The Business Side

[BeniRose]

I know this is a recording forum, but I figured there are a lot of experienced musicians and producers on here who might be able to help a guy who's new to the whole business side of songwriting and recording out.

I'm in a band that's a three piece. Our drummer has explicitly said he's interested in remaining a for hire musician on our recordings and songwriting. I'm playing bass and singing and our frontman plays guitar and sings. I have some questions about how to handle the copyright/publishing side of some of our material. I think I understand how most of the laws work and how most of the publishing and royalty payments work, but I'm still not sure how to set it up to work for us in our particular situation.

So far, the frontman has written all the songs, however, moving forward, we will be writing together. Can you do joint songwriters copyright (PA?) on songs? How does that work. Also, we have an EP recorded that the frontman paid for and owns the SR copyright to. However, we started recording the rest of the songs that he wrote and want to split the master copyright for that. How do we do that? Can we split the master, but not the PA/Songwriter (am I correct in assuming those are the same copyright?)?

Also, we want to start pitching these songs for publishing in movies, tv shows, commercials, etc. We are happy to do a lot of the legwork ourselves, as there are a lot of independent channels to go through these days. How do we need to register ourselves in order to receive all royalties and payments. I am currently a BMI songwriter, and he's not registered anywhere, so I'm going to recommend that. I know we can set up a publishing company, but is that necessary? It's 150 bucks to set up a publishing company on BMI and I'd rather skip that if possible. Also, we'd like to split profit from any publishing monies that come back. If we do need to set up a publishing company with BMI, can we do this as a self-publisher (the 150 dollar option) or do we need to set up a business with a Tax ID in order to split ownership of the publishing company and register it with BMI (the 250 dollar option).

Anyways, I know that's a lot of questions and they are very particular ones, but I figured that's the best way to figure out what we should be doing here. Hopefully someone can at least answer any of them, I imagine someone went through a headache when figuring this out for themselves and would love to help a newbie avoid that headache!

 

[Emerson Maningo]

Can you do joint songwriters copyright (PA?) on songs? How does that work
Yes you can declare several authors in a single PA copyright application. Simply include that in the "name of author" section. If you are submitting the works by bulk (e.g. 12 songs in a single copyright application) application. Copyright office expects the author information to be consistent in all of the works submitted (so all songs should have the same authors).

For example:

a.) 15 songs written by Mr.X/Mr. Y - you can submit one application declaring Mr.X and Mr.Y as writers for all those 15 songs.
b.) 8 songs written by Mr.X/Mr.Y, 3 songs written by Mr. Y, 4 songs written by Mr. X - you need to submit three distinct PA copyright applications. One application for Mr.X/Mr. Y authorship, another for Mr. X and last for Mr. Y.

Also, we have an EP recorded that the frontman paid for and owns the SR copyright to. However, we started recording the rest of the songs that he wrote and want to split the master copyright for that. How do we do that? Can we split the master, but not the PA/Songwriter (am I correct in assuming those are the same copyright?)?

Same concept previously for new master recording works, you can declare the authorship of SR for both works created by partnership while you isolate the rest of the applications.

For splitting authorship of the master beyond what was declared during the application, you need to re-apply for sound recording copyright indicating a newer owners of the project highlighting that the master recording project has been revised or updated. Or you can have the splitting of copyright ownership in writing properly done legally and notarized with an entertainment lawyer. This will avoid any misunderstandings that could happen in the future regarding to copyright ownership.

I know we can set up a publishing company, but is that necessary?

Yes, if you decided that you do not want to share your publishing rights with anyone else, you can have your own publishing company. in this way, both songwriter and publisher royalties belong to yours. Some distinguished writers do this. Bear in mind, that this can take a lot of resources from you since you would be managing both publishing and creative aspects of your songs.

If we do need to set up a publishing company with BMI, can we do this as a self-publisher (the 150 dollar option) or do we need to set up a business with a Tax ID in order to split ownership of the publishing company and register it with BMI (the 250 dollar option).

Registering a publishing is like establishing a business. There are a lot of business types like sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation. At a start, I would look at the sole proprietorship option as this is straightforward to setup. You can ask the BMI for details about this procedure. Corporation or partnership requires that your business has more than one owner and requires a lot of paper work. It depends on your status. If you have a lot of willing business partners, this might be the right path; otherwise you start at sole proprietorship first.

For details about music publishing business, you can visit my blog and read a lot of publishing related articles. Good luck to you.

 

[PageAA2231]

Thank you all the same.

 

[cnynhiker]

ASCAP is way cheaper than BMI, and much easier to apply for a publishing company with. You won't need to setup a business first. The whole process will take about a week. All you need is to have one song published. I put up some songs on broadjam and they accepted that.