Do you get royalties when a DJ plays your track in a club?

The short answer: possibly, but less often than most producers hope, and the rules depend on the country. A DJ playing your track in a club can lead to a royalty payment, but only if the venue is licensed, your track is registered, and the play reaches the people who divide the money.

This guide explains the general picture in plain English. It is not legal or financial advice. For how it works where you live, and where your track was played, ask your collecting society.

Two sets of rights in one track

Every track you release carries two kinds of rights, and they are paid separately:

• The work, also called the composition: the music itself, and any lyrics. It belongs to its writers and their publishers. When it is played in public, it can earn performance royalties, collected by a performing rights organisation or collecting society, such as PRS for Music in the UK, GEMA in Germany, SACEM in France, Buma/Stemra in the Netherlands, or ASCAP and BMI in the US.
• The recording, or master: the actual audio file. It belongs to whoever owns the master, often the label. In many countries, public play also pays the recording’s owner and performers, through a separate society for so-called neighbouring rights (for example PPL in the UK or GVL in Germany). Not everywhere: in the US, for example, playing a recording in a venue doesn’t pay the recording’s owner the way it does in much of Europe.

If you wrote and produced the track yourself, you are probably one of the writers of the work, and if you own your masters or have a share in them, a rights holder in the recording too. A remix usually doesn’t make you a writer of the original song unless that was agreed. Your contracts decide this, so read them.

How the money is collected

Clubs, bars and festivals that play music in public generally need a licence from the collecting societies in their country, and they pay a fee for it. Those fees are the pot. The DJ doesn’t pay you, and the venue doesn’t pay you directly either: the society divides the pot among the works it believes were played, then pays its members, and passes money for foreign works to the societies abroad.

How it’s divided, and why many plays never pay

The hard part is knowing what was played. Societies handle this in different ways, and it varies by country and by type of event:

• Some put recognition equipment in a selection of clubs, and divide the money by what it hears.
• Some ask venues, promoters or performers to send set lists, especially for festivals and larger events.
• Some use other data as a stand-in for venues where nothing is reported, such as charts or radio plays.

That is why plenty of club plays never turn into money:

• The venue isn’t one that is monitored, and nobody sent a set list.
• The track isn’t registered, or it is registered under a different title from the one in the set list.
• It was unreleased: it went down as “ID”, and couldn’t be matched to anything.
• The amount is small, and sits below a payout threshold for a while.
• It was played abroad. Money from other countries travels between societies and can take a long time to arrive.

So a club play may earn something, nothing, or something much later. That is normal, and not a sign you did anything wrong.

What you can do

1. Join a society as a writer. Usually the one where you live. If you publish your own music, ask whether you can join as a publisher too.
2. Register every work, with all its writers and the agreed shares. Many societies let you register before release; ask yours. Agree the shares with your co-writers in writing.
3. Keep the title the same everywhere: the file, the promo, the release and the registration.
4. Look after the recording side. If you own your masters, check whether you can register your recordings with the neighbouring-rights society in your country, using the ISRC codes from your release.
5. Ask about set lists. Some societies accept set lists or claims for performances at particular events. Ask what they accept, and the deadlines.
6. Help DJs name it. If a DJ who supports you sends set lists to a festival or a society, make sure they have your exact artist name and title.

“Title (Extended Mix)” on the promo and “Title” in the registration is usually fine. A working title on the promo and a different name at release is how plays get lost.

Keep your own record of plays

A dated log of who played your track, where and when, with a link to each play, won’t pay you by itself. But it is the kind of information a society may ask for if it accepts claims, it shows you the venues and festivals where you are played often, and it is useful to labels and publishers. Our guide on knowing if a DJ played your track shows how to keep one.

Festivals, radio and recorded mixes

Large festivals usually hold licences and are more often asked to report the music used, sometimes from the DJs’ own set lists. If your track was played at a known festival, ask your society how it handles that festival’s reporting. To find out who played it there in the first place, see finding out which DJs played your track at a festival.

Radio shows, podcasts and mixes uploaded online are licensed and reported in their own ways. Radio stations generally report the music they broadcast, so a play on a radio show often has a better chance of being counted than a play in a club.

Who to ask

• Your collecting society’s member services, for how club, festival and foreign money is divided where you live.
• Your publisher, if you have one: registering works and collecting abroad is part of their job.
• Your label, for the recording side.
• A music lawyer or accountant, for contracts, splits and tax.