Thread by @marktavern

I want to discuss quickly why it’s important to understand the difference between a song and a sound recording and how that affects ownership and splits.

By song, I mean the composition: the music and lyrics.

By sound recording, I mean the performance of that composition as captured on record.

(In the US, the song / composition is also known as a “musical work”.)

What is interesting (and often confounding) about the #musicbusiness is that these two copyrights may have different creators and owners; they are not necessarily the same, but they can overlap.

Songs are created by songwriters, and their share of the revenue from a song is in proportion to their contribution. One who has written a song in its entirety claims 100%; if two writers work together they divide that up based on their work.

Often you’ll see co-writers splitting duties, one writing the music and the other the lyrics. They typically split 50/50.

That breakdown stems from the premise that the music represents one half of the song and the lyrics the other half.

As more writers get involved—as is common—the splits will get smaller: maybe the person who wrote the music still gets 50%, but if there are two lyricists, they will need to agree to split the other 50% based on their contributions.

So you can see how a common situation has evolved where there is one who writes the music, one who writes the lyrics, and a third who writes a rap in the bridge. Maybe that split is 50%/37.5%/12.5% respectively.

Notice I have not mentioned producers, beatmakers, or recording artists. Each *may* share in these splits, but ONLY if they have actually written parts of the song.

And this doesn’t include any interpolation (using an existing portion of another’s song as part of a new one), or a master sample (where the portion of the sample includes an underlying composition); both might require a split payable to the songwriters of the existing song.

If that happens, it will come off the top and the remaining writers will have to divide up what’s left. That is, if the sample takes 25%, then my example about would be 37.5%/28.125%/9.375%.

Understand who is taking part in writing the song, don’t be swayed by whether they are contributing to the recording as well (I’ll cover that compensation next), and don’t be afraid to negotiate with your co-writers once the song is completed to ensure you get an equitable split.

And once you confirm your splits, make sure you register your song!

The splits determine how songwriters share the publishing revenue. Here’s a piece I wrote for @djbooth about where that revenue comes from. bit.ly/3dTLebm

Now for the master side.

It’s important to note that the concept of splits doesn’t exist in the same way as in the recorded music business; in publishing the writers determine how the revenue is shared, but in recorded music, it’s between the record company and the artist (and sometimes the producer).

Record companies negotiate with their artists over a record royalty, the percentage the artist gets of a sale of a record (or of the revenue attributable to the streams of that record).

That royalty is not in proportion to the artist’s contribution, but determined by practice, leverage and clout. In general though, the record company’s position is that they are taking a big risk, which means the artist gets a small royalty.

Consider how many people are involved in a recording versus a song, and you can begin to see how things are divided in the way they are. Only a few contributors to a recording can claim to get a piece of the ownership/revenue from it, unlike songwriters, where each has a claim.

Typically, the only creators taking part in a recording that can demand a royalty are the artist, the producer, a mixer/remixer, and a featured or duet performer.

And because it’s the artist who has the recording contract, the record company insists they hire and pay for everybody else, so any third-party royalties come out of their share.

And while the record company has traditionally owned the sound recording, two things are happening that are making the negotiation over master-side revenue complex: artists owning their masters and producers/beatmakers leading/selling their work.

Who gets a piece of the master-side revenue in these situations?

This is an important question for artists and producers/beatmakers. Without a record company, it makes sense that the artist would own their own master, but what if they leased the underlying music and recorded their vocals on top of that beat?

What about a producer who created a track and hired the artist to feature on it?

Each situation will be different, and think it’s important for the artist and producer to discuss their goals what their contributions mean.

The producer/beatmaker created a recording when they wrote the underlying beat; there is a argument that their recording costs need to be reimbursed if the artist plans to own the recording outright;

if the artist can’t afford that, then maybe they can work out a split or even a recoupment situation that allows them to pay the producer back out of the earnings.

Bottom line: communicating with your collaborators and understanding how their involvement with creating the master determines what their expectations about compensation should be.

If you want to dig deeper, wrote for @DJBooth about master-side revenue streams. djbooth.it/rcrdrev