Everything you need to know about GEMA distributions, copyrights and the correct registration of your data.

In this guest article, EASYGEMACHT expert Anke Fischer tries to answer all your questions about GEMA. EASYGEMACHT has been a partner of recordJet since spring 2024 and Anke Fischer has already made it clear in her masterclass with us how important it is to regularly take care of this passive income from authorship and how essential it is to keep a proper check on it.

Today we’re going to take a look at the finances, with money that you don’t necessarily expect. The GEMA distributions. If you are a composer or songwriter, you should get to grips with GEMA sooner rather than later. This is because many artists can only make a living from their own music thanks to GEMA’s passive income, which is why it always makes sense to check whether GEMA is right for you. Before we go into detail, we would first like to explain what GEMA actually is.

Who or what is GEMA actually?

GEMA is a society for musical, performing and mechanical reproduction rights. It has the “Copyright Act” umbrella over its head. This means that as soon as you are the author of your songs, you are entitled to royalties, which also apply as soon as your songs are used publicly.
GEMA members are lyricists, composers and music publishers.

Public use means any supermarket, restaurant, pub, company celebrations, simply any public event, radio, streaming, CD, etc. So, even if you play your music live in a pub without a fee, for example, you are entitled to royalties from GEMA in addition to the fee!GEMA has the task of collecting licenses from music users and paying you, as the author, your royalties for the use of your songs (works). GEMA membership costs you €50 per year. An admission fee must be paid when applying for membership. If you are 30 years old or younger in the year of application, you only pay the membership fee of €50. The admission fee of €90 is then waived!

What income can you expect?

There are various “royalty calculators” on the GEMA website to help you decide whether GEMA membership is financially worthwhile for you.

To give you some additional orientation whether GEMA membership is worthwhile for you, I will give you a few examples from my practical experience.

Live concerts

140,- € per concert, a total of 19 concerts per year, with an average of 80 ticket buyers

400,- € as a support act at a concert with 4,000 tickets sold

1.300,- € for a slot at a festival for 6 songs played

Let’s move on to the factors that determine the amount of royalties paid out at live events. How much money you receive depends on the following things:

• Size of the event,
• were tickets sold,
• if so, how many tickets were sold and at what price,
• what contract the organizer has with GEMA.

TV (public broadcaster)

If it is a public broadcaster, you will receive €160 for one minute of your song played. On private television it is significantly less and is around €49 per minute.

Radio

How does it look on the radio? Here you get 2 euros per song for a broadcast on a private station. The public broadcaster is more worthwhile, with a whopping 6 euros per broadcast of a song.

Forecasts of the payout amount

As soon as your music is played, for example on streaming platforms such as Spotify, Deezer and Co. or if you are played on the radio or even have a TV appearance with your music, you will receive royalties. Of course, these are extremely different in these three areas. TV is the most lucrative. It’s the same for radio and streaming.

My advice to you if you are a GEMA member

If you are a GEMA member, I don’t think that not caring is an option. The money will not flow into your account on its own. GEMA needs to be well and constantly supplied with good data in order to be able to pay out royalties as correctly as possible. I recommend that you take care of your data and also read GEMA’s emails and newsletters. Also take part in webinars if you can. It’s also always good to know the abbreviations and deadlines and to attend GEMA’s annual general meeting.

Always stay in touch. Ask questions, check your data regularly, strive for perfect GEMA concert processing, check your distributions and claim funds if distributions are missing.

If you have any questions about the to-dos as a GEMA member so that your royalties also end up with you, please get in touch with EASYGEMACHT.

Many thanks to Anke Fischer for her guest article about GEMA.