Once You Write A Song, It Pays You Forever.

...let me explain.

One of the responsibilities of a publisher is to pay mechanical royalties (see definition below). The rate that publishers must pay an artist in this area is called the "statutory rate". The current statutory rate is nine and one-tenth cent ($.091) per song. Unfortunately, if you are a small artist without much buzz publishing companies have a habit of only paying 75% of this cost. In this case the artist would earn no much more than 68 cents for every 10 CDs sold (ouch!).

The term mechanical royalties refers to royalties paid for the reproduction of songs on CD, audiocassette, DAT, flexi-discs, musical greeting cards, and other devices.

...Well, you do! One of the great things about Music publishers is that they take over the administrative tasks involved with getting copyrights when you sign with them, they are the ones that deal with the US Copyright Office. This registration gives the copyright owner protection rights and the permission to take up to 100,000 in damages and attorneys fees if the copyright is infringed upon. (w00t!)

...you bet! Your publisher can help with that. Companies that want music for their video obtain synchronization licenses. "Sync" licenses are required when you put your music to a video (yours or someone else's). Your publishing company will issue these licenses for your music and usually give you about 50% of the profits.

...well you did all that work, made all that music, even toured around the world! So, how much is that big check going to be?

50% less after your publisher sees it!

With the exception of print music, income from musical compositions is generally split on a 50/50 basis between the music publisher and writer. The publisher's half of this income is called the "publisher's share," and the writer's half is the "writer's share."

To illustrate how this works in the real world, let's take the following example. Imagine a publisher collects slightly more than $.68 (68 cents) in mechanical royalties from the sale of one of your CDs (actually 10 songs x $.091 cents per song x 75% rate for controlled compositions = 68.25 cents. I'll round off the extra 1 cent for purposes of this article). Assuming there are no collection costs deducted off the top, the publisher's share comes to approximately $.34 (34 cents) and the writer's share also comes to approximately $.34 (34 cents).

This financial split is a basic, but important, concept. When discussing publishing income, be sure to remember this distinction between "publisher's share" and "writer's share."

A copyright owner also has the exclusive right to authorize the "public performance" of that work. This is why radio and television broadcasters must enter into licenses with performance rights organizations such as BMI, ASCAP and SESAC. These performance rights organizations collect income on behalf of songwriters and music publishers whenever a song is publicly broadcast. Even though music publishers do not collect this performance rights income, publishers remain entitled to 50% of the money received by BMI, ASCAP, SESAC and others. Publishers also register songs with these performance rights organizations.

Actually, not every artist needs to enter a publishing deal. It may be wiser to first obtain a major record deal before finding a music publisher. In fact, publishers may want nothing to do with an artist who doesn't have a record deal or some other guaranteed way to generate income. In addition, some artists may prefer to hold onto their copyrights and let administration agencies collect their publishing income.