Master Recordings and Music Publishing. As a musician, making the music is often the enjoyable, challenging, and sentimental part of the creative process for an artist. However, the business itself revolves around these two very important categories where the money is actually made. Sound Recordings and Publishing. Let's start with defining a few terms that may help you understand what we are talking about. Publishing is defined as the occupation, business, or activity of preparing material for sale. Composition is defined as the nature of some things, ingredients, or constituents. Constituents are more commonly referred to as who are the people involved in the creation of the composition, who's playing the bass, who's on the percussion, who's on the synth, and who's involved in making the final contribution. Sound recording, or more commonly referred to as master recording in the music industry, is defined as the official, original recording of a song, sound, or performance. Master recordings are the final, mixed, and mastered versions of a recording. They serve as the source for all copies and reproductions influencing the quality of music presented to audiences. For example, remixes, interpolations, and future sampling. Masters are essential for distribution and licensing. These are the versions of music that end up on your streaming services, inside movies, video games, TV shows, and more. They hold long-term value representing an artist's legacy in the industry. The master recordings are the final commercial version of music people fall in love with. For example, hit songs made in the 1980s can then be licensed for a movie now and become a hit again. An example of this is Kate Bush's 80s hit Running Up That Hill that was more recently used in the Netflix hit series Stranger Things. Another example would be Luke Bryan's recent cover of Tracy Chapman's Fast Car, driving both songs back up the charts and reigniting Tracy Chapman's catalog. As we have all heard many times before, record labels typically own the master recordings, especially in traditional record deals from the past. However, with more educational tools available, artists are becoming less willing to give up their ownership if they can avoid relinquishing those rights. You're seeing more independent artists from the past and present retain ownership, providing more control and flexibility. Ownership impacts future opportunities, negotiations, control of remake, and financial benefits. So the controlling of your master recordings is an imperative element to focus on. For artists that did sell their master recordings in the past, here is an important law that was passed in 1978. The US Congress passed section 203 of the US Copyright Act, which allows artists to reclaim their rights to their master recordings after 35 years. Many artists that recorded their songs in the 1970s and before have used this provision to reclaim their songs from record label deals. What this means is, if you happen to sell your recording, and it has been 35 years since you have signed a contract and released that recording, you are now entitled to reclaim ownership of your music. Now let's get into music publishing. Music publishing is the act of owning, managing, exploiting, and protecting the rights of intellectual property and music. It ensures the songwriters and composers of a song get paid for their music when it's used for commercial purposes. This management can be done by songwriters or a music publishing company. It includes activities like licensing, royalty collection, and protecting intellectual property. Anyone from songwriters, composers, lyricists, or beat-makers, and even engineers in some cases, should protect their rights through music publishing. Additionally, I think amendments need to be made to who gets included in music publishing, so that we include other positions like music engineers, who have now taken on altered and more hybrid roles in the music industry, and they often end up taking on production-style roles. Therefore, they should be included and covered under publishing rights. Here are a few common types of music publishing deals. An administration deal is a partnership in which a songwriter contracts with a publishing administrator. In this specific type of arrangement, the songwriter keeps 100% ownership of the copyright and pays an administrative fee to the publisher. In a co-publishing deal, publishers are generally compensated by being assigned 50% ownership of the copyright of relevant musical works. What this means is the writer and the publisher share upfront funds received from a song placement with respect to synchronization rights. Third, sub-publishing. This exists where a writer and or a publishing and administration entity enters into an agreement with a foreign publishing company, the sub-publisher, to exploit their compositions in a different country or countries. Here are a few key contract terms to be mindful of. Royalty splits, contract duration, rights being granted to the publisher. As always, artists should be careful, review, and negotiate terms with their managers and legal teams before signing a publishing deal. As an artist, maybe you're asking yourself, when should I get a publishing deal? It's very common for a new artist to say they need a publishing deal when they don't even understand what publishing is. What they're really saying, I need a check. What they don't understand is that they're giving up rights to their future compositions without actually building up a catalog that has any value, taking away their future earnings before they have any to begin with. Working with a publisher and administrator provides access to expertise, industry connections, collection tools, and