Performance Rights Organizations

If AJ does allow songs registered with PRO ’s in the future, then it might be a good idea to publish advice about how to register your songs, along with information about it so that all the authors here benefit from it and not just the ones in the know, otherwise it might confuse some of the new authors who create music as a hobby and not yet as a career.

That’s a great idea, Liam. I know from personal experience that the registration process is still very confusing to me!

scottwills said
Hey guys, seems like the question has already been answered – no, PRO registered music is NOT allowed to be sold as royalty-free music on AudioJungle. This has always been mentioned at the very top of our upload instructions page: http://wiki.envato.com/basics/audiojungle-basics/audiojungle-music-upload-instructions/

Tim asked “why not?” The main point from the very beginning was that we wanted AudioJungle customers to be absolutely sure that what they purchased was completely royalty-free and, if they purchase the correct license here, they have the secure guarantee that they will never have to pay anything again having paid for a license to use the music on AudioJungle. Some royalty-free libraries do this, some do not. We chose to.

With more and more AudioJungle music appearing on TV, radio and film however we do appreciate that we could improve our licensing to better accommodate these type of uses. This is something we have been discussing behind the scenes for quite a while but with most licensing issues on the marketplaces, changes occur slowly because they have to be managed extremely carefully and scrutinized very carefully by our legal team. So although I cannot guarantee if or when our licenses will be improved, I do personally hope that this is an area of licensing that AudioJungle will improve upon in the future for the benefit of both customers and authors.

Hi Scott,

I’m just wondering if there is any update on this issue? I notice that the post is 1 year old and I can’t find anything on the forum from AJ staff.

Many thanks

RoundSoundUK said

scottwills said
Hey guys, seems like the question has already been answered – no, PRO registered music is NOT allowed to be sold as royalty-free music on AudioJungle. This has always been mentioned at the very top of our upload instructions page: http://wiki.envato.com/basics/audiojungle-basics/audiojungle-music-upload-instructions/

Tim asked “why not?” The main point from the very beginning was that we wanted AudioJungle customers to be absolutely sure that what they purchased was completely royalty-free and, if they purchase the correct license here, they have the secure guarantee that they will never have to pay anything again having paid for a license to use the music on AudioJungle. Some royalty-free libraries do this, some do not. We chose to.

With more and more AudioJungle music appearing on TV, radio and film however we do appreciate that we could improve our licensing to better accommodate these type of uses. This is something we have been discussing behind the scenes for quite a while but with most licensing issues on the marketplaces, changes occur slowly because they have to be managed extremely carefully and scrutinized very carefully by our legal team. So although I cannot guarantee if or when our licenses will be improved, I do personally hope that this is an area of licensing that AudioJungle will improve upon in the future for the benefit of both customers and authors.

Hi Scott,

I’m just wondering if there is any update on this issue? I notice that the post is 1 year old and I can’t find anything on the forum from AJ staff.

Many thanks

No, sorry, nothing to report yet.

I guess the term “royalty free” has really a lot of definations. In some countries, if the pro is collecting mechanical and performance rights, it`s not even allowed to offer royalty free music. In other countries you can tell the pro which songs they are aware of. It`s wise to have a totally free (non-pro) catalogue here at AJ. Of course it`s unfair “if” a TV broadcaster uses your AJ songs, maybe with an extended licence, in their shows but that is a part of the game. As a composer you should be aware that you will not earn any backend money with your AJ catalogue. If you want to earn backend money with TV uses you have to follow another strategy

Thanks Scott, hope this license upgrade could see the light very soon

Envato does realize that they could get a 50% chunk of the royalties as the “publisher” of the music right? It’s ridiculous in the first place that they opt out of the PRO collection process just so they can keep the label of “royalty free” and not confuse buyers into thinking they might have to pay some phantom royalties on the music. Even sillier considering they themselves lose out on the revenue stream too, not just the artist.

AJ acts more or less like a service provider for music. They connect customers with music providers. It`s not really a classical excl. or non excl. royalty free or pro production music library. That is the reason for not collecting any backend royalities.