In our last article, we broke it down with a general overview to music rights by using simple metaphors of pieces of a pizza.
In this article, we want to focus on the half of the music revenue stream pizza referred to as Publishing Income.
It is important to note that the Publishing Income revenue has two main parts.
Part 1: Writer Share
50% of the Publishing Income is collected solely for the writer or writers of a piece of music.
The Writer’s Share, by law, is collected by a Performance Rights Organization or PRO. The most common PRO’s in the United States are BMI, ASCAP and SESAC.
Often, there are multiple writers who are collecting on the Writer’s Share of a song or composition.
For example, if there are five writers on a song, each of the writers will collect 10% of the 50% of Writer’s Share.
The Writers Share is collected from a variety of businesses that use music in the course of their operations. This could be television, radio, restaurants, clubs and even on-line lyric sites.
Having a PRO collect your Writer’s Share is easy and affordable to set-up. It is a mandatory part of your business of music.
A PRO is NOT a Publishing Deal.
Part 2: Publishers Share
The Publisher’s Share is the other 50% of Publishing Income.
This is the what is referred to as a “Publishing Deal” in the music industry.
In a Publishing Deal, the publisher of the composition is granted certain rights, and is then authorized to issue licenses and collect royalties in respect to the composition on behalf of the owner of the music.
Think of the Publisher as the “marketer of the music”. As such, they represent the performance rights and mechanical rights for the copyright owner, and as marketer are tasked with ensuring your music is “pitched” and the bookkeeping and collecting is managed and maximized.
Your Publisher will collect money and represent your music in various outlets, for example: international collection, streaming mechanical payments, physical sales mechanical payments, film and television use (sync), YouTube and other video outlets, lyrics and printed music.
As an artist, if you own your own rights to your music, you can collect your Writer’s Share AND the Publisher’s Share.
As an Artist Service Company, we can help guide you to make the right choices to set-up your Music Rights Structure in a manner that allows you to maximize revenue as well as maintain your rights.
It’s time to get serious about the Business of Music.
