FAQ'S
Unfortunately, no it is not. It has its up's and downs like any other business and requires a "thick skin". I would suggest before you hit the stage commercially, do your research from the business perspective in order to understand the basics of protecting your creativity. Then decide is this the life-long career you want to pursue? Always remember it is "The Business of Music" not "The Music Business". The same applies to live performances, motion pictures, television, etc.
A great place to start would be understanding Copyrights and the difference between them. Next would be looking into and understanding the functionalities of PRO'S (Performing Rights Organizations) and what role they play in your life as a songwriter, publisher, and administrator.
No you cannot.
(a) RSE does not collect your royalty money from the digital shops. We eliminate the middle man by authorizing professional royalty collection / accounting specialists to collect, account and distribute your royalties direct to you thus having you set up to receive your money directly from the source.
(b) They have direct deals with all the online shops and payments go directly to them from the online shops then directly to you. RS handles the day to day business affairs, contracts, business relataionships and customer support with the labels we sign and distribute through Rainysongs Entertainment.
(c) When you are due royalty income, you are paid your royalties directly. Its an easy and transparent process for you to have your royalties wired directly and deposited into your designated bank account or financial establishment direct from the source.
Question:
1. How is the rate of conversion factored in to gross revenues?
2. Is it an average or does it differ from country to country?
Answer:
(a) We are obligated contractually to accept the conversion rate at the day of payment for incoming & outgoing payments.
(b) It is illegal for us to withhold or speculate with monies that do not belong to us on the currency markets.
(c) Therefore, sometimes all of us benefit and sometimes we don't. I am sure you can appreciate the fact that in the world money markets today this fluctuates daily.
Answer:
(a) Taxes are only deducted from countries that have international business & tax agreements between each other.
(b) Examples are royalties from Japan & Australia are deducted at their source.
(c) Therefore, royalties from these countries are received by our royalty collection / accounting specialists with those taxes already deducted (item b).
(d) Any additional taxes are your company's responsibility and should be reflected on your company tax return when you file (state taxes apply where applicable).
Our clients will receive royalty statements and royalty payments due on a quarterly basis. *If you have a larger catalog, we can arrange monthly royalty statements / payments with the accounting department.
Yes.
Your digital label is required to generate $130.00 (US) in order to receive quarterly royalty payments.
(a) Because royalty accounting will come direct to you from the United Kingdom you are dealing with the Euro as opposed to the U.S. dollar. The Euro happens to be worth more than the dollar today but where applicable, you now get to take advantage of the extra money that the Euro provides on a single download whereas you have not been able to do so in the past. (Currency subject to change based on the worldwide economic conditions - this is something we have no control over).
(b) Our royalty statements are extremely detailed and to render a statement without you generating any money still costs us money that’s not there yet to prepare it. We have a rollover clause in our digital distribution agreement that covers this subject and requires your product to generate $130.00 (U.S.) in order for you to receive any monies.
(c) It costs money to prepare accounting statements and complete a wire transfer whether its within the same state or in another country (check with your financial institution for applicable rates). That's why you are required to cross an earning threshold.
Question:
1. Do I see actual statements from the individual websites selling the product?
2. How do you check the accuracy of actual sales on a specific site and the statement issued ?
Answer: See below...
(a) We would be in breach of the contracts with the stores & with our other Label partners & artists if we were to forward contracts and statements that belong to them.
(b) These statements show entire clients catalogues per shop per territory around 900,000 titles.
(c) These statements are sent in so many different formats that most people do not even have the necessary software to even open, import, read or understand these statements.
(d) The accounting is 100% accurate. You see each download, in each country, for each store. You see the PPD (Price Per Download), you see any mechanical deductions, you also see the date you see the store & the different services & pricing that that store offers.
Question:
1. How are sales revenues paid out to software end users? Bank wire, check, etc?
2. How often are you paid?
3. Do you have a period of time in which you can question the information on a statement for accuracy?
Answer:
(a) Bank transfer is standard. We can also arrange for Pay Pal or Click To Buy . For large catalouges we will account monthly for shops that account monthly to us & quarterly for shops that account quarterly to us. Otherwise normal accounting occurs on a quarterly basis.
IMPORTANT PLEASE NOTE.
