Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, and Warner/Chappell are the top three most successful music publishers.
Protect your work
- Establish membership as both composer and publisher in one of the performing rights organizations (PROs)—ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. They collect royalties for their members whenever their work is performed, live or otherwise.
- Register your work for copyright with the Library of Congress (optional)
Music publishing is the management of copyrighted music that gets used commercially. A publisher is responsible for things like the collection of royalties, the public use of music made by the artists they represent and finding licensing opportunities.
Music publishers earn money through licensing fees and royalties. In terms of song ownership, a publisher usually gets a 50% stake in a track. In other words, the original copyright owner (the songwriter) assigns a portion of the copyright for a song to the publisher.
Is my record label my publisher? No. Your record label is not your Publisher, unless the record label 1) establishes itself as the Publisher of your songs in your label contract, 2) registers your songs in royalty collection societies, and 3) collects the Publishing royalties and distributes them to you.
Music publishing allows licensing for your songs so you get paid for writing them. If you want regular royalty checks, you may need a publisher for the big job of administering the mechanical, synchronization and master licenses for your music.
The 10 companies below are the best music distribution services for artists and musicians, and are largely, if not directly, responsible for the ongoing trend.
- CD Baby.
- Distrokid.
- ReverbNation.
- LANDR.
- Tunecore.
- RouteNote.
- OneRPM.
- Ditto Music.
According to Pierre Bradshaw, who worked 6 years at MCA/Universal Music, a band with a hit song can bring in anywhere from $10 thousand to $50 thousand per performance. And the actual members of the band get to keep around 85% to 90% of that. (Their manager usually gets a 10% to 15% cut.)
Nielsen SoundScan in their 2011 report noted that the "big four" controlled about 88% of the market:
- Universal Music Group (USA based) — 29.85%
- Sony Music Entertainment (USA based) — 29.29%
- Warner Music Group (USA based) — 19.13%
- Independent labels — 12.11%
- EMI Group — 9.62%
The music industry isn't dead, there's just too much new material, and people want it for free. So the competition is immense and there's almost no money in it for the artist. It's tough choosing to go through hell for a year to write and record an album if only a handful of people are going to buy it for a few bucks.
Best Record Labels
- 1 Warner Bros.
- 2 Island/Def Jam.
- 3 Aftermath.
- 4 Atlantic.
- 5 Epic.
- 6 Young Money Entertainment.
- 7 Cash Money Billionaire Records.
- 8 Columbia.
Nielsen SoundScan in their 2011 report noted that the "big four" controlled about 88% of the market:
- Universal Music Group (USA based) — 29.85%
- Sony Music Entertainment (USA based) — 29.29%
- Warner Music Group (USA based) — 19.13%
- Independent labels — 12.11%
- EMI Group — 9.62%
In the music industry, a 360 deal (from 360° deal) is a business relationship between an artist and a music industry company. In turn, the artist agrees to give the company a percentage of an increased number of their revenue streams, often including sales of recorded music, live performances, publishing and more.
Top 20 countries with the largest music industry
| Sr. No. | Country | Retail Value US |
|---|
| 1 | United States | 5,916.1 |
| 2 | Japan | 2,727.5 |
| 3 | Germany | 1,323.1 |
| 4 | United Kingdom | 1,310.7 |
Record labels typically set the terms and conditions of artist contracts in their favor. In the case of newly signed artists, record labels can control the type of music they record, which can include everything from the way the music sounds to the song lyrics. They also control album cover art in most instances.
Up to 95% of all music consumed in the US is downloaded illegally. This is bad news for the music industry, obviously, but it's also bad news the US economy: the reduction in sales means a loss of $12.5 billion in revenue for the American government.
For over a decade, it's been tempting to write off record labels for dead. But record labels aren't dying, at least not anytime soon. In fact, for the first time in years, their quarterly revenues are growing (thanks to the explosion of music subscriptions).
If you are a BMI-affiliated songwriter who is publishing only your own songs, your publishing company only needs to be affiliated with BMI; you do not need to join any other PRO. As a publisher you will be required to register your songs with BMI.
In the simplest terms, a songwriter needs a publisher when they have a number of songs that are ready to be placed in a commercial market AND the songwriter doesn't have the connections to get those songs recorded on their own.
For both BMI and ASCAP, stations must keep what is known as cue sheets: a list of every song that is played on the network, when it is played and for how long. In addition to combing the data provided by the stations, the performance rights societies also use digital monitoring to keep track of television song plays.
A songwriter or composer is the creator of a work, which is a song, score or other musical composition. A publisher, on the other hand, is an individual or company that owns or administers the copyright of a work.
In general, the individual who writes or records an original song owns the copyright in the musical work or sound recording. So if only one person is involved in the writing and recording process, then that person owns the resulting copyrights.
When should I join BMI? Joining BMI is an important early step in an aspiring songwriter, composer and/or artist's career. If you have written at least one musical composition, either by yourself or with others, and the composition is currently being performed or is likely to be performed soon, you should join BMI.
Performance Royalties. The music industry relies on royalties generated by the licensing of copyrighted songs and recordings as a primary form of payment for musicians. Song copyrights are typically assigned to music publishers, while master recording copyrights are typically assigned to a record label.
In most cases, this is an arrangement that lasts for the rest of your life and then some (a copyright lasts for 70 years beyond your death). Also, in most cases, that recording that the publisher split with you or loaned you money to make is entirely their property.
A master recording is the first recording of a song or other sound, from which all the later copies are made. Master recordings (usually called just "masters") can be made on discs, tapes, and computer data storage formats. Master recordings often become valuable, especially if the recording artist is popular.
If you finance the studio time, then the person who pays the bills is the executive producer and owns the master recording. As Bob Ohlsson mentioned, in today's record industry, labels typically don't purchase Master recordings, they will lease them for a set time from the owner of the masters.
They are calculated and divided as follows: Mechanical Royalties: Record companies pay the publisher mechanicals based on the amount of phonorecords sold. This negotiated or "reduced" mechanical royalty rate is generally a percentage of the minimum compulsory license rate, up to a maximum number of songs.
ASCAP vs BMI – Which Is Better? They're relatively similar, however the main difference between ASCAP and BMI is that BMI is free to register and ASCAP has a one-off fee of $50. Now it's up to you to weigh up BMI vs ASCAP and their pros & cons.
They exist all over the world and are designed to pay local performance royalties to copyright owners wherever they are. Performance royalties are paid to the copyright holder whenever a composition is performed publicly – recorded or live, on radio, television, digital outlets, concerts, and other music services.
Copyright is split into two main sections: copyright in the song (known as publishing rights) and copyright in the sound recording (known as master rights). The publisher only deals with the publishing right, which is the songwriting side and includes the music and lyrics.
7 Steps to Finding a Music Publisher
- Is your music ready? This is so important.
- Educate yourself! It's natural to get excited by the first publisher you encounter, but you could end up learning the hard way if you sign an agreement before learning the rules.
- Google is your friend.
- Pick up the phone.
- Use your gut.
- One song, one publisher.
- Find a lawyer.
