[Fmpro] Using a foreign PRO for foreign Royalty Collections

[Josh Silver]

This is a pretty interesting conversation and has raised some  
curiosity on my part about using foreign PRO's to collect foreign  
royalties for me.

I was until recently under the impression that the main reason to use  
a foreign PRO for foreign collections was to receive foreign royalties  
much faster than if I went through my domestic PRO (SOCAN) to collect  
my foreign royalties.  Now after reading the recent fmpro emails on  
this topic I am a little confused because I have been reading that  
using SACEM or GEMA for example to represent a composer for the  
territory of Europe would not only collect royalties faster, but also  
more accurately than my domestic PRO???  Am I understanding this  
correctly?

Previously I have decided against using a foreign PRO for this purpose  
because I was under the impression that the only real benefit was  
quicker royalty payments for international broadcasts.  So since the  
foreign PRO would end up getting a percentage of my royalties in  
exchange for the collections I decided not to do it since I don't mind  
waiting longer for the royalty payments.

Now this topic has been opened up again for me as I did not know that  
using SACEM or GEMA would actually increase the accuracy of the  
European collections, I am considering going with SACEM or GEMA as my  
European reps.  So first off I just want to confirm that what I'm  
saying here is correct, and I also would like to know what kind of  
percentages these foreign PROS take for their service of international  
collections?  From other peoples experiences, is this a good idea if  
one has a rather large catalogue of material that gets broadcasted  
regularly?

I know this is a bit of a grey area, but it what ways are these  
foreign PROs more accurate in their European collections than domestic  
PROs?

 From people's experience, what is the best European PRO to use for  
this purpose?  I have heard that GEMA and SACEM are good for this  
purpose, any others?

Many thanks for the help,

Josh