Last week a good friend of mine
asked me about music publishing. I was overwhelming to see a young cat so
interested in the business side of the music industry. I am by far no expert on
music publishing; however, I am always willing to share the knowledge that I
have so we all can grow as artists and business minded people. After seeing the
impact our conversion had on my friend, I decided to write my next blog post about
the subject. The aim of Lt’s Groove Plateau is to help artists along their
journey in this music industry. With that statement, I encourage inspiring
artists, managers, and record label owners to ask questions about the business.
Music is a gift from God, I always comeback to that statement; enjoyed it,
embraced it, share it, love it, and protect it.
In
my opinion, music publishing relates directly with copyrights. I had a previous
post on the Groove
Plateau that explained copyrights, and the rights they grant to the
owner. This is the scenario, when we write and copyright a song the ownership
of the song is divided into two equal shares. The 50/50 split is part
songwriter and part publisher. If a publisher does not represent an artist, the
artist owns both shares. A music
publisher job is to bring that created song to the masses by exploiting the
rights given by the copyright laws. In other words, a music publisher acts like
a sale person for your songs and he/she gives permission to use the song by
issuing out licenses that derive from the rights grant by copyright laws. I
used the following analogy with my friend; I hope this example can help
someone. Think of writing a song like creating a t-shirt you want to sell in
stores. In order to get the shirt in a store such as Wal-Mart, you would
hire a sale rep that is familiar with Wal-Mart, and the sale rep will try
to get Wal-Mart to acquire a license from him/her to sell the shirt. That
sale rep acts like a middleman between you and Wal-Mart. Now you can take
the shirt to Wal-Mart yourself; however, Wal-Mart might not want to
talk to you because you are unknown. (In the music industry most record labels,
managers, and music publishers want take any material from an artist without
known representation.) This is exactly what a music publisher does with the
song or a catalog of song; the music publisher tries to sell licenses to people
so they can use the song. The sale rep would negotiate a deal with Wal-Mart
pertaining to the rights of the shirt. The deal the sale rep makes with Wal-Mart
can be exclusive or non
exclusive. An exclusive deal means only Wal-Mart can sell the shirt, a
non-exclusive deal means the sale rep can make a deal with another store such
as Target. The sale rep does this legwork for a fee that is negotiated between
the sale rep and the creator of the shirt. I am speaking in general terms, in
the music industry Wal-Mart would actually be movies, TV shows, another
artists, streaming sites, etc.
Artists have to be mindful on the deal they signed with a music publisher or anyone else because a lot of an artist’s revenue generates from publishing. In order to keep thing simple I will use this scenario. If an artist agreed to give a music publisher the publisher percentages I mention earlier in the post, the artist is left with 50%. If the same artist sign a record deal that states the record company will acquire 50% of publishing this does not mean the 50% the artist negotiated with the publisher, the 50% comes from the songwriter’s share, leaving the artist only 25% of publishing. The more deals an artist signs the smaller the artist percentage will get.
Artists have to be mindful on the deal they signed with a music publisher or anyone else because a lot of an artist’s revenue generates from publishing. In order to keep thing simple I will use this scenario. If an artist agreed to give a music publisher the publisher percentages I mention earlier in the post, the artist is left with 50%. If the same artist sign a record deal that states the record company will acquire 50% of publishing this does not mean the 50% the artist negotiated with the publisher, the 50% comes from the songwriter’s share, leaving the artist only 25% of publishing. The more deals an artist signs the smaller the artist percentage will get.
I
hope this post clears up a gray area for many people. If you need further advise,
I have a video embed in this post, and you can always hit me up.
~LtL
