PRO royalties

OK, I know this has been hashed out to the point of nausea, BUT I STILL AM NOT TOTALLY SURE! Many threads pull from the license agreement, but I have not found one that addresses this line (which may be new?):

"For PRO Audio Content, nothing herein shall be deemed a waiver of any PRO royalties. You shall submit, and will instruct any third Person acquiring rights to the Works for Distribution, to submit cue sheets to the relevant PRO and to Pond5, and you will timely pay any PRO royalties or ensure such royalties are timely paid."

This sounds like if I were to use a song in my video for a local business or non-profit, that I might have to pay royalties. These videos are going on a website, and maybe youtube or vimeo, and the embed code will be used on the website. Not on National TV.

Someone just slap me upside the head and day don't worry. Or "get a lawyer." I know. But...

To help you out you will never pay royalties. Say you make a video and put it on YouTube or Vimeo. They are the broadcasters so that is something they will have to deal with not you. Same thing with television. Say your making a commercial or tv show. You won't have to worry about any additional fees. That is something the broadcast network has to worry about. So long story short, you are good, don't worry.

But surely the fact that it is a PRO registered track, P5 have the responsibility to pass that on to the end user ? I have PRO music as well as royalty free and am wondering myself if clients understand it's limitations when it comes to broadcast.

Anyone else submit their PRO music here ?

Seems that shady sentence is trying to predict all possible variations :)
Those words "you should pay" are true if buyer and broadcaster are one entity.
As soon as you do not broadcast - you are free from fee (as MuscoSound said).

P.S.: Normally, broadcaster has own initiative to ask all additional info as for music used (track name, composer name, PRO affiliation CAE/IPI..)

I must add a couple of things to this. I have had several Pond5 customers unsure about this. I wonder if it can be detrimental to sales if a client sees the PRO information and goes elsewhere because they aren't sure if somewhere along the line, they get clobbered with a royalty claim. I think perhaps Pond5 should make it abundantly clear that only the broadcaster will be liable for PRO royalties, it's obviously a concern for some clients.

An example is here which I received from a potential licensee:

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The warning came up when I was checking the track in my basket by holding my mouse over the track. It has a little exclamation mark triangle sign, and says:

Copyright Limitations

This media belongs to an artist that is a member of a Performing Rights Organisation. This may require the submission of cue sheets.

further to that, the bit in Pond5's terms that says:

e. For PRO Audio Content, nothing herein shall be deemed a waiver of any PRO royalties. You shall submit, and will instruct any third Person acquiring rights to the Works for Distribution, to submit cue sheets to the relevant PRO and to Pond5, and you will timely pay any PRO royalties or ensure such royalties are timely paid.


also had me concerned - it seems to indicate that if a track is licensed with a Performing Rights Organisation, that both Pond5's fees and the PRO's fees must be paid to use it.

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I managed to explain that it's only a broadcaster that pays PRO royalties (YouTube, Radio, TV etc). Submit the information on a cue sheet and the licensees obligations are complete.


Secondly, I had a licensee double check the cue sheet information was correct as the music was to be used for the "Forbidden" program on Discovery. This was appreciated and the client understood that PRO royalties are all part of a composers income, not just the licensing money from Pond5.

So OP is right to be concerned about the lack of clarity regarding PRO royalties.

Personally, and I know that the vast majority of composers on here wouldn't agree, but most of my income is from PRO royalties, so the masters I create are merely a way of getting my compositions out there to be used in order to generate publishing income. One piece i licensed on here for $15 has so far generated $300 in PRO royalties. So if you license something from me cheaply, fill out the cue-sheet and you'll help me out without paying an extra cent :)