(b) For example, monthly shops like iTunes:- Sales that are generated in January get reported TO ALL distributors worldwide mid to end of February. Payment arrives the beginning of March. Accounting will be done, the earliest on the March statement & at the latest reflective in the April statement. This generates a roll on effect. The first two months won’t look so great on your royalty statements but after that the figures will increase from month to month as the sales increase and expand.
(c) We do not act as a bank.
(d) You will only receive a pay out when accounting has received the money in your behalf for actual sales and accounting does not pay out based on the Daily or Weekly Trend reports. These are a only a guideline of sales trends and should not be used for accurate and final royalty accounting purposes.
(e) You have 12 months to question a royalty statement you receive.
Questions:
Firstly....
(a) What if a download does not work properly or
(b) contains errors of some kind;
(c) How much time will it take to fix it and
(d) what type of financial adjustment is made?
Answer:
(a) After upload and delivery, If a technical issue occurs then this can only be a problem with the shop and they will have their it staff handle it accordingly!
(b) Our systems verifies, converts, confirms all audio & artwork by your upload through RDS to our system and are error free for export to the online shops you select. Our system cannot deliver bad data. This excludes uploads of bad mixes or unwanted noise that are pre-existing on your master.
(c) The only error can lie with the shop or the original audio data with errors in the source.
(d) No financial adjustment can be made. The shops do not allow this in their contracts.
Secondly...
Question?
Who do I talk to to resolve any relative issues?
Answer,
Any issues that you may have with regard to the above please direct your questions to your Rainysongs Entertainment representative. We will be happy to help provide you with clarity, resolution and premiere customer service we provide to all of our clients.
(a) Exact bank fees and charges are based on location of bank initiating transaction, destination of financial institution receiving the transfer and the amount being transferred. Check with your financial institution for current rates and fees that may apply.
(b) Generally, any charges that may occur will happen on receiving bank account which you will see on your bank statement. This differs from bank to bank.
(c) However, additional bank charges may occur if you require an expedited one day wire transfer, otherwise a normal transfer takes normally two to three working days and your standard bank fees apply. Check exact rates with your particular financial institution.
Question:
1. What happens if a website carrying the product does not pay?
2. Who is liable?
3. What is the legal recourse?
Answer:
1. If a website (online shop) does not pay what happens?
(a) complete catalogue will be removed from that shop.
(b) contract with that shop will be cancelled.
(c) as with any digital distribution deal, each online shop is responsible for all sales, income and payments received into that shop and is that shop is liable for all payments there from.
(d) our digital royalty collection specialists will take aggressive legal action to recover any and all royalties due.
Royalty statements will be available to you on a quarterly basis within the system.
Our clients royalty statements and payments originate from our accounting department at DMG Ltd, located in the United Kingdom.
Because Rainysongs Entertainment offers it's clients the number of online digital stores that we do, it is impossible for let's say itunes with locations in over 10 different countries to account and pay on the same day or at the same time. This is just one example of one global retail digital download chain that we offer all of our labels.
Absolutely not!
With some distribution deals that have agreements with third parties they can only base their royalty split with you based on the percentage they have left after the primary distribution company deducts their cut. Our royalty percentages are transparent. One Example: When a music lover downloads one of your songs from an "online shop", the online shop that sold your downloadable song to the music lover (who paid the .99 cents for your song) then deducts their percentage and then sends the funds remaining to the distribution company they have the agreement with. Then the primary distribution company deducts their percentage of the funds. Then the remaining funds are sent to the company you signed your agreement with and that's where your royalty split takes place, based on the remaining funds they received.
Our royalty splits with you do not breakdown with you that way. When the online shop makes their deduction and the remaining funds are sent to the primary distribution company that provided your content to the online shop, your royalty percentage split takes place from there. Our percentage is built into the primary receivers percentage and this is totally transparent in our agreement with your company.
For extreme clarity: If we have a 75/25 split with you, your 75% is directly deducted from the amount received from the online shop then sent to you. We do not collect or pay the royalties in order to give you a more lucrative deal that is in your favor. We make less money of course, but the financial payment path to you is more direct. We won't get rich doing this but we are on the way to empowering as many labels with content as we possibly can!
