WordPlay T. Jay’s music advice YouTube page gets a lot of questions in the comments section, and the following hopefully sheds some light on issues people watching his videos have come across.
Q: Noel Scales asked, “What do you think about Harry Fox Agency?”
A: HFA has been one of the longest running mechanical licensing agencies...they get the job done. You just have to connect with them properly. Either do it yourself or use a publishing administrator.
Q: Jlm McGuirk Music asked, “Hi T. Jay. First of all, thanks for your very useful and informative video. I put one of my songs on Cdbaby Pro today, and from what I've read, it seems a decent deal. One thing I couldn't find out though is whether or not I can now upload the same song to Pond 5 or Audio Jungle without breaking any rules. Can you help please? Thank you.”
A: Hey Jim, I'm not sure what Pond 5 or Audio Jungle is...are they distribution services? if so, I don't recommend you distributing your music with two distributors at the same time unless they direct to totally different retailers with no overlap.
Q: YOUNG BLOOD asked, “Hey Word play T-jay I watched all of your videos, I'm stressed I views your videos on how to get other artists songs off your Apple and Spotify artists profiles but how do I get another artists song off my Deezer Artists page, I need Your help.”
A: I believe the best way is to reach out to your distributor or Deezer Artist Support to fix it & make sure your name...isn't common to avoid this issue in the future.
Q: Butter asked, “Hey I duplicated the same song (on a PRO). How do I delete one.”
A: There's really not much info on deleting works...I recommend you contact your PRO
Q: JTV Media asked, “what about if you don't don't do music (in reference to Google Knowledge Panels)”
A: GKP are an algorithm based function that requires people to be searching for your brand and clicking on your content across the web....so my recommendation for everyone is: 1. make sure you're searchable 2. increase your traffic to your pages.
Q: ERRUPTION - MEAN COOK UP ENT. asked, “when used on instagram stories. my songs are linked to the wrong ig profile. any insight on this?”
A: I'm honestly not sure when this will be rolled out so you can fix it...until it is...we have to wait.
Q: Jesus Velazquez asked, “I have a question. What is the difference between Songtrust/Harry Fox Agency and Music Report? Are they all the same ? Do I sign with all of them? Can I sign with all them?”
A: So HFA and Music Reports are Mechanical Licensing agencies — they help you license your work to music streaming companies... Songtrust is a publishing administrator...they help deliver your song registrations to HFA and Music Reports. SO if you sign up with Songtrust you don't really need to sign up directly to HFA or MR.
Q: Yaowism asked “So let's say I join Ascap as a "Songwriter" and "Publisher" would I still need to register with a Publisher (SongTrust)? Would it be more beneficial to find a publisher other than the one the PROs provide? Can I even do that? Or do I have to choose ONE? Are you saying Ascap doesn't fully collect foreign royalties? If I sign up with Ascap as a publisher is Harry Fox neccessary (is it better)?”
A: 1. If you join ASCAP as a publisher and songwriter you DO NOT need a Publishing Administrator (Songtrust). They collect globally.
2. BMI & ASCAP are your only options in the US and you can be only be signed up with one of them at a time as a writer...but you can register with both as a publisher. SESAC is in the US but it's invite only.
3. You still need to register with a Mechanical licensing agency like HFA even if you sign up with ASCAP because they collect different royalties.
4. Songtrust can help you complete all these registrations at one time so you don't have to have 5 different logins with 5 different companies and do all the registrations yourself...(ASCAP, Music Reports, HFA, SoundExchange).
For a couple more Q&As, check out the video below!