing clearance request is sent to the respective publishing rightsholder(s) you allocated a publishing royalty split to. Once all publishing royalty split owners have agreed to license their publishing rights in the track to us, and approved the track’s Music Library Settings under which the track is being made available as well as the track’s publishing royalty splits, the track is made available in the Music Library.
- You can change your track’s royalty splits and Music Library Settings at any time. Any changes you make will need to be approved by all publishing split owners before your track is re-included in the Music Library.
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