The Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) confirmed the Musical Copyright Society Nigeria (MCSN) the right to operate as the only collective management organisation (CMO) for the licensing of music and sound recordings. We administer related rights to Copyright otherwise referred to as neighboring rights by; negotiating, granting licences, collecting and distributing royalties.
MCSN targets business owners (“the users”), and premised on the principle that a user must pay as compensation to the Producer and Performer through the respective Collective Management Organization for the commercial use of copyrighted sound recordings and or audio visual works.
A musical work – such as a song with music and lyrics – and a recording of a band performing that song are two separate works.
A musical work is a work that consists of music – including melody, rhythm, and/or harmony – and any accompanying lyrics. A sound recording is a recording of a particular performance of a musical work.
The author of a musical work is the person who created the music and/or lyrics, such as a composer, lyricist, or songwriter. Sound recordings are generally created by performers and/or producers. In other words, the author of a sound recording is the performer featured in the recording, and/or the producer who captured, manipulated, and/or edited the sounds that appear in the final recording.
When completing the form, you should identify the capacity of the sound recordings that are being registered. You should not name the composers, lyricists, and/or songwriters who created music and/or lyrics, unless those individuals also contributed performance and/or production authorship to the sound recordings that you plan to submit.
We are a non-profit organization, we do not retain a profit for our services, helping to maximise the royalties paid to members.
Our Members range from session Composers, Musicians and emerging artists to independent and major record labels, and publishers.
MCSN issues royalty payments to its members on a regular basis.
We have direct agreements with over 100 international PROs & CMOs, covering over 90% of total global performance royalty value.
Our dedicated Member Services team is available to provide you with account support and assistance.
We provide an efficient and effective service by managing your rights with other collective management organisations, saving you time and resource.
Our expert International team has developed strong and trusted relationships across the globe and is constantly delivering a first class, industry-leading service to our members.
Our advanced Repertoire Database enables us to quickly and accurately identify your repertoire data and increase your global payment potential.
MCSN issues royalty payments to its members on a quarterly basis.
If you are not yet a MCSN member, you can join for free. Affiliating yourself with MCSN and registering your sound recordings allows you to receive royalties from the use of your recordings in public.
You’ll need to match one or more of the following criteria to join MCSN:
– Your music is being streamed or downloaded.
– Your music is broadcasted on TV, Radio, or Online.
– Your music is performed live.
– Your music is played in a public space (e.g. shop, parks, venues, restaurant).
– Your music is used in film.
– Your music is released by a record company on a CD or vinyl.
– Your music is recorded and used for an audiovisual or multimedia production.
– You (or your business, partnership, organization, etc.) are actively engaged in the music publishing business or Record Label.
– Basic info e.g Name, Stage name, age, etc.
– Contact info e.g Email, Phone, Address, Next of Kin, etc.
– Copy of your Identification card (e.g National ID Card, International Passport, NiN, or other ID.)
– Copy of your recent passport-sized photograph clearly showing your face and edges (not a full photoshoot photo).
– Bank account for Royalty payments.
– Submit atleast one Musical work you own the rights to.
You will receive information from MCSN regarding your online application almost immediately upon submission.
After a successful application, one is required to wait for not more than 2 months for the approval process to be done and a membership number is issued through an official confirmation letter.
Yes, most definitely. Musical Copyright Society Nigeria (MCSN) collects licence fees from broadcasters, webcasters and businesses & organisations that play music in public. We then distribute these royalties amongst Master Rights Holders and Recording Artists based on the recordings registered in our database. If you do not register, we can’t pay you. We also cannot distribute royalties retrospectively, so it’s important to keep track registrations up to date.
The amount which you may receive is determined by your reported airplay/usage for that distribution year against the total amount of the airplay/usage received by all other recordings registered. These funds are collected from Recorded Music MCSN licensees such as broadcasters, public performance venues or special use compilers and production houses.
After you have registered your music with MCSN and have had some success getting your music out there, you will get paid! Most of the time you will have to wait 6-9 months to receive first royalty payment. Then, every quarter subsequently. International royalties take even longer because of the different pay schedules. Be patient, and watch the royalties slowly increase as you become more established.
You can join MCSN from anywhere in the world – it doesn’t matter where you’re based. Simply follow the application process and we’ll let you know of any extra documentation we might need as you complete the form.
You can join MCSN to represent your rights for certain territories (e.g Nigeria), while your current society represents you elsewhere. As part of our joining process you can choose which countries to exclude from our agreement. So you would simply need to select the countries covered by your existing society. MCSN is the sole approved CMO in Nigeria.