Guides
Royalty statements, explained
Plain answers for composers: how to read the statement each society sends, why a placement you know aired can go unpaid, and what to do about it. Every guide is useful whether or not you ever use ONTRK.
Questions composers ask
- Why didn't I get paid for my TV placement?: the five reasons an airing goes unpaid, and how to tell which one it is.
- How to ask ASCAP, BMI or SESAC about a missing royalty: what to include, and why each society needs a different letter.
- What is a cue sheet, and how does a missing one cost you?: the document that decides whether an airing can be paid to you at all.
- TRQK shut down. What to do with your export now: save the evidence before the links expire, and keep the CSV for when the statements arrive.
- How to read a royalty statement: what the blank channel column means, and why one line is not one payment.
- Looking for a TRQK alternative?: what you can use today, and what is coming.
- TuneSat and ONTRK: which does what: detection and statement analysis are two different problems.
- Royalty reconciliation: what aired against what paid: how airings are matched to the statement that settles them.
- Is my music registered at ASCAP?: find the works that are holding money right now.
Reading your statement, society by society
- How to read your ASCAP royalty statement: domestic and international exports, column by column.
- How to read your BMI royalty statement: what each column means, and why titles stop at 30 characters.
- How to read your SESAC royalty statement: the most checkable statement there is, and the column that looks like a count but is not.
- How to read your PRS for Music royalty statement: Tunecode, Number of Perfs, and the date that is not when it aired.
- How to read your SOCAN royalty statement: the 62-column export with no currency column, and why your totals read 40% high.
- How to read your GEMA royalty statement: which of GEMA's report types has the broadcast count, and which does not.
- How to read your MLC royalty statement: US mechanical royalties from streaming, and what Distributed Amount adds up.
Who makes this
ONTRK is built by Marc Aaron Jacobs, a composer who runs the libraries Tonal Chaos and Tonal Chaos Trailers, and who built DropCue. ONTRK started as the thing he wrote to read his own ASCAP statements. Questions go to hello@ontrk.app and reach him directly.
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