Be taken apart
Every rate should decompose into the things it was built from — the channel, the reach, the volume of music. If nobody can show you the parts, nobody can show you that it is right.
Rates
A rate you cannot explain is not a rate. It is a number.
There are two sides to this business and they are priced differently. Neither of them is priced with a fixed fee. What follows is how each one works and what a quote is actually built from.
The test
Three things a rate should be able to do.
These are not promises about being cheap. They are the properties that separate a price from a figure somebody hands you, and they are the ones worth asking any provider about.
Be the same next time
The same inputs should produce the same rate in six months. A price that moves without an input moving is not a rate, it is a negotiation you were not told you were having.
Follow the use
When usage can be attributed to specific works, a rate can follow it. That cuts both ways on purpose: it means less when you used less, and it means the rights holder is paid on the same evidence you were charged on.
If your music is being used
Writers and publishers: nothing to pay to be here.
The rights-holder side has no fixed component at all. Unison is paid out of what it collects, which means it is paid when you are paid and not before.
- No fixed fee
There is no fee attached to being a Unison client. Not a signup fee, not a per-work fee.
- No annual fee
No membership or subscription cost, in any year, whether or not the catalogue earned anything.
- An administration fee off royalty income
The only charge is an administration fee taken from the royalties collected on your behalf. If nothing is collected, nothing is charged.
- Agreed before anything is signed
The administration fee is part of the agreement, not a discovery on a statement. It is set with your client manager as part of the same conversation as everything else.
- Visible on every statement
What was collected and what was retained are both lines on the statement, against the usage that produced them. A fee you cannot locate on a statement is a fee you cannot check.
- Applications are case by case
There are requirements about the works held and how they are managed today, so terms are settled per application rather than published as a tariff. That is why this page explains the model and not a number.
If you use music
Music users: four things decide your rate.
Rates for a broadcaster, a hotel group and a digital service are not the same rate and should not be. These are the inputs a quote is built from, so you can work out roughly where you sit before you ask.
- The channel
Digital, radio and TV, background music, or live. They differ in how precisely use can be established, and a rate reflects that difference rather than ignoring it.
- Reach or scale
Audience, subscribers, number of premises, capacity. Whichever of these describes your channel is the one the rate is scaled on.
- How much music
Music as the whole product is not the same as music behind a conversation. A radio station and a talk channel using idents are different uses of the same catalogue.
- How use is reported
A licence priced against reported or measured use needs that reporting to exist. Where you can supply it, the rate follows the use; where you cannot, it has to be built on scale instead — which is less precise, and usually less favourable.
- What it does not depend on
Not on how long you have been negotiating, and not on how well the last conversation went. The inputs above are the inputs.
- Why there is no table here
A published tariff for four channels across every scale would be either wrong or so hedged as to be useless. The inputs are public; the number comes from applying them to your case.
How a rate gets agreed
Four steps, and none of them is a negotiation about the method.
The method is the same for everybody. What changes between one licensee and the next is the inputs it is applied to.
Describe the use
Which channels, at what scale, in which territories. This is the part only you can supply, and the accuracy of everything after it depends on it.
- Channels and territories
- Reach, premises, subscribers or capacity
Apply the inputs
The quote is the four inputs applied to what you described. Because it is built rather than chosen, it can be walked through line by line — and if an input is wrong, the number moves for a reason you can see.
- Each input shown with the effect it has
- Change an input, and see the rate change with it
- The same inputs give the same rate next time
Agree and document
An agreement that states what is covered, how use will be established for each channel, and what the rate is. Rates, agreements and invoices live in the same system, so a term can be looked up instead of remembered.
- What is covered, and what is not
- The reporting each channel expects
Invoice against use
Invoicing runs off the usage that was established, so the invoice and the rate are connected by something checkable rather than by trust.
- The lines behind the amount, not only the amount
- The same evidence the rights holder is paid on
Next step
Tell us the four inputs and we will show you the rate.
Channels, scale, how much music, and what you can report. That is enough for a real quote rather than a range.