In checking the SESAC catalog it seems there are very few songs they licensed that ever became big hits. I'd like to purge any that did from my playlist so I can stop paying SESAC's exorbitant fees but don't want to sit for hours going through their hundred thousand song catalog. Has anyone a list of hit's that were licensed by SESAC? or do you know where I can get one?
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Hit songs licensed by sesac
- Thread starter Larry the radio guy
- Start date
I can't help you with a list but one consideration is a list you get today may not be the same as it is in 6 months, a year or more. The way these music licensing groups get you is you pay their annual fee or devote the time and effort to track down their material and be sure not to play it. As they are adding songs on a regular basis, that list changes and you must stay up with it. For more, if you value the rime and effort, paying their fee winds up being cheaper. If your station doesn't have the money and they know it, they might not keep an eye on you. However, if you stop paying and slip up on a song and get caught, the result can be pretty substantial. You need to weigh all sides to determine if it is worth it to pay so much to play a few songs.
Maybe a call to SESAC about what product they license is in order. It would seem reasonable they could provide a list, even at a token fee.
Maybe a call to SESAC about what product they license is in order. It would seem reasonable they could provide a list, even at a token fee.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
Case in point: The song "Red Red Wine", performed by UB40, was written and performed originally by Neil Diamond and licensed through his publishing subsidiary Tallyrand Music, which was affiliated with BMI when he first published it. Somewhere in the past couple of decades, Mr. Diamond decided to affiliate Tallyrand with SESAC and now no station that runs my Eighties Channel format can play that UB40 track without having a full SESAC license. That is an expense that few stations are going to make unless they have a lot of songs in their library that would be covered.
In my opinion, Mr. Diamond pretty much cut off his continued songwriter royalties for that song when he switched over, because I have yet to find even one other song in the SESAC list that we would play in addition to "Red Red Wine".
A big problem is several SESAC authors wrote a lot of songs that were performed by other artists. Most notably, Bob Dylan and Neil Diamond wrote a lot of songs that became popular with other performers. The SESAC web site makes it very difficult to figure out the connection. I audited my station to see what dropping out of SESAC would entail. It was a very time consuming job. As best as I could figure out, it was less than 100 songs (out of nearly 1500). I'd be happy to drop them if I was sure that I'd made a "clean break." Unfortunately, I can't guarantee it, and that is where SESAC says "Gotcha!" As a result, I still subscribe, but I think it is unreasonably expensive. Hopefully the new RMLC actions will help clarify the situation.
Last edited:
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
For a very long time, nearly all SESAC-licensed songs fell into two genres ... Country and Inspirational. "Convoy" was indeed the wake-up call, and historians will note that afterwards no SESAC-licensed Country songs crossed over to pop with significant enough airplay to become pop hits.
I realize SESAC is in the business of making money for their member songwriters, but in a situation where a station eschews getting a license from them and instead drops a handful of songs from their playlist, the songwriters are actually harmed by their representative's insistence on full licensing or nothing. I think they'd make a fair amount of extra money if they created a limited license, covering a specified number of songs that a station could play or a specified number of plays of any SESAC-licensed songs during the license term.
I know Messrs. Diamond and Dylan already are comfortably well off, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't welcome a bit of extra revenue if those stations that don't presently play "Red Red Wine" and "Lay Lady Lay" (both confirmed in the repertory lookup function at the SESAC website as being licensed through them) could.
And if you want to know how bizarre this is ... one -- exactly one -- of the late Barry White's hits, "I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More", is licensed through SESAC. None of the rest of his work is through them. I'd love to know how that happened.
Last edited:
I must chime in on SESAC fees as well. We faced months of one of their hired guns trying to intimidate us in to paying $300 a month to them when we didn't play music. They claimed it was their 'bumper music rate'. After months of statements like "If we catch you, you'll have attorney's fees, court and a huge fine for every airing" (not exact words but rather the message). It was never threatening in tone but a thought process of rationalizing why they deserved a contract and checks. It was the idea that a slip up could be devastating but a small monthly fee took that worry away. I will not demonstrate my disdain over prior contacts with the music licensing groups because there may be stellar employees of such organizations who do not reflect the experiences I have had in the past.
However, in Spanish language music and radio, there are lots of SESAC songs that cover many formats. The lack of a decent lookup feature makes it impossible to simply avoid the play of the SESAC songs.
Someone should develop a search function that deletes SESAC song from your servers.
Then wait for the lawsuit.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
Oh, I don't know ... such a function would be useful to station owners who can't justify paying for a SESAC license and would appreciate an easy way to remove any SESAC-licensed songs from their own servers. That would be much easier than looking up every title manually. As long as you were using this proposed utility only on your own library, I don't see any legal ramifications.
Although I still like my limited license idea better, in order to benefit the stations, the songwriters, and SESAC itself.
They'll find something.
I don't believe that the metadata included in the song files includes information about licensing .... Nothing about BMI, ASCAP or SESAC.
To delete SESAC music, the stations would need to have access to that information .... at some expense to the stations.
To delete SESAC music, the stations would need to have access to that information .... at some expense to the stations.
Back in the day music was recorded (PC or Carts) or played directly from a disc. IIRC every vinyl record had the BMI or ASCAP printed on the label or jacket. I have not checked every CD I own but all I have checked have BMI, ASCAP, etc. on the writers credits. I guess the only way to really protect youself is to have the music director or intern to check each song.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
As was the case in my cited examples of Neil Diamond and Bob Dylan?
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
There is a lookup function on the SESAC website but it is very clunky. A .csv file would be a lot easier for stations as it could then be imported into Excel and sorted however needed.
- Status