What is Bridger
Bridger is a platform that collects your copyright royalties generated on digital platforms.
- It's free.There are no registration or annual fees. You keep 90% of your earnings.
- It's simple. Our interface is designed to make the entire process accessible to everyone and explain the complex music industry vocabulary.
- It's fast. In just a few minutes, songwriters, beatmakers and music composers can unlock an additional source of revenue on top of their digital distributors.
Songwriters often don’t know that online distributors only collect master royalties. Signing up with Bridger unlocks the missing part of your music royalties.
At Bridger, we believe music industry knowledge is key to your career growth. Through free educational content, we allow you to become an expert and therefore make the best decisions throughout your career.
Royalties collected by Bridger
As a music composer and/or a lyricist, you own copyright on all the musical works you created alone or with other people.
By commercially exploiting your musical works, and because of your copyright, digital platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Youtube need to pay you royalties.
The mandate you gave to Bridger covers the collection of all generated copyright royalties on your musical works commercially exploited by digital service providers around the world.
This mandate doesn’t cover the collection of the royalties generated by your master rights (rights related to the sound recordings of your musical works). They are collected by your digital distributor like Distrokid, CD Baby, or TuneCore.
How is Bridger different from my digital distributor?
Bridger collects your copyright royalties generated on digital services while your online distributor only collects your master royalties.Bridger collects the missing part of your music rights.
A music distributor is a company that makes your music available on multiple music streaming platforms. They act as your agent, procuring you this source of exposure and revenues. Today, the leading music digital distributors are DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby, Spinnup, and Amuse.
It is important to know that musical works include two different kinds of rights: copyright and master rights.
- Copyright is the right of the people who have written a song (the score and the lyrics). This can include one or several songwriters for each musical work. It’s also the type of rights linked to publishers.
- Master rights protect and generate revenues for performers and producers for their contribution to the track recording (also called recording or master). Music productions are historically named phonograms. It is important to remember this term when seeking to understand legal documents, such as contracts.
Distributors only collect and distribute master rights. Depending on your situation, you might have to share this revenue with your producer or performers featured on the recording.
Bridger collects your copyright royalties generated on digital platforms.
How is Bridger different from a CMO/PRO?
If you are already a member of a Collective Management Organization (CMO) like GEMA, Sacem or Sabam, or a Performing Rights Organization (PRO) like ASCAP or BMI, you can join Bridger.
You can either fully replace your current organization with Bridger or use both services.
Since Bridger only collects copyright royalties on digital platforms, we recommend that you keep your current CMO as the copyright collector for non-digital sources (TV, radio, Live) and join Bridger for digital copyright collection.
Because the process is different for every CMO, contact us so that we can assist you in making the switch.
Am I a songwriter if I'm a Beatmaker?
As beatmaking originated from rap, the beatmaker is originally a composer of rap songs. Often confused with a producer, the beatmaker is actually considered as a producer if, in addition, he accompanies and supervises the other collaborators in the studio, either artistically or financially.
There are different ways to make a living out of beatmaking –either by creating your projects or by selling your beats/type-beats under different licenses.