Music Publishing Pt 2

Why you need a publisher?

www.musicstudentinfo.com

Chris Baker

We will see:

• What they do• Why it's all about the song

Music Publishers What they do ?

Collect moneyPublishing companies exist to administer the rights of

songwriters and composers. They will collect mechanical and performance royalties

when the songs are recorded or performed and pay them on to the composer.

For this service they take a share of the money, according to the terms of the writer's contract with them.

This is very similar to what the MCPS and PRS do

This is similar to the functions that these two societies perform.

In fact, this part of a publisher's job is exactly the same. Most publishers are members of these societies and will

use them to collect their clients' money to some extent. That means they pay commission to them in the same

way that you as a writer member would - and then deduct their own commission on top.

So if publishers are only collecting money through societies that you can join

yourself, and charging you for it, why bother ?

Music Publishers Selling Songs

• They will actively sell your songs.• They work to place your songs with major recording

artists - something that's very hard to do on your own.

• They will often pay you advances on your publishing royalties to keep you going until your career takes off.

Music Publishing Artist Development

• Publishers deal with songs rather than recordings of them, which gives them a rather different view of the world from record companies.

• They can afford to take a longer term approach to an artist's career because they don't have recording, manufacturing and marketing costs to recover.

• They may be more willing to help a writer develop creatively.

• That can be as simple as giving you advice but it can extend to putting you with co-writers to improve your song writing skills

• Or paying for studio time or touring costs.

Music Publishers Chasing Money 1

• They will fulfill a function called 'royalty tracking' - making sure that you've been paid everything that you are due.

• You don't need a publisher to query payments with the collection societies but you may need some help keeping track of usage.

Music Publishers Chasing Money 2

If you can't spot potential errors, then you can't query them especially if your songs are being used heavily abroad.

A collection society will simply pass on the money collected on your behalf.

A major publisher will have a representative who will check that the money matches the likely usage of the song and chase it up if not.

A smaller publisher will have an agreement with companies abroad - known as a sub-publisher - who will do this for them.

Music Publishing The Song's Importance

• Most writers think of their songs as their offspring, so words like "exploiting" don't sit too comfortably but it's by exploiting your rights as a creator - and therefore the original copyright owner - of music that you can make a tidy living as a musician.

Music Publishing The Real Money

• The copyrights in songs are where the real money in the music business lies. Spins on the radio & in clubs, gigs, ringtones and jukeboxes in pubs all generate money for songwriters.

After a group has fallen apart the songs don't go away.

A share in a song that becomes a classic and is always around on compilation albums and the radio can set up a writer with a healthy income for life.

Songwriter A Sustained Career

• The writing talent remains, too. • Many writers carry on creating songs for others to

perform long after the spotlight has gone off to point at someone else.

•Most writers start off as writer-performers. •We've had lots of quite successful writers that started off in bands that went astray. If you get dropped by a record company and can't get another deal, that's it. You're over as a recording artist. •Whereas as far as we're concerned, if your career as a performing artist ends, that doesn't necessarily mean your career as a writer has ended.”

Performers as Writers

The End!