potential exposure. However, there is no need to rush into a publishing deal where you surrender your rights. Take your time, build your music, and collect on the works you create. Publishing provides protection for intellectual property and ensures fair royalty distribution. It's also essential for artists aiming for long-term career growth in the music industry. Now let's get into DIY music publishing versus working with a major publisher. Deciding to be independent or going with a major publisher depends on a few factors. Regardless of the decision you make, it should align with your goals, resources, and preferred level of involvement. Now let's get into how you register songs and how you collect your royalties. You register your songs with one of the major PROs, which stands for Performance, Rights, Organizations. The three most popular PROs in the US are ASCAP, BMI, and CSAC. Here are the type of royalties. Mechanical, which covers sales and streaming. Performance, which covers live shows and radio. And SYNC, which covers use in TV, film, video games, etc. For publishing purposes under ASCAP, BMI, or CSAC, the performance rights are the ones that are covered and collected by those three entities. Make sure you regularly update song information with your PRO to ensure up-to-date royalty collection. It's very common to see artists complaining to their publishers about where their publishing income is coming from or why they're not seeing quarterly revenue. But the reality is, if you're not keeping up-to-date informing your publisher of new releases you have coming out, there's going to be a lapse in what you're putting out and what you're collecting on. Whether you have an independent DIY publishing deal or you're with a major publisher, communication is always going to be key. If you're not communicating directly with your publisher, keeping them up-to-date with new releases you have coming, there's absolutely going to be a lapse in what you're putting out there in the world and what you're collecting on, which will affect what revenue you see coming in on the publishing side. Just because you have a publishing deal, whether it's administrative or co-pub, for your music, it doesn't mean you're going to collect on it if you're not proactively taking part in informing and updating what songs are being released with your name on it and what contributions you have made in the music industry. Let's go over common misconceptions about music publishing. So many people think once they get a publishing deal that they're going to lose creative control. That's not true at all. If anything, having a publishing deal can provide more resources, more connections, and give you more access to opportunities to license your music and have it involved in upstreamed opportunities. There's no publisher that controls what you do creatively. Having a publishing deal does not mean you're relinquishing your creative control. Another common misconception is that just because you're DIY, it doesn't mean that you're complete independence. It requires artist's active involvement, staying up to date, and being proactive to not only check on your royalties, make sure that all your information is being input into every single release you have, and that you have a constant stream of communication between you and your PRO. Education and understanding are key to dispelling myths and making informed decisions about your publishing situation. Publishing refers to the business of monetization and promotion of musical composition. Publishing protects the musical creators and contributors. The role of music publishers is to connect the songwriting aspect to revenue generation through licensing, performance, and more. Ownership often involves collaboration between songwriters, publishers, and sometimes record labels. There's very much a link between the record labels, the publishers, and the songwriters and artists. This is how the whole machine works. There's not just one end to this business. The master recordings are linked to the publishing rights, and the publishing rights are usually linked to a record label. Whether or not the record label is independent or major, those three machines usually work together to monetize the sound recordings and make the artists and the music money. Let's discuss some of the key differences between master recordings and publishing. The ownership focus. Master recordings focus on the final audio product. Publishing focuses on the underlying composition and the people involved in creating it. Revenue streams. Master recordings generate revenue through reproduction, publishing through performance, synchronization, and more. Control. Artists may have more control over publishing, while labels often control the master recordings. There are scenarios where the artist also owns the label, and in that case he would own 100% of the master recordings and 100% of the publishing. That's rare, but still possible and exists today. An example of someone who's exercising this on both sides would be Russ, who owns his independent label and also owns the creation of each of the compositions, and he writes all the songs. It's not common, but it is possible. Figure out what's important to you early on so that you don't need to learn it once things pop off. Having to learn something when you're in the middle of having success or failure is a much more daunting task than taking the time as you're entering a business to learn everything you can to make well-informed decisions. If you enjoyed the conversation about music publishing and recording rights, please make sure to leave a comment. Let me know what you want me to touch on next week. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys soon.