Music Business 101 - Publishing

If you recall, the law recognizes two separate copyrightable works in the music world: musical compositions and sound recordings.

who owns the sound recording copyright? the person that pays for the studio time (label), or the person that actually hits "record" on the D.A.W. (engineer)???
 
you become your own publisher when you create a musical composition. Again, don’t let the word trip you up - all this means is that, as with any other work, you are able to do anything you want with your song, including licensing it to other people to help make money from it.

So, if you’ve created a song, congratulations! Not only are you the owner of a copyright, but you are also officially a publisher. But simply being a publisher won’t make you money - you have to act as a publisher, or find someone else to do it for you.

awesome clarification!
 
Music publishers and songwriters began licensing their songs to piano-roll manufacturers, creating a lucrative new revenue stream. The “mechanical license” was born - a license of a musical composition to the manufacturer of a mechanical device that plays that musical composition.

And while piano rolls have fallen off the map, the mechanical license remains. It now refers to the licensing of a musical composition for any phonorecord - from albums to digital files and even ringtones.

that shyt makes perfect sense...
 
Giving up your copyright to get 50% of a lot of money that a well-established publisher can generate from your song is a lot better than getting 100% of nothing on your own.

so...

giving up your "publishing" is the same thing as giving up your "copyright"...right?
 
who owns the sound recording copyright? the person that pays for the studio time (label), or the person that actually hits "record" on the D.A.W. (engineer)???

As a rule, record labels will claim ownership in the sound recording, it's a standard clause in an artist's record deal to give that up.

Absent that, it's the person or people who had substantial involvement in the creation of the sound recording - usually that means the recording artists, though it can encompass anyone who had creative input - including producer or engineer - making it a joint authorship situation. Yeah, things can get tricky if things aren't figured out beforehand and there's a dispute.

does that mean that youtube is payin' artists for the music videos that it plays of them?

Since Youtube isn't doing the actual syncing or creating the content on its site, it doesn't have to pay for licenses, just like a television station wouldn't pay for the sync licenses for songs used in commercials (the ad company that makes them does that). It does pay public performance royalties to songwriters though.

does anybody get paid "publishing" on mixtapes (where copyright infringement runs rampant)?

If someone is selling mixtapes, which are considered 'phonorecords', then they would need to pay out mechanical licenses for the musical compositions on them. I'd imagine there's not much of that going on, probably through the songwriter's own choice.

giving up your "publishing" is the same thing as giving up your "copyright"...right?

No, sorry if I was a little unclear. "Publishing" only refers to the practice of exploiting (in the good sense) a musical composition copyright. When people talk about giving up their publishing, or half their publishing, they mean letting someone else exploit their copyright in exchange for that percentage of the income it generates. It doesn't involve giving up copyright, the intellectual property itself. A publishing deal could involve a transfer or assignment of part or all of a copyright, but not necessarily.
 
Yo this article/thread is straight Gospel.

Galactic you are the truth. Thanks for sharing your insight with the rest of us. So much props goes to you, my friend.

To me, this is what these forums should be all about - clear, relevant and informative insights to surviving the game which is the music business.

Your help is much appreciated, even if the other 180,000 on this forum haven't said so.

Peace,
[j]
 
your site is a god-send...

what is your motivation?

I'm unemployable...



...lol nah I started the site so that aspiring musicians had a place to come and learn about the music business. Not just what the major labels are doing, but also new "direct-to-fan" business models which are shaping the future for musicians.

It's something I'm passionate about and I also see a potential business in it so that's my motivation. I'm flattered that someone would come to the site to hear what I have to say, and I'm sure Terry (galacticboy) and Jacque (JSLmusic) feel the same, so it's motivating to know that we're helping and inspiring people.

The site is only a baby right now, we have big plans for it which we will slowly implement over the next year.

There is a contact form on the site which we encourage readers to use to give us their suggestions and what they would like to see on the site.
:cheers:
 
who owns the sound recording copyright? the person that pays for the studio time (label), or the person that actually hits "record" on the D.A.W. (engineer)???


It all comes down to whatever is in your contract... but typically, a label will *want* to own everything... but the label may only get *some portion* of the ownership... or have it for *some period of time*... or whatever you agree upon in the contract...

...but they of course will be getting *something* in return for their giving you a "record deal"

and this is all between *you* and the *label* (or any other investor or any other writer or performer, etc)


But in 99.999999999999999999% of all cases, the engineer (simply as "the person that actually hits record") does not own anything. The engineer is a person hired to record your music. So, unless you have worked out some sort of deal with an engineer where instead of paying him for his time, you give him a piece of the master, he would typically not have any ownership in anything.
 
The “mechanical license” was born - a license of a musical composition to the manufacturer of a mechanical device that plays that musical composition.

Actually, the mechanical license refers not to "a license of a musical composition to the manufacturer of a mechanical device that plays that musical composition"...

what it refers to is the license of a musical composition to be "mechanically reproduced" (i.e., on a piano roll, a record, a casette, a CD, etc, etc... and, in modern times, it has been extrapolated to incluse MP3's and such)

This means that, since you are licensing the composition to be mechanically reproduced, you pay regardless of how many units are *actually sold*... if you are doing a cover song on your CD and you are manufacturing 5000 CD's, you have to pay the mechanical royalty for all 5000 CD's at the time you get them manufactured (when you have a CD manufactured, the manufacturer asks for your paperwork on this mechanical license before he starts the job... or at least he is supposed to)

...and the statutory rate for mechanical royalties is around $0.09 per song per CD... so you would have to pay that x5000 CD before you even get your albums pressed.

...and that is just the statutory rate... meaning the maximum you would have to pay (for a cover song... not a sample or a derivative work)... you can always try to negotiate a reduced rate.
 
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