MESAM vs MSG: Which Turkish Collecting Society Should Songwriters Join?
If you write songs in Turkey, two collecting societies can manage your songwriting royalties: MESAM and MSG. Both represent the owners of musical works, meaning composers, lyricists, arrangers and publishers. When your song is reproduced on a recording (mechanical rights) or played to the public on radio, TV, in a venue or online (performing rights), they collect the fee and pass it on to the rights holders. They are the Turkish counterparts of societies like PRS or ASCAP. You can only belong to one of them at a time, and the mandate you sign when joining runs for at least five years, so the choice is worth making before you fill in any forms.
When I talk to musicians who have just released their first song, one question comes up more than any other: "Which one should I join, and can I just join both?" It usually lands a few weeks after release, when someone asks if they are collecting royalties yet. The second half has a short answer: no. The first half is less about which society is "better" and more about lining up each society's rules against your own situation.
Do the two societies do the same job?
In terms of scope, yes. Turkey's regulation on collecting societies lists the fields in which societies can be set up, and "owners of musical works" is a single field. More than one society can operate in the same field, and MESAM and MSG are the two in this one. Both collect mechanical and performing rights.
Why they exist is easy to see from the other side: tracking every radio play, every venue and every recording of your song yourself, and negotiating a fee with each user, isn't realistic. A collecting society licenses all of that on your behalf, collects the money and passes your share on.
The differences are practical: membership levels, which releases count, how fast you get an answer and how documents are sent. There is no reliable official source comparing which one pays more or how many members each has. The comparison below uses only their own statutes and websites.
Why can't you be a member of both?
The rule sits not in the copyright act but in Article 10 of the Regulation on Collecting Societies (the page is in Turkish): a rights holder can only be a member of one society in the same field. The same article adds two more points. Nobody can be forced to join a society, and a society cannot turn down an application in its field without a justified reason.
So membership is optional, but once you decide to join, there is only one door. All of your songs go into the repertoire of the society you pick.
Does your song need to be released before you apply?
Yes. Both societies want at least one of your works to have been made public. Accepted routes include release on a digital platform, a performance on radio or TV, appearing on a phonogram (a sound recording) and live performance. Social media does not count on its own, and each society sets its own condition for it:
- MESAM accepts a work published on social media if it has reached at least 50,000 views in a month or 500,000 in a year.
- MSG only counts a YouTube video if it was uploaded by an intermediary company and has the character of a production.
MESAM's website also lists licensed platforms like Spotify or Apple Music, an album, a licensed concert, and use in a film, advert or musical. If your song only lives on your own channel, check which society's condition you meet before you apply.
Some of the musicians I talk to put a song on their own YouTube channel first and only think about applying months later. For MSG, that video doesn't count unless an intermediary company uploaded it; for MESAM, it comes down to the view count. If the same song also went out to streaming platforms through a distributor, you have a route both societies accept.
Ordinary member or full member: what changes?
At both societies you start with a membership that has no voting rights. MESAM calls it "ordinary member", MSG just "member". You can't vote at the general assembly or sit on its boards. To become a full member, both ask for at least one year of uninterrupted membership plus a certain amount of net royalty income over the last two accounting periods. That amount is reset at each general assembly, so I am not quoting it here; see each statute.
Article 11 of the regulation says membership levels cannot be treated differently when income is distributed. Being an ordinary member does not mean you get paid less. Here are the practical differences side by side:
| Topic | MESAM | MSG |
|---|---|---|
| Starting membership | Ordinary member | Member |
| Membership with voting rights | Full member | Full member |
| Works on social media | Count with 50,000 monthly or 500,000 yearly views | YouTube counts if uploaded by an intermediary company as a production |
| Decision on your application | Within 60 days | Within 30 days |
| Sending documents | Asks for a signed paper application form | By post, courier or in person; no fax or email |
| Appealing a rejection | To the board within 1 month, then the courts | To the board within 1 month, then the courts |
Fees change, so they are not in the table. The current amounts are on the fee pages of MESAM and MSG (both in Turkish); check the date each page gives as well.
What should you know before signing the mandate?
Joining requires you to give the society a mandate, known in Turkish as a yetki belgesi. It hands over the management of the economic rights in your songs: the society licenses, collects and distributes on your behalf. Under the regulation on mandates, this transfer is exclusive and lasts at least five years. Exclusive means you cannot give the same rights to anyone else during that time.
- If you don't give notice through a notary at least a year before it ends, the mandate renews once for the same length of time.
- You can terminate it by giving at least six months' notice through a notary. The society can decide that termination only takes effect at the end of the calendar year, and MSG's internal statute says exactly that.
- You can leave the society without giving a reason, but the terms of the mandate still apply.
How the five-year term and six-month notice fit together, meaning when you can actually leave, has no clear-cut answer. Before you sign, ask the society's member services team or an intellectual property lawyer, especially if you already have a publishing deal or belong to a society abroad.
What goes into the application file?
The two societies ask for largely the same documents:
- a signed application form
- the mandate (two copies at MESAM, the original signed on every page at MSG)
- a work registration form for each song, with sheet music or lyrics and a recording if there is one at MESAM
- a copy of your ID, proof of address and two photos
- a data protection form at MESAM, proof of release and fee receipts at MSG
The work registration form takes the most effort: it states who owns the song and how shares are split. MSG says it pays royalties only to the rights holders listed on that form. If an arranger has a share, it also wants the signatures of the composer and lyricist and the percentage they have agreed. Agreeing the split in writing first makes it much easier. Who owns a song written together is covered separately in my piece on protecting your song.
Do the other band members join the same society?
Only if they also wrote lyrics or music. MESAM and MSG deal with the work, meaning the song itself. The regulation puts rights tied to the recording in separate fields: performers (the people who play and sing on it) and phonogram producers (whoever makes or pays for the recording) can have their own collecting societies. A member with no writing credit belongs on the performer side of the question.
There is another code you will run into on the recording side: the ISRC. It identifies the recording rather than the song and goes through a different organisation in Turkey, as explained in the ISRC guide. The international code for the work itself, the ISWC, is issued in Turkey by MESAM and MSG.
Can you switch societies later?
You can, within your mandate's term and termination rules. Both statutes say that someone who is a full member of the other society can move straight to full membership without a waiting period, as long as they submit their documents and meet the royalty requirement. So your status doesn't reset to zero, though the dates in your mandate still decide when you can leave.
When deciding, it helps to go through these in order:
- Where was your song released, and which society's condition does that meet? If it is only on social media, this alone may decide it.
- How can you send the documents, and how long can you wait? The 60 and 30 days in the table are upper limits.
- What are the current fees and the full membership requirement? Read both on the societies' own pages and check the dates.
- Have you read the mandate's term and termination clauses? Ask about anything unclear before you sign.
If you play other people's songs rather than your own, the answer lives somewhere else: copyright for cover songs works under different rules.