j.troup
New member
This thread gave a valuable run down of how Music Publishing works for the Producer, Writer, Artist and Record Label.
I wanted to repost what I wrote (which I've turned into a Tumblr post) for all of FP to take advantage of.
I hope you enjoy and shout out to Legal Dollaz for the input...And Mods, y'all should Sticky this one, because this is how we get paid from this Hip Hop and R&B music we make...
(and for more info on The Business of Music, check out my business Tumblr Blog www.TROUPGenius.Tumblr.com)
MUSIC PUBLISHING OVERVIEW
Music Publishing: A music publisher is one who exploits a copyright (song). It’s the job of a music publisher to squeeze as much money from a song as possible. Music Publishing is a fancy way of saying revenue generated from the exploitation (in a good way) of a song. There are 4 types, ordered from most $$ to least $$ typically generated…
Mechanical Publishing: Money from Music Sales. Whether physical or digital sales.
Performance Publishing: Money Generated from the performance of the song. This includes radio play, song being played in venues (Stadiums, Starbucks, etc), and concerts.
Sync Publishing: Money from “syncing” the music with pictures/movies…as in putting the song in a commercial or a movie.
Print Publishing: Money from Sheet Music or the PRINTING of lyrics (say in a magazine ad, or in a book)
COPYRIGHTS
In the eyes of the law, each song is considered ONE COPYRIGHT. And a Copyright is comprised of 2 parts (Songwriter and Instrumental) of 2 (Creator and Publisher). So here’s the breakdown of the ownership percentages of a single Song Copyright:
Songwriter Portion (Lyrics) (50% of the total Copyright)
Creator of Words: aka the Songwriter (25% of total Copyright)
Publisher of Words (25% of total Copyright)
Instrumental Music Portion (50% of the total Copyright)
Creator of the Music (25 of the Copyright)
Publisher of the Music (25% of the Copyright)
**It’s important to note that upon the CREATION of the works, the creators are automatically assigned 100% of ownership rights. So when someone creates a song, they automatically own all of the rights to it. The only way they “lose” the rights to their work is when they sell those rights to another party (aka “sign them away”).
So why is a copyright broken out into 2 parts? Because often times, a song is exploited in separate parts. For instance, the song lyrics may be printed as apart of a magazine ad. In that case, the creator of the lyrics would get paid, because their work was used (Print Publishing), but since no music was used, the creator of the music doesn’t get paid. And conversely, the instrumental part of the song may be used in a movie or commercial (Sync Publishing) so the person who wrote the words doesn’t get a cut of that, since none of the words were used.
The Creator portion is of course the person(s) who created the works…they are entitled to a percentage ownership simply because they CREATED the works. The Publisher is the person/entity who is out working hard to ensure that song makes every single dollar it can. Typically, a portion of the Publishing is assigned to the Record Label (this is where things get hairy, so since we’re not working with a record label, we’ll leave that part for another day!)
So that’s how a copyright is broken down into percentages. Now why is this important? Because it determines the division of how the creators of the work get paid from the exploitation of their intellectual property. Any revenue received from the song is broken up equally, according to the Copyright percentages, for Performance Publishing, Sync Publishing and Print Publishing. But it works slightly different for MECHANICAL (Sales) Publishing. Here’s why…
MECHANICAL PUBLISHING (SALES)
Traditionally, the lions share of money made from music was made from the SALE of music. And in the early days, shady record labels were notorious for finding ways to separate music creators from the money they were rightfully owed from the sale of said music. So Congress stepped in and established what’s known as the Statutory Rate. What the Statutory Rate says is…
“Every time a song is sold, $X MUST go to the music creators, to be split up equitably according to the Copyright Ownership percentages”.
