Help with music publishing questions

J

JAMESUK

New member
Hi everyone,

I am starting my own record label and I have an artist who will be releasing a CD soon. So far we are using outside songwriters to write the songs for this artist and I have heard that if you send a song to a major artist that they will often ask for a part of the music publishing just to record that song for their albums and so what I want to know is if it is also normal for me as the record label boss to ask for a part of the music publishing for a particular song that will be included on one of my artists albums from the songwriter?

I only want for example 20% of the publishing of the song for the version that is being used on one of my artists albums. Would this be acceptable business practice in the music business to do this?

And how would I go about doing this legally so its legally binding?

Many Thanks.
 
First thing is that you would sign up with a PRO as a publisher, and have your artist sign up as a writer. If your outside songwriters want any potential royalties from their songs, they will be signed up too.

When you register the SONG with the PRO, you'll include your artist's name and writer IPI # (used to identify) as the writer - 50% of the overall credits, or 100% of the writing. Again, depending on what your outside songwriters are expecting, you may have to include them in the "writer" credits as well, and the percentages get split up. This takes a chunk out of your artist's earnings, but hey.. that's life when you collaborate.

For publishing, unless your outside writers demand otherwise, you should be getting full publishing credits. That's 50% of the overall credits, or 100% of the publishing - it's worded differently between different PROs.

Of course you can offer publishing rights to your artist. I don't think that's common, but it's what you and he negotiate that matters. And that means he'd have to be signed up to a PRO as a publisher too, with his own publishing IPI #. There's no right or wrong - only what works best for you and your people.

I'm not going to offer any advice on legal binding, as I'm no lawyer. But make sure you have the business end of things tied up before the album goes live.
 
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Thanks for your informative response.

Just to be clear to you understand the issue completely. The songs I am talking about using have been completely written by outside songwriters so theoretically these outside writers should hold the complete copyright and 100% of the music publishing rights for these songs right? What I want to know is if its standard practice to ask for a percentage of the music publishing rights for each song we will use on the album despite the fact no one from our record label has actually contributed to the song in anyway?

I have heard that if you pitch an original song to a major artist like Mariah Carey that she will ask for some of the publishing rights of the song (up to 50%) even if she has had no part in composing the song.

To try and maximize the revenue from the album we would like to ask for say 20% of the music publishing rights from the outside songwriters for any of the songs we use on our artists new album. Is this normal? And is this acceptable? And how would we go about doing this? So its legal and above board?

Many thanks.
 
the only thing i would add to what ipm has already said is that what he has written assumes that you have bought out some or all of the original writers rights in some way - they have been compensated for their efforts prior to registration, otherwise there may be issues with conflicting claims on the rights which could cause the PRO's to reject both claims of registration
 
Hi Bandcoach,

When you say that we have to compensate the original songwriters of the song does that mean we have to pay them some money? Are you referring to financial compensation? So are we effectively purchasing some of the publishing rights of the song before its included on the album and before the song is officially registered? Or are you just saying we have to come to a verbal agreement or written agreement with the songwriters before we register the song? So as long as they agree to give us a percentage of the publishing rights in writing then this would be ok without us having to give them money for a share of the publishing for the song.

Can you also tell me if it is normal practice for a record label to take a part of the music publishing of a song that is written by outside writers if it is included on one of their albums even if the record label has had no part in the composition of the song itself? And what sort of percentage would they usually ask for of the music publishing?

Many thanks.
 
you are taking a source of income stream from them by insisting on publishing - this needs to be compensated for in some manner as an upfront payment or by purchasing the rights they cede to you

If it were me I would not cede a single point of my publishing or other rights if I were not being paid for the use of the song or otherwise compensated for my efforts in creating the track

but, again, I strongly recommend that you discuss this with your lawyers as they may have a different view - I find it hard to believe that the industry regularly behaves in the way you suggest but then I am often surprised by what people eager to get their game on will give away if they think it will help them later on :(
 
Hey Bandcoach,

Yes this absolutely goes on in the business. I have spoken to people at major record companies and music artists themselves and most of the major big names do it too. The songwriter industry is almost like a closed shop and unless you sacrifice a percentage of your music publishing then an artist could simply refuse to record your song for their album even if they like it. They often consider that they are doing you a big favour just by recording one of your songs and giving you a platform so they want to be rewarded for this.

Other major artists will compensate a songwriter fairly by offering them financial compensation before the album is released to limit how much the songwriter will earn if the album is successful.

This is why I wanted to know if its something that record labels do as well as the major artists because running a record label is particularly expensive and so I am looking to recoup some of these costs by coming to some sort of arrangement for the music publishing rights with some of the outside writers. Its not something that I will definitely do but just wanted to explore the possiblity and to see if this practice was widespread.

Thanks again for your input.
 
I think what you are describing is basic negotiation. Yeah, Mariah Carey's team is going to negotiate as much money her way as possible. And the songwriter would either accept or counter-offer something else. In the end, it's what both parties are willing to accept.
 
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