Hey there,

Hope you're doing well today. Here's the latest I've dug up for you on music publishing.

Reading time: 3 minutes 👓

Music publishing is about protecting and making money from a composition (i.e. a song), NOT just the recorded version. Recorded music consists of two parts: the composition and the master recording (aka the master).

The composition is made up of the melody or melody and lyrics. It is an independent piece of intellectual property with its own set of rights, protected by copyright.

A master recording is a separate piece of intellectual property and almost always includes the composition. Master recordings are also protected by music copyright law.

Owning your master recording is an important part of the music business because it gives you the right to control how your music is used and distributed.

With a few exceptions, whoever wrote the song owns the composition. It’s common practice in the US to evenly split a song among its writers. So if you wrote the whole thing yourself, you own 100% of it. If a song is co-written with someone, you each own 50%. If you co-wrote it with two people, you each own 33.33%, and so on.

To save yourself from potential headaches, it’s smart to talk openly about song ownership and put it in writing before starting a co-writing session. A simple one-page agreement stating that all the writers present agree to split the song equally will suffice.

Ownership of a composition (or copyright for that composition) comes with nice benefits:

1 Make copies of the work

2 Create new works based on the original

3 Distribute copies of it

4 Perform it publicly

5 Display the work publicly

And the copyright owner(s) make money by granting these rights to others.

Who typically owns the master?

Whoever paid for the recording typically owns the master. In the world of signed artists, the owner of the master recording is usually the label, because it fronted the recording costs. The label recovers some of its investment by selling CDs, vinyl, downloads, and from streaming services like Spotify or Pandora.

The producer (and sometimes the musicians) will often receive “points” on a master – a small cut of the money that the master recording earns. Producers may get 1-5% points.

For independent artists, the master is often owned by the artists themselves since we pay for the recording. But lack of communication can derail this.

Pro tip: Communicate with everyone that you work with to clearly express the terms in detail. Put it in writing and have all parties sign.

The owner of the master should be the person who pays for it and this is usually the artist. The producer does not own the master recording in most cases. But like with signed artists, the producer can, and often should, be given “points” on the album.

When working with independent artists, producer points can range more widely than when working with signed artists. Points can range from 1-20 or more. Factors contributing to this point range include the amount of initial payment the producer receives, how production-intensive the song will be, how well-known the producer is, how well-known the artist is, etc. The goal is equitable compensation for everyone involved.

Big shout out to Mastering.com and Reprtoir.com for these great articles that provided the source information for this edition of Liner Notes.

Further reading:

https://mastering.com/license-music/

https://www.reprtoir.com/blog/masters

https://mastering.com/music-publishing/

Staying healthy to stay creative

My recent experience with two different virus bugs reminded me of a dreadful moment in 2015 when I did not put my health first. I went out instead and played two gigs because I felt the burden of letting my friends and band mates down. That was a mistake that cost me about six weeks. This is how long it took me to recover from what resulted in pneumonia. Lesson learned.

If you are not sure you are healthy enough to play a gig or go to work, this is the moment to think of yourself first. You are unlikely to have the stamina for creative acts or acts of service if you are too sick to get out of bed, and one never knows when too sick to get out of bed can take a turn for the worse.

Friends, band mates, coworkers, and venue contacts will understand. Life happens. People get sick. Your goal is to stay healthy and stay creative.

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Peace, love and more cowbell,
Robonzo
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