That $X is a dollar amount set by Congress, which is reviewed (and increased) every 10 years or so. That rate is currently $0.091 (9.1 Cents) (Here’s an article from the Library of Congress that breaks down the different types… http://www.copyright.gov/carp/m200a.pdf)
This was done to PROTECT the music creators, to ensure that they got properly compensated for their work:
BREAKDOWN OF MONEY FROM MUSIC SALES
Now for the sake of making the math simple, I’ll only deal with the sale of one single (say, on iTunes), for $0.99 (99 Cents). Ring tones, streaming (Pandory, Spotify) and other types of music delivery are handled slightly differently.
So….when a song is sold on iTunes for 99 cents, here’s how everyone gets paid according to the copyright percentages… (Not taking into account the 30% that Apple gets, for the privilege of using their digital store!)
Cost of 1 Single Download: $0.99
Statutory Mechanical Rate: $0.091
Songwriter (25% of the total Copyright)
.25 x $0.091 = $.02275 (2.75 Cents)
Songwriter Publisher (25% of the total Copyright)
.25 x $0.091 = $.02275 (2.75 Cents)
So the Songwriter(s) will generate royalties of 4.55 cents per song sold on iTunes
The creator of the music works the exact same:
Music Creator (25% of the total Copyright)
.25 x $0.091 = $.02275 (2.75 Cents)
Songwriter Publisher
.25 x $0.091 = $.02275 (2.75 Cents)
So the Music Creator(s) will generate royalties of 4.55 cents per song sold on iTunes
So the Song Creators (Songwriter, Music Composer) are guaranteed (By the Statutory Mechanical Rate set by Congress) to get paid 9.1 Cents from the sale of ONE song on iTunes. Well of course, a song on iTunes costs 99 cents…so you may be asking who gets the remaining 89.9 Cents???
THE RECORD LABEL!!!!!
Why? It is assumed that the record label has assumed all of the costs in creating the record (paying for the studio, the equipment, etc), as well as all of the costs in marketing and promoting the record (which includes paying for the artist to tour, paying for radio campaigns, magazine ads, etc), which easily tops millions of dollars. They also have to pay the staff of the record label, and the overhead associated with running the business. The leftover money is to cover their costs, and also have them make a profit.
In the case of an independent artist, there is no record label, so they act as their own record label, thus entitling them to that share of the revenue from sales.
I wanted to repost what I wrote (which I've turned into a Tumblr post) for all of FP to take advantage of.
I hope you enjoy and shout out to Legal Dollaz for the input...And Mods, y'all should Sticky this one, because this is how we get paid from this Hip Hop and R&B music we make...
(and for more info on The Business of Music, check out my business Tumblr Blog www.TROUPGenius.Tumblr.com)
MUSIC PUBLISHING OVERVIEW
Music Publishing: A music publisher is one who exploits a copyright (song). It’s the job of a music publisher to squeeze as much money from a song as possible. Music Publishing is a fancy way of saying revenue generated from the exploitation (in a good way) of a song. There are 4 types, ordered from most $$ to least $$ typically generated…
Mechanical Publishing: Money from Music Sales. Whether physical or digital sales.
Performance Publishing: Money Generated from the performance of the song. This includes radio play, song being played in venues (Stadiums, Starbucks, etc), and concerts.
Sync Publishing: Money from “syncing” the music with pictures/movies…as in putting the song in a commercial or a movie.
Print Publishing: Money from Sheet Music or the PRINTING of lyrics (say in a magazine ad, or in a book)
COPYRIGHTS
In the eyes of the law, each song is considered ONE COPYRIGHT. And a Copyright is comprised of 2 parts (Songwriter and Instrumental) of 2 (Creator and Publisher). So here’s the breakdown of the ownership percentages of a single Song Copyright:
Songwriter Portion (Lyrics) (50% of the total Copyright)
Creator of Words: aka the Songwriter (25% of total Copyright)
Publisher of Words (25% of total Copyright)
Instrumental Music Portion (50% of the total Copyright)
Creator of the Music (25 of the Copyright)
Publisher of the Music (25% of the Copyright)
**It’s important to note that upon the CREATION of the works, the creators are automatically assigned 100% of ownership rights. So when someone creates a song, they automatically own all of the rights to it. The only way they “lose” the rights to their work is when they sell those rights to another party (aka “sign them away”).
