Frequently Asked Questions April 2016
Here at Sentric we get lots of questions from our artists regarding various aspects of our service. To make it easier, we decided to make a collection of the most frequently asked questions and give you the answers below. Check them out, and maybe you’ll find the answer that you’ve been looking for.
Why can’t I apply for the premium sync briefs?
Sync is a very competitive area to get into. When sync is listed as a Premium brief, this means that the client is looking for an actively performing artist/band to be associated with their brand. In order to access the Premium briefs, you need to have 5 gigs listed on your account that were performed within the last 12 months. This enables us to show the client that all of the artists that have applied to the brief are regularly performing.
Why does my song say it’s ‘pending’?
This usually means we’re in the process of getting the song registered at the PROs. Once you’ve added a new song to the website, we need to send this information off to the different collection societies in order to set up registrations. If your song is pending, then you won’t be able to edit it at this time, but once we’ve had confirmation that the song has been registered at the PROs, the song will become editable again. Your song can also be listed as ‘pending’ if you have made an amendment to it, as these changes may need sending off to the PROs to keep them up to date.
I’ve not been paid for my radio play.
Radio royalties should come through automatically about 9-12 months after the date of the broadcast and, because of this, we are unable to proactively make claims for broadcasts like we can for gigs. However, we are able to follow up with the PRS if you haven’t been paid for specific broadcasts after 12 months – that’s why it’s a good idea to keep your Sentric account up to date with any broadcasts you’re aware of.
How can I claim royalties from YouTube?
If your music is receiving substantial views on YouTube or if you know it is being used without your permission on the platform then please email youtube@sentricmusic.com to ensure it has been delivered to YouTube’s Content ID platform, ensure it is protected and where possible royalties are being generated.
Why haven’t I been paid for my gigs yet?
As a rough guide, royalties from smaller gigs (pubs and small venues) can take 6-9 months to come through; royalties from larger gigs (academies, for example) usually take 9-12 months to come through and royalties from overseas gigs and festivals can take a year or more to come through. It’s important to note that this waiting time begins from when you add your gigs to Sentric.
What’s my band’s PRS number?
Unless you have joined the PRS as a writer, you will not have a PRS/CAE number. Everything we do at Sentric goes through our publisher PRO memberships, but we always recommend that our writers join PRS as it means you will be paid your share of performance royalties directly from PRS. This means you will receive your performance royalties faster than if the royalties had to pass through Sentric first. It’s also much easier for the overseas PROs to pay out your writer share of royalties for any international gigs, radio play, TV broadcasts etc. if you’re a member of PRS.
How do I get paid?
If you are a member of a PRO, such as PRS, you will be paid your share of any performance royalties directly by the PRO. However, if you’re not a member of a collection society, then Sentric will collect your royalties for you and distribute them as follows:
Sentric makes distributions quarterly in January, April, July and October. You will receive an email statement from us if the balance of your account totals over £40. When you receive a statement from us, you will be asked to provide payment information so that we can distribute your royalties out to you.
Why don’t you automatically collect my Neighbouring Rights royalties?
Neighbouring Rights refer to the royalties owed for the broadcast of the master recordings. As a publisher we do not traditionally represent the master recordings of our artists. This usually falls under the role of the label; however it is becoming more common for artists to retain their master rights.
When this is the case, we can represent the master rights holder share and collect their Neighbouring Rights royalties on our clients’ behalf.
Apparently my song got played on a TV show, was this through Sentric?
The way TV works in the UK is under blanket license deals, so any producer can use any track at any-time as long as the tracks are registered with the PRS, MCPS (which we do here at Sentric as your publisher) & PPL (this is the Master Rights registration; usually done by the record label/whoever paid for the recording*). TV shows report what music they use to the collection societies which then allows us to collect and distribute the royalties to our artists. However, we can only confirm usages once the royalties come through around 12 months after the air date, meaning that often our artists hear their music being used without us informing them.
Your music may have been used on UK TV shows as we pitch music daily to all our main clients, however these are busy people and unfortunately don’t have time to inform us when they use a track. Simple answer to the question, yes it was through Sentric, however, due to the nature of UK TV you will only receive the sync information once the royalties come through.
*If you don’t have your tracks registered with the PPL yet but would like to then Sentric can help with the track registrations, just email us at info@sentricmusic.com
Can I claim royalties for a cover song I have created?
We are unable to collect royalties for cover songs. As a publisher, we collect for any original compositions on behalf of the original songwriters.
How to be featured on our socials?
If you have an upcoming release and wish to be featured on our socials, drop us an email on artistnews@sentricmusic.com.
In this email, please include an up-to-date EPK as well as any visual assets and additional information which may be of interest. The social team will see if it can be incorporated in the schedule.
If you haven’t found the answer you were looking for above, drop us a line on info@sentricmusic.com.