Music Publishing 101

There Are Two Copyrights In Every Recorded Song

Every recorded song contains two separate copyrights:

(1) The copyright in the sound recording (the master recording)
This is typically owned by the record label or entity that financed the recording.

(2) The copyright in the song (the composition)
This is typically owned by the songwriter and/or a music publishing company that administers, promotes, licenses, and collects income generated by the song.

The Origins of Music Publishing

The business is called music publishing because of the way songs were distributed before the invention of the LP.

In the early days, songs were spread through sheet music. Music publishers transcribed songs, printed them, promoted them, and sold them to the public.

In exchange for these services, songwriters commonly assigned a portion of their copyright ownership to publishers. Traditional publishing arrangements often gave the publisher a significant ownership interest in the song and a share of the income it generated. This ownership allowed the publisher to actively promote, license, and exploit the work without having to seek approval for every opportunity.

When recorded music became the dominant format, publishers expanded their activities beyond print. The role of the publisher grew, but the underlying business model remained largely the same.

A songwriter assigns some or all of a song’s publishing rights to a music publisher. In return, the publisher promotes the song, seeks opportunities for its use, administers the copyrights, and collects royalties from a wide variety of sources.

Some writers prefer to self-publish, functioning as both songwriter and publisher. Others prefer to partner with established publishing companies that already have the infrastructure, relationships, and expertise required to exploit and administer songs effectively.

Publishing Administration

Publishing administration is a highly specialized business.

It involves collecting small amounts of money from a large number of sources, tracking changing royalty streams, maintaining registrations across multiple territories, and ensuring that royalties are properly collected and distributed.

Because of this complexity, many publishers outsource administration to specialized publishing administrators with global collection networks and sophisticated royalty systems.

Much of this work happens behind the scenes, making good publishing administration largely invisible when it is functioning properly.

Writer’s Share, Publisher’s Share, and Co-Publishing

One of the most confusing aspects of music publishing is the distinction between the writer’s share and the publisher’s share of income.

In most territories, publishing income is divided into a writer’s share and a publisher’s share. The writer’s share belongs to the songwriter. The publisher’s share belongs to the publishing company.

Traditional publishing agreements often involve a songwriter assigning some or all of the publisher’s share in exchange for publishing services. Co-publishing arrangements allow the songwriter to retain a larger portion of the publishing income while still partnering with a publisher.

The exact percentages vary from deal to deal, but understanding the distinction between the writer’s share and publisher’s share is foundational to understanding the music publishing business.

The Economics of Songwriting

One of the most important things to understand about the music publishing business is that meaningful income is usually built through the accumulation of a catalogue rather than through a single song.

The overwhelming majority of songwriters do not earn a meaningful portion of their income from songwriting. Most publishing income is generated by writers who have spent years building a body of work: many songs creating many opportunities for use across recordings, performances, streaming services, churches, film, television, print, and other licensing channels.

Occasionally, a single song breaks through and generates substantial income. However, this is the exception rather than the rule. Most professional songwriters build their livelihoods through breadth of catalogue, consistency of output, and the cumulative effect of many songs working together over time.

This reality is often surprising to new writers. Many wonderful songs never generate substantial income. That does not mean they failed. A song may create cultural, spiritual, artistic, or communal value that is not reflected in royalty statements. Songs have been known to shape congregations, help people navigate difficult seasons, become part of family histories, and influence communities in ways that are difficult to quantify.

For this reason, most songwriters continue to write alongside other vocations and responsibilities. In many ways, this has always been the normal state of affairs.

This is especially true in projects like Common Hymnal. Most of the people drawn to this work are not writing songs primarily about celebrity, status, romance, or popular culture. They are writing about faith, justice, grief, hope, community, belonging, doubt, reconciliation, and the realities of everyday life. As a result, songwriting is often approached with a strong sense of vocation and purpose rather than with expectations of commercial success.

It is also important to understand that publishing administration often works behind the scenes. Not every song is immediately registered in every database or territory the moment it is written. Administrators typically prioritize releases, usage, activity, and income-producing opportunities.