So why is a copyright broken out into 2 parts? Because often times, a song is exploited in separate parts. For instance, the song lyrics may be printed as apart of a magazine ad. In that case, the creator of the lyrics would get paid, because their work was used (Print Publishing), but since no music was used, the creator of the music doesn’t get paid. And conversely, the instrumental part of the song may be used in a movie or commercial (Sync Publishing) so the person who wrote the words doesn’t get a cut of that, since none of the words were used.
The Creator portion is of course the person(s) who created the works…they are entitled to a percentage ownership simply because they CREATED the works. The Publisher is the person/entity who is out working hard to ensure that song makes every single dollar it can. Typically, a portion of the Publishing is assigned to the Record Label (this is where things get hairy, so since we’re not working with a record label, we’ll leave that part for another day!)
So that’s how a copyright is broken down into percentages. Now why is this important? Because it determines the division of how the creators of the work get paid from the exploitation of their intellectual property. Any revenue received from the song is broken up equally, according to the Copyright percentages, for Performance Publishing, Sync Publishing and Print Publishing. But it works slightly different for MECHANICAL (Sales) Publishing. Here’s why…
MECHANICAL PUBLISHING (SALES)
Traditionally, the lions share of money made from music was made from the SALE of music. And in the early days, shady record labels were notorious for finding ways to separate music creators from the money they were rightfully owed from the sale of said music. So Congress stepped in and established what’s known as the Statutory Rate. What the Statutory Rate says is…
“Every time a song is sold, $X MUST go to the music creators, to be split up equitably according to the Copyright Ownership percentages”.
That $X is a dollar amount set by Congress, which is reviewed (and increased) every 10 years or so. That rate is currently $0.091 (9.1 Cents) (Here’s an article from the Library of Congress that breaks down the different types… http://www.copyright.gov/carp/m200a.pdf)
This was done to PROTECT the music creators, to ensure that they got properly compensated for their work:
BREAKDOWN OF MONEY FROM MUSIC SALES
Now for the sake of making the math simple, I’ll only deal with the sale of one single (say, on iTunes), for $0.99 (99 Cents). Ring tones, streaming (Pandory, Spotify) and other types of music delivery are handled slightly differently.
So….when a song is sold on iTunes for 99 cents, here’s how everyone gets paid according to the copyright percentages… (Not taking into account the 30% that Apple gets, for the privilege of using their digital store!)
Cost of 1 Single Download: $0.99
Statutory Mechanical Rate: $0.091
Songwriter (25% of the total Copyright)
.25 x $0.091 = $.02275 (2.75 Cents)
Songwriter Publisher (25% of the total Copyright)
.25 x $0.091 = $.02275 (2.75 Cents)
So the Songwriter(s) will generate royalties of 4.55 cents per song sold on iTunes
The creator of the music works the exact same:
Music Creator (25% of the total Copyright)
.25 x $0.091 = $.02275 (2.75 Cents)
Songwriter Publisher
.25 x $0.091 = $.02275 (2.75 Cents)
So the Music Creator(s) will generate royalties of 4.55 cents per song sold on iTunes
So the Song Creators (Songwriter, Music Composer) are guaranteed (By the Statutory Mechanical Rate set by Congress) to get paid 9.1 Cents from the sale of ONE song on iTunes. Well of course, a song on iTunes costs 99 cents…so you may be asking who gets the remaining 89.9 Cents???
THE RECORD LABEL!!!!!
Why? It is assumed that the record label has assumed all of the costs in creating the record (paying for the studio, the equipment, etc), as well as all of the costs in marketing and promoting the record (which includes paying for the artist to tour, paying for radio campaigns, magazine ads, etc), which easily tops millions of dollars. They also have to pay the staff of the record label, and the overhead associated with running the business. The leftover money is to cover their costs, and also have them make a profit.
In the case of an independent artist, there is no record label, so they act as their own record label, thus entitling them to that share of the revenue from sales.
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