Music Publishing Royalties

By Mark G. Quail

Does music publishing confuse you? Don't feel bad. It confuses experienced music veterans too. Music publishing is about making money from the creative act of songwriting. Let's break it down like this: once you've finished writing a song that people want to hear it can earn money in several different ways, the main ones being when someone records it and sells records of it, when it is sold as sheet music, when it is played on the radio and when it is used as part of movie or a TV show.

Don't confuse publishing royalties with record royalties. The person who performs the song gets royalties from the sale of records. The person who wrote the song gets publishing royalties. The two types of royalties are separate because the copyright in the record and the copyright in the song are two separate things.

Publishing royalties break down into several categories. These include: "mechanical royalties" earned from the sale of records, "print royalties" earned from the sale of sheet music, "synchronization royalties" earned when the song is placed in film or TV productions, and "public performance royalties" earned when the song is played in public such as on the radio or TV or in a live concert setting. There are also categories that earn substantially smaller royalties such as website usage, audio greeting cards, tariffs from the sale of digital audio recorders and karaoke licenses but taken together these can add up.

These different royalty categories have their sources in the payments made by the user of the song. The record company making the CDs pays the mechanical royalties. The company that supervises the printing of the sheet music pays the print royalties. The synchronization payments originate with the production company behind the TV show or film and the public performance royalties are derived from the radio and TV stations, restaurants, night clubs and concert halls that pay for the right to broadcast or perform the songs to the public.

To complicate matters, but in ways that are beneficial to the songwriter ultimately, there are several "collection societies" that act as middlemen and assist in the collection of some of these royalties. ASCAP, BMI and SESAC are rights societies that collect the license fees from any music users who want to perform music in public, radio and TV stations being the biggest of such users. Songwriters join one of these and then register their works that are to be publicly performed. All three have detailed websites that provide further information. The Harry Fox Agency ("HFA") is the collection organization that handles mechanical licenses on behalf of their music publisher members. Most publishers use the HFA as a license clearance facility as they have the administrative capacity to handle the thousands of license requests that record companies make each year. If you are a songwriter without a deal with a music publisher you can always issue mechanical licenses on your own or if you're getting a ton of license requests and you don't want to contract with a another music publisher you can always join the HFA as a publisher member. Do a Google search to find these societies on the World Wide Web.

Synchronization licenses are most often handled directly by the songwriter or, if the songwriter has one, a music publisher. Licenses to print sheet music are generally farmed out to one of three print companies operating in the U.S.

© Mark G. Quail 2004
The information in this article is not to be construed as legal advice. It is strongly recommended that you seek legal counsel in your local jurisdiction to advise you on any contractual matters.

Mark G. Quail is a lawyer based in Toronto Canada. His practice is restricted to music and video game related matters. He can be reached through his website at www.markquail.com