The important thing is that song information, ownership details, and writer splits are accurate and available. If a song begins to gain traction, a strong publishing administration system can activate the necessary registrations, collections, and royalty pathways, helping ensure that income is properly identified, collected, and distributed.

Understanding where that income comes from requires understanding the major royalty streams.

The Major Royalty Streams

Mechanical Royalties

Mechanical royalties are payable whenever a song is reproduced on a recording, whether on vinyl, CD, digital download, or certain forms of streaming.

The term mechanical dates back to the era of piano rolls and early mechanical reproductions of music.

In the United States, the statutory mechanical rate has historically been calculated on a per-copy basis. If an artist records your song and manufactures 1,000 CDs, a mechanical royalty is owed regardless of whether those CDs are ultimately sold.

Songwriters are also entitled to mechanical royalties generated by recordings of their own songs. If you are both the artist and the label, you are effectively paying that royalty to yourself through different revenue streams.

Interactive streaming services such as Spotify also generate mechanical royalties in addition to performance royalties.

Performance Royalties

Performance royalties are generated whenever a song is publicly performed or broadcast.

This includes radio, television, streaming services, live venues, restaurants, stadiums, retail spaces, video games, and many other public uses.

In the United States, performance royalties are collected and distributed by Performing Rights Organizations (PROs) such as ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC.

Performance income is generally divided between the songwriter’s share and the publisher’s share.

Within the church world, CCLI licenses and tracks the use of songs in congregational worship settings. Royalties collected through CCLI are distributed according to the ownership and publishing arrangements associated with each song.

Synchronization Royalties

Synchronization royalties are generated when a song is paired with moving images.

Common examples include films, television programs, commercials, documentaries, video games, presentations, YouTube videos, and other audiovisual productions.

Unlike mechanical royalties, synchronization fees are typically negotiated on a case-by-case basis.

Print Royalties

Print royalties are generated when songs are reproduced in printed form, including sheet music, lead sheets, songbooks, chord charts, and educational materials.

Why Publishing Still Matters

In the early music business, publishers carried enormous weight because most artists were not writing their own songs. Artists needed repertoire. Songwriters needed advocates. Publishers sat in the middle, finding songs, developing writers, matching compositions with singers, and creating income from music that might otherwise have remained invisible.

As the record industry grew, it became clear that songs could often earn more, and last longer, than master recordings. A master recording is one version of a song. A song can have many lives. It can be recorded by different artists, sung in different languages, licensed into different formats, printed in songbooks, performed in churches, broadcast on radio, placed in film and television, and covered for decades. One recording may define a season. One song may keep traveling long after that season is over.

Country music has historically held more tightly to the older publishing model because the song itself remained central. Many major country artists continued to rely on outside writers and publishers for strong repertoire. In that ecosystem, publishers were not merely administrators. They were part of the creative engine.

Praise and worship music is one of the most song-dependent genres in the music industry. A pop song may be covered occasionally. A major worship song may be sung by thousands of churches and recorded hundreds of times in many different contexts. In this world, the song is not only a piece of intellectual property. It is a communal tool. It has to move through congregations, denominations, countries, languages, camps, conferences, small churches, megachurches, and hidden rooms where no industry person is watching.

That is why publishers have played such a significant role in modern worship music. Very few worship writers have seen their songs travel widely without some form of publishing support, especially before they became commercially established. A publisher can help identify strong songs, register them properly, pitch them, protect them, collect income, connect them to artists and movements, and keep the business from collapsing into confusion once a song begins to spread.

When writers become successful, they may choose to form their own publishing entities, hire staff, and negotiate co-publishing arrangements with larger companies. This is a natural progression. Influence creates leverage. Leverage creates options. But for writers who have not yet built that kind of platform, a functioning publisher can still provide infrastructure, advocacy, credibility, and access that would be difficult to build alone.

In pop music, the artist remains the primary vehicle for song promotion. In praise and worship, the landscape is different. The artist matters, but the song has to live beyond the artist. It has to become singable in other mouths.

The publisher’s role is to help that journey happen.

That is where music publishing still matters.

Malcolm du Plessis

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