Claiming unpaid royalties for Radio, Television and Film use
These types of use fall within the following distribution categories:
Radio (R, R VR)
Television (FS, FS VR)
Sound Film on TV (T FS, T FS VR)
Sound Film (T)
Sound Film Direct Distribution (TD, TD VR)
Points to check
Did you register your works on time and they have been used but you have not received any royalties, or do you believe the royalties you received were too low?
Please go to our Online Portal to claim your missing royalties. Our simple interactive form will take you through a series of questions to gather the information we need to investigate your concern.
Are there any royalties for TV advertising or productions by public service broadcasters missing from your statement?
To allow us to pay your royalties correctly and always on time, please do make sure we have your soundfiles. If you haven’t done this yet, you can easily upload them now using the soundfile upload feature in our Online Portal.
Do you need information about the monitoring procedure of public service broadcasters?
Please refer to the following FAQ section to learn more about this: ARD/ZDF Monitoring FAQs
Do you need help to upload your soundfile?
If yes, check our support portal, where we have answered the questions we get asked most frequently.
Do you want to request crediting for the broadcasting right in any of your works?
Have your works been used extensively, or have they been broadcast only by TV channels or radio stations that are below the threshold for a programme analysis-based distribution? If so, please email us at vts@gema.de. To find out what you need to do for this, and to learn more about the threshold for a programme analysis-based distribution, please refer to the GEMA Distribution Plan under Request for distribution.
The interactive form in our Online Portal will take you through a series of questions to gather the information we need to process your request. The information you will be asked to provide will include.
Information we need from you
We need the following information from you:
- Work title and/or work number
- Name of the or one of the composers
- Name of the broadcaster
- Date (and time ) of the broadcast (for jingles: broadcasting period) OR title of the programme
- In the case of public service channels: Information about where you uploaded your soundfiles
In the case of product advertising, please also provide:
- Title of the commercial/spot
- Description of the product you advertised
- Broadcast period
- Do you have broadcast schedules? They really are a big help for us!
Deadline for claiming missing royalties:
18 months after the distribution date
We need the following information from you:
- Work title and/or work number
- Name of the or one of the composers
- Title of the programme/film
- Name of the broadcaster
- Date (and time ) of the broadcast (for trailer: broadcasting period)
- GEMA AVW number, if relevant (AVW = audio-visual work)
- In the case of public service channels: Information where you uploaded your soundfiles
Deadline for claiming missing royalties:
18 months after the distribution date
We need the following information from you:
- Title of the work and/or work number
- Name of a composer
- Title of the programme/film
- Name of the TV channel
- Date (and time) of broadcast
- GEMA AVW number, if known (AVW = audio-visual work)
In the case of advertising, please also provide:
- Title of the commercial
- Name of the product advertised
- Broadcasting period
- If you have any placement schedules, that would be very helpful.
- Information about where you uploaded your soundfiles
Deadline for claiming missing royalties:
18 months after the distribution date
We need the following information from you:
- Title of the work and/or work number
- Name of a composer
- Title of the film
- Screening period
- Number of screenings
- GEMA AVW number, if known (AVW = audio-visual work)
For unpaid royalties in distribution category TD in addition:
- Place of screening
- Name of producer
Deadline for claiming missing royalties:
18 months after the distribution date
We need the following information from you:
- Work number and version
- Title of the work
- Name(s) of the creator(s) or publisher(s) whose share(s) is/are missing or is/are not correctly registered
Deadline for claiming missing royalties:
18 months after the (main royalties) distribution date
We need the following information from you:
- Work number
- Title of the work
- Name of a composer
- Year for which the distribution was incorrect
- Current distribution category/valuation and correct distribution category/valuation of the work
- Duration of the work
Deadline for claiming missing royalties:
18 months after the distribution date
Note:
If the point valuation of your work is incorrect, we can examine your work in detail and classify it accordingly. For information about how we do this, please click here: www.gema.de/work-categorisation.
Forms of verification we accept
Sometimes we do not receive all the information we need from broadcasters or the results we get from automatic music recognition yield imprecise matches or none at all. These things happen. Should this occur, ideally send us one of the following to verify that your work has been used – our distribution plan refers to this as substantiation.
- For the categories television (FS) and sound film on television (T FS)
Cue sheets are lists detailing the full music content of films. They are drawn up or verified by producers and ideally include details of the start (time in) and finish (time out) of each cue.
- For the categories television (FS) and radio (R)
This means results supplied by automatic music recognition programs. The various monitoring providers use a variety of file formats.
- For the area of advertising in the category sound film on television (T FS)
This means information from advertising service providers who evaluate broadcasts of commercials.
- For both areas, simply forward the above information in unaltered form to us. Are you planning to send us monitoring information for the first time? Feel free to talk to us in order to make sure that we will be able to process your information.
- For the category radio (R)
- Simply send us the link to the playlist.
- For all categories
- Forward to us an email, a letter or similar communication from the broadcaster.
In a nutshell
We have produced a leaflet that provides all the essential information about claiming unpaid royalties for Radio, Television and Film use. You can download it as a PDF through the link given below: