This month we sat down with Gina Deacon of Absolute Rights Management, to discuss neighbouring rights and how you can ensure you’re maximising your income.
How do you work with artists/labels and their releases?
ARM works with labels and artists to ensure their repertoire and audible contributions are registered correctly with societies worldwide for Neighbouring Rights Royalties.
Any eligible audible contribution on a recording is entitled to claim these royalties. This includes artists, backing singers, session musicians, producers, conductors, keyboards, tambourine.
Our experienced team ensure our clients’ works are correctly registered and claimed to maximise income.
What does a typical day look like in your job?
Working with so many incredible artists and labels ensures no two days are ever the same!
There is usually a mixture of meetings with new and existing artists, reviewing and drilling into claims and disputes and running through current projects with my fantastic team.
I am also on the board of IAFAR which was founded to tackle worldwide issues affecting the collection of NR and to be a focal point for education. I head the UK Education group. We’ve recently created a series of educational podcasts and I am also involved with webinars and panel events.
What’s the biggest misconception about what you do?
That NR is connected to Publishing! Publishing is the copyright in the song ie. composer/songwriter income. NR is the sound-recording copyright which usually belongs to the record label. When a commercially released sound-recording is played in public the label and performer are entitled to equitable remuneration. The split is generally 50/50 between the copyright owner and the performer(s) (artist) for each recording.
You may be a member of PRS for your publishing but that will not help you claim your NR. To collect this, you also need to be a member of PPL, as a performer or a Rights Holder (or both) and consider joining international equivalents too.
If I’m an artist or manager, what can I do to get the most out of your area of work?
Our NR team have expert knowledge and relationships with collection societies. We know how to source unclaimed income, the nuances and requirements with different societies, how to get the most out of each contribution. We work with multiple international accounts rather than mandating one collection society which will maximise your income.
We love what we do and are constantly excited to source missed or unclaimed income for our artists and we’ve had some fantastic results! I’m always delighted to chat through the options with labels, managers and artists.
To get in touch, please contact gina@absoluterightsmanagement.com
