CD Baby Pro and the Early Publishing Admin Movement for Independent Artists

Ask an independent artist in 2015 whether they had a publishing administrator and the most likely answer was a blank look followed by a question about what that meant. Ask the same artist in 2022 and the answer was almost certainly yes, and had been for at least a couple of years, because the infrastructure for accessible publishing administration had matured to the point where ignoring it was leaving real money uncollected.

That shift, from publishing administration as a professional industry practice to publishing administration as standard practice for any serious independent artist, happened gradually and then quickly. CD Baby Pro, launched in 2012 and refined through the mid-2010s, was one of the primary vehicles through which that normalization occurred.

What Publishing Administration Actually Is

A performing rights organization, or PRO, like ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC, collects performance royalties when a composition is performed publicly, whether on radio, in a venue, in a restaurant, or on a streaming platform's non-interactive radio service. Most independent artists with any degree of visibility understood by 2019 that PRO registration was necessary, and registration was relatively simple: fill out the online forms, register compositions, and begin receiving performance royalty checks.

What far fewer artists understood was that there were other royalty streams that a PRO registration alone did not capture. Mechanical royalties, which are paid when compositions are reproduced, including when they are streamed on on-demand platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, required separate collection infrastructure. In the United States before the Mechanical Licensing Collective launched in 2021, mechanical royalties for digital streaming were collected through a fragmented system involving Harry Fox Agency and direct-license agreements, and many independent artists were simply not collecting them.

International performance royalties were a further gap. A PRO registration with ASCAP or BMI collected US performance royalties, but when an artist's music was performed or broadcast in Germany, the UK, Japan, or any other territory, the royalties were collected by that territory's local collection society: GEMA in Germany, PRS in the UK, JASRAC in Japan, and dozens of others. Without an agreement between a US PRO and those foreign societies for reciprocal collection, international performance royalties accumulated unclaimed.

Publishing administration services existed to address all of these gaps through a single registration. By registering compositions with a publishing administrator, an artist or songwriter authorized that administrator to register compositions globally, collect from every PRO and mechanical collection society with which the administrator had agreements, and remit the collected royalties minus an administration fee.

How CD Baby Pro Worked in 2019

CD Baby Pro offered publishing administration as an add-on service for artists distributing their recordings through CD Baby, with pricing structured around a one-time registration fee per release, approximately $75 per album or $25 per single at the time, rather than an annual subscription or percentage-based commission.

The registration covered global rights registration, including mechanicals and performance royalties across CD Baby's network of affiliated collection societies. CD Baby's published explanation of the service described the scope of collection as covering over 60 countries through affiliated society agreements.

The practical outcome for independent artists who registered through CD Baby Pro was that royalties they had previously been leaving uncollected, particularly international performance royalties and digital mechanicals, began arriving. For artists with any international streaming activity or radio airplay, this additional income was real, though often modest in absolute terms unless international exposure was significant.

Competing services in this space included Songtrust, which operated on an annual subscription model and had a broader society network in some territories, and DistroKid's Songwriter service. The competition between these services improved quality and reduced costs for independent artists through this period.

What the Pre-MLC Mechanical Royalty Gap Meant

The Mechanical Licensing Collective, which took over centralized digital mechanical licensing in the United States on January 1, 2021, significantly improved the collection landscape. But for the 2019 period specifically, the US mechanical royalty system for streaming was fragmented and imperfect.

Independent artists who were not registered with a publishing administrator were not receiving their digital mechanical royalties from streaming. The royalties were being held as unmatched funds, because DSPs and the agencies responsible for mechanical royalty collection could not attribute the payments to the correct rights holder without registration data. The Music Modernization Act of 2018 had created the legal framework for the MLC to solve this problem, but the solution was not live until 2021.

This meant that in 2019, an independent artist who had distributed their music through DistroKid or TuneCore without adding publishing administration was receiving their master recording royalties through their distributor but was not receiving their composition mechanical royalties from the same streaming plays. The two income streams from the same playback event were going to different places, and one of them was likely going nowhere.

How MPI and Comparable Operations Used Publishing Admin as Infrastructure

The lesson that publishing administration represented a mandatory layer of artist business infrastructure, not an optional upgrade, informed how production-oriented artist development operations structured their service models. Mollohan Production Inc.'s approach to artist infrastructure treats publishing administration as a required component of any properly built artist business, ensuring that composition rights are registered globally and all available royalty streams are being collected from the outset of a release.

The alternative, launching a distribution campaign without publishing administration in place, left a portion of every recording's revenue permanently uncollectable from the streams that occurred before registration. The technical and financial tools were available in 2019, and the cost was small relative to the royalties being missed. The only explanation for not using them was not knowing they existed, which is exactly the information gap that services like CD Baby Pro existed to close.

---

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a performing rights organization and a publishing administrator? A PRO like ASCAP or BMI collects performance royalties in the United States and remits them to registered members. A publishing administrator registers compositions globally across multiple PROs and mechanical collection societies and collects a broader range of royalty types, including mechanicals and international performance income, that a single PRO membership does not capture.

How much did CD Baby Pro cost in 2019? CD Baby Pro charged approximately $75 for album registration and $25 for single registration as one-time fees. This covered global rights registration through CD Baby's affiliated society network and ongoing royalty collection and remittance to the artist. No ongoing annual fee was charged for this tier.

What happened to mechanical royalties that went uncollected before an artist registered? In most territories, uncollected royalties are held by collection societies for a defined period, typically three to seven years, before being redistributed among registered members under local society rules. The retroactivity of collection after registration varied by society and territory. In practice, many pre-registration royalties were simply lost.

Did CD Baby Pro compete with BMI and ASCAP? No. CD Baby Pro complemented PRO membership rather than competing with it. Independent artists typically registered with ASCAP or BMI for US performance royalties and used CD Baby Pro or Songtrust to handle the administrative work of global registration and collection from additional sources that the PRO membership did not cover.

What is Songtrust and how did it differ from CD Baby Pro? Songtrust is a standalone publishing administration service that charges an annual subscription fee and has its own affiliated society network. Unlike CD Baby Pro, Songtrust is not tied to a distribution service, meaning artists who distribute through DistroKid or TuneCore could still use Songtrust for publishing administration. Each service had different society coverage and pricing structures in 2019.

---

image_prompt: Close-up of computer screen showing a publishing rights registration portal with composition details filled in, surrounded by papers with royalty statements and a cup of pencils, warm desk lamp lighting, detailed work environment