AFM and AFTRA Are Here to Help
by Elianne Halbersberg
Are you a working musician? Are you getting paid for all of your work? Are you sure? Is it possible that money owed is being withheld, unbeknownst to you? You're not as powerless as you may feel, thanks to an organization whose purpose is to track down and help you collect what is owed.
The AFM & AFTRA Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund is a joint effort put together by the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA). Its purpose, according to Dennis Dreith, Administrator, is "to collect and distribute various statutory royalties—monies collected from the U.S. Copyright office for private home taping, etc.—to non-featured performers—background singers and session musicians. The Fund, by Congressional mandate, exists to collect and distribute money to non-featured recording artists whether or not they are members of a union," he explains. "In this manner, the Fund is here to serve potentially every musician and vocalist who records."
While it may seem unusual, or even too good to be true, for all artists to be eligible for assistance from the Fund, in fact this is the case. However, Dreith clarifies, "The Fund must divide numerous revenue streams among all these performers, so the Fund generates a 'proxy' formula to distribute to as many performers as possible based on performance data, sales data or rental data of the featured artists attached to the payments depending on which revenue stream is being distributed."
The Fund's website and forms frequently refer to non-featured musicians or performers. To be specific as to who is included under this heading, Dreith explains, "These are the session musicians and background vocalists who perform on sound recordings/CDs. In other words, the royalty artists—stars, headliners or members of a band all signed to a record deal, etc.—are the featured artists, and those who are not signed to a record company for a particular recording are the 'non-featured' artists. Often, however, these definitions are blurred when someone who is signed to a label as a featured artist performs on someone else's record as a background musician or vocalist, in which case they will be treated as a non-featured artist for that particular recording."
The possibility of musicians having money owed to them without their knowledge isn't far-fetched, according to Dreith. In fact, he says, "This is quite common. Since we collect for records rented in Japan, as well as private home taping in Japan and the Netherlands and soon from the U.K., as well as U.S. home taping, web-casting and other digital distributions, people who are on these recordings may be unaware that they have had covered uses in these mediums, or be unaware of the activities of the AFM & AFTRA Fund, which is still relatively new."
Whether or not the money can be collected with the Fund's help depends on the situation, says Dreith, but an artist acting independently and representing themselves can face a host of challenges and delays, with no guarantee of satisfaction. "Non-featured performers can petition various Foreign Collectives directly if they know who they are and if they know that recordings they are on have had covered uses in those countries," he notes. "Also, non-featured performers can petition the U.S. Copyright office directly. However, in most of these instances this will result in a great deal of red tape and little or no payments. Since the AFM & AFTRA Fund has reciprocal agreements with these collectives, as well as mandates for the U.S. Copyright office and agreements with U.S. organization such as Sound Exchange, we can more efficiently collect and distribute these monies without the considerable effort on the part of musicians and vocalists."
Despite the inevitable comparisons to ASCAP and BMI, the Fund and its services differ in very specific ways. "ASCAP and BMI collect on behalf of writers—composers and lyricists—and publishers for the performances of their works," says Dreith. "Currently in the U.S. there is a 'performance right' for these writers and publishers but not for the owners of the actual sound recordings and the performing artists on those recordings. However, as a result of recent changes in the copyright laws, there are now limited performance rights with respect to digital distributions and home taping that we distribute to the non-featured performers. Organizations such as AARC (Alliance of Artists and Record Companies) and Sound Exchange make similar, albeit much larger, distributions to featured performers. Regardless, the comparisons to ASCAP and BMI are obvious in that we do make some limited distributions for performances that in some cases ASCAP and BMI make to the writers and publishers."
If you are wondering whether you need the assistance and services of the Fund, you can visit them online and look at the "unclaimed checks" section to see if they have money for you—it's that simple. At the website, says Dreith, musicians "can also get a description of the various revenue streams, Distribution Guidelines, and lists of covered sound recordings, which they can check to see if they are credited on. And if anyone finds a covered recording that they worked on that they are not credited on, they can submit their information and an inquiry right online, simple as that."
For more information about the Fund, its distribution guidelines for each of the revenue streams, unclaimed checks and other services, visit www.raroyalties